Beam Me Up! How to Make Your Own Transporter - Page 3

Then click on “Invert Alpha.” At this point, your actor on video track one should be visible once again. But any footage in the tracks between one and four will remain inside his body, because of the inverted alpha channel.

Energize! Creating the Beam-up Effect

In order to provide both large and small “bubbles” as I was beaming out, I used two pieces of stock footage from Digital Juice, the Florida-based video footage supply house. The large bubbles came from one of their Motion Design Elements (Clip #0024, from Revealers Vol. One) turned 90 degrees on its side.(A similar effect could be created via Red Giant Software's popular — and handy — Knoll Light Factory plug-in).

For the small bubbles, I faded in an additional element under that Revealers clip. This was a piece of footage from Digital Juice’s Compositer’s Toolkit, #0013, Coarse Particles 1.

Having these elements readily available in the form of the Compositer’s Toolkit is a tremendous timesaver. But in a pinch, you could also try creating your own elements, by videotaping Alka Seltzer dissolving in water (which some believe was how the original effect was created) and running it in slow motion, or by dropping glitter in front of a camera (the other explanation of how the effect was created).

In any case, you’ll have to spend a few minutes adjusting the size, screen position, and possibly speed of whatever elements you use for your beam out effect. (Assuming your green screen program has a crop function, don't worry about images spilling beyond the green screen; those will be removed later.)

I then tinted both of these elements in shades of golden yellow via Red Giant Software’s Magic Bullet Looks plug-in, to better resemble the color of the particles used on the original Star Trek:

To recap, here’s what your video tracks should look like:

• Video track one: Actor in front of green screen
• Video track two: Course particles
• Video track three: Revealer
• Video track four: Duplicate clip from track one of actor in front of the green screen, with audio switched off, and with Chroma Key and Alpha Adjust Plug-ins inserted into the track’s effects bin.

Over To The Virtual Set

Once the shot of your actor beaming out in front of the green screen looks acceptable, export this footage out in whatever format you prefer.

At this point, it’s over to your chroma key program or applet, in order to marry this green screen footage with a virtual set. (See my October 2008 Videomaker article for more on that topic.) I used Adobe’s now sadly discontinued Ultra II program and their space station virtual set for my shot, but there are numerous other keyers and virtual sets available. Ultra II allows cropping out of the sides of the shot, and for erasing microphone cables and other visible effluvia from the green screen stage. Other chroma key programs may not be as flexible, so plan accordingly.

Article Author: Ed Driscoll

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