Video on Turning Pages

[Barnaby Mortensen]

I'm currently working on a personal project and I'm looking for some
direction. No need to share any industry secrets, just want an idea of what
tree I should start barking up at:

I have an over the shoulder shot of a person flipping through the pages of a
photo album. In the album are various photographs. I would like to put on
the pages some video footage clips. I will need these clips to turn with
the pages as the pages are turned. I imagine this would be some sort of
motion tracking, but thus far, the only luck I have had is to motion track
on a 2D level (left to right, up to down, etc.), not in a 3D world
environment. I've worked with After Effects, gone through the manual as
well as the Meyer's book and seem to have gathered the same information.
I'm ready to try Commotion and see if I have any luck, but I'm kind of
getting the feeling I might have the same issues.

Has anyone tried this, or seen anything on this? What's the best way for me
to tackle this? Like I said before, if you send me in the right direction,
I can take it from there.

I appreciate any info anyone might have.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Barnaby Mortensen

[Ma3rk]

Hey Barnaby,

I did a animated piece similar to this this effect some time back, but it
was all done in Lightwave and simply mapped sequences onto surfaces that
could deform. You didn't mention if you already have elements shot or not.
It's probably going to be a bit more work comping over existing footage, but
not impossible certainly using corner pinning techniques if you have the PB
version of AE. You'll most likely have to create a few add'l track mattes
somehow to isolate each page for when you're seeing portions of two videos &
for when the page transitions to it's back page.

If you haven't shot anything yet, then perhaps you can prep a special book
where you alternate pages with a different keying color where you're putting
in the video. Use some of those ornate gummed photo corner stickers (if
they still make them) and put in solid colored cards instead. This all
assumes the book pages will be lit somewhat evenly (as opposed to having a
slash of light across the page) to do color keying, but you can always build
up matting for different zones if need be. Heck, light it evenly then add
some mood lighting with some overlays in AE.

There's more than one way of skinning the proverbial cat. Just depends on
what state the cat's in when you start is all as to how difficult it can be.

Good luck,

M.

"Barnaby Mortensen" <bar...@mortensen.ws> wrote in message
news:g7Bk7.33591$8c3.5...@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...

[Su]

We did a shot like this on Pleasantville. We made a book with a very light grid
on all the pages: easy to correct away, but also visible as reference. Track
your image to this grid, warping appropriately, and you're done.

Right?

[Su]

Also,

There is no reason whatsoever to make any part of the book green unless
something's going to cross over the pages. Su

Su wrote:

> We did a

BLAH Blah

[Barnaby Mortensen]

All good stuff....

I'll have to go back and watch Pleasantville again...I forgot ALL about that
scene...

I think my biggest problem with the motion tracking was the fact that I
didn't have anything physical on the pages of the book to track to. Whether
it's the green cards, or the grid I think that having something that
physically makes the pages have something for the video to 'grab' when it's
being tracked will ultimately solve my biggest issue.

Ultimately I think doing it this way will almost do the work for me....until
I get to the fine tuning with the warping, etc, but I guess I'd have to do
something here to make it as natural as possible...BUT, there are photo
albums with stiff pages in them..... :)

Thanks for your help!

"Su" <multires...@bake.org> wrote in message
news:3B9A5F0E...@bake.org...

[katesu...@gmail.com]

It seems this software can help you do this: http://bit.ly/yEF9b1
It can makes flipping page photo album with photos, and you can also insert video clips on turning pages.