Rocky Balboa Color

does anyone know how to isolate a certain color in the program Apple Color like they did in Rocky Balboa's fight with Mason Dixon?

They would have the whole frame be black and white and the red of the blood would stand out or the black and yellow of his shorts? Any ideas please?

 

A combination of keying and manual rotoscoping, I'd have thought. That's how I did it for one of the blood splatters in my demo reel (although mine was for extraction rather than colour correction purposes), and it's how Nate did it in the blood washing shot in his.

 

They shot the entire fight scene with digital cameras from HBO. So they probably graded the footage to black and white and masked the blood. Which you will have to rotoscope. Also a possibility they had some cgi blood in there.

I love that movie btw, lol.

 

See I wonder bout that cause I saw a video on Apple Color on Apple's website where it does the exat same effect to a yellow taxi. Maybe its a combo on masking in Color's program.

 

I'd have the footage shot with very strong and colorful fake blood in the first place, and then in post, I'd place the original, colored footage in the timeline under a duplicate of it. Then, you add a color key for red to the duplicate to mask the blood out and completely desature the duplicate layer.

 

Or... you could do it the easy way. There are filters you can apply in some Editing packages that do it. Example, the filter 'OneColor' in the Bravo FX Pack for Pinnacle Studio does the whole thing for you, and all in a couple of seconds.

 

But you have to make sure the red blood is the only red color in the frame, which it isn't, because skin contains red, so that plugin won't work. Even if it did, from my experience it does an extremely poor job.

 

You could experiment by filming the blood in a very over the top colour anyway. So when you apply the filter, you have room to maneouvre as it were. Might save on hours and hours of rotascoping!

 

G-Unit:

It's worth reading the manual, it takes you through all the techniques to do this. it's one of the most basic effects you can do. It should be noted that you can do the same effect in FCP as well.

Basically - you need to create a colour key using the colour picker tool. Make sure you select the correct hue/saturation/lightness values and give it a decent drop-off/ If you need to add to it, click the colour picker again and hold down shift whilst dragging across the new colour.

You will be able to see the colours you've selected in the "preview matte" view. add a bit of key blur (this is essential to getting a well blended key). It's much easier to get a nice key with a control surface - i suggest the tangent cp200 or cp100 as i've sued them an know they work very well. The wave currently has no drivers for Color, so don't even attempt it yet.

next select the outside tool and desaturate the darks, highlights and mids.

Play with the image a bit to get the best look.

As someone else suggested, shoot the blood or whatever with it as a very vibrant, or different hue to the other colours in the scene. don't be afraid of making the "blood" a different colour entirely - such as very bright yellow, you can change it's colour in post, but also it'll be easier to get a good key.

hope that helps you out.

anyway,

Nick "Shorty" Long

 

Although there's also yellow in skin tones, if I'm not mistaken.

Just sayin', making the blood yellow could present the same problem as making it red. Green and blue both come to mind for colors that probably wouldn't. Then again, I could be wrong.

Tames Was Here

 

that's where saturation of colour and lightness of colour come into play on the key sliders. it's fine if the colour is a different saturation, such as neon/dayglow etc.


anyway,

Nick "Shorty" Long

 

Yes, although if you use a color that's not even present in skin tones at a different saturation, you have less opportunities to mess up the key.

I think.

Tames Was Here

 

When you're using a piece of software like Aplle Color, then you realy don't have to worry too much. it's all about limiting the effect to a certain area or key or whatever. If you're using just FCP or Premiere or something, then yes, your advice is sound. However, with Color, it's not necessary if the saturation is different enough.

anyway,

Nick "Shorty" Long

 

Ah. Fair enough. Well, I've never used Apple Color, so I wouldn't really know. I had After Effects in my mind, to tell the truth. Wasn't even thinking of Color.

Tames Was Here

 

ah, ok, well I read the post at the top of the thread!

anyway,

Nick "Shorty" Long

 

Psh. Overrated.

Tames Was Here