3B

Chroma key guide

The first thing I had to do was to record by 10 seconds section by my unsigned artist who goes by the name Lk. During the set up you would have to position 3 to 4 light kits to specific locations so that you do not see the shadow of the object on the green wall behind, if this is not done the background will not come out well and everything will look more faker than its supposed to be. Then once that was done you would have the track you want set up next to the camera so it can pick up the sound, and also so that you can lip sync it correctly. Whilst recording there were two different shots which were captured we did a forward angle and a side angle so a mix and match little bit of variety.

Once that was out of the way, I then inserted my SD card into the mac and then downloaded the clips onto final cut pro, this is where all the editing takes place. I then put the footage in and went on to go and download my track and cut it to the specific section that applied to me or which I needed rather, once that was done I then had to make the backdrop black so I could add a different location, and my location was in the street/estate. Also I made sure that the area I cut lined up with the lip syncing as accurate as possible otherwise it does not look professional.

In terms of looking for a location, I used shutter stock, because that was the easiest and fastest way for me to look for a location, rather than going through Google or YouTube. Once I found my location I dragged it onto the footage, so rather than there being only a black background, the shutterstock footage takes up that space and projects which ever location you pick.

Chroma key can be positively, and they could be a complete disaster but then again this depends on the artist as well as the producer. If we take a look at David Hasselhoff – hooked on a feeling, this music video had bad use of chroma key, it was just terrible, there is a scene where we can see him trying to fly, but it just looks like he’s dangling from the air, and it just does not look believable or realistic rather. But the reason I suppose he used chroma key in which he did is because he is not a singer he is an actor, and he might not have touched to lose the acting touch and decided to be in front of a green screen and just add different locations in the background, furthermore I also think he did this because using chroma key for the use of locations saves you money, and it’s very cheap to do. In terms of the effects, bringing on something that is supposed to represent a cube with multiple footage on it just doesn’t work it looks too surreal. But then again this music video went viral probably because of the terrible use of chroma key, but money is still being made from the views right? This tells us that hes arrogant because he knows regardless he’s still getting money out of this.

Now in terms of very good and accurate use of chroma key we have, Katy perry and kanyewest, this music video is about a trip to earth, supposed she’s portraying herself to be some sort of alien. Chroma key was used very effectively because the lyrics and visuals were making sense. Also there was no other way on earth she would have been able to make this music video without using chroma key, because she couldn’t exactly go into space to film this could she? Hence why she used chroma key because it reflects her lyrics. The use of blue tint makes it more realistic that yes she was from space and the supposed alien she claims to be.

 Another main purpose of why chroma key is used is for hyper reality, to create something not really fake but something that doesn’t happen in reality, something which doesn’t happen on day to day bases. Chroma key can allow the artist to be experimental and trying to be different, as I said before people may use chroma key because they can’t afford to get hold of certain locations for their music video and its cheaper to use chroma key and to put a couple effects over to make it more realistic