-So, how was your weekend? -Wasn't too well.
The wife, you know.
[Stormtroopers chatter sounds]
[Imperial music and Darth Yannick breathing]
[Darth Yannick mumbling]
Jordy here for cinecom.net and welcome to Copy Cat Friday!
This is the series where we recreate a cool effect...
...from a popular music video or film.
And today we're having a look at Star Wars.
And actually how to advanced clone yourself...
...to create an army of yourself and that way you can fight the Jedi.
So, let's get started with that.
So, we've all seen a cloning tutorial somewhere.
Whoops!
That's better.
So, we've all seen a cloning tutorial somewhere, but...
...that usually stops with a single copy of yourself.
But what if you wanna create an army of yourself?
Seems complicated but it's not.
Before we start, I do wanna thank Videoblocks for their support today.
They've been with us for an entire year now and they've helped us so many times.
Videoblocks is a huge library with stock clips, templates,
visual effects and more.
The cool thing about their service is that you can download unlimited files...
...for an entire year with a single price.
Don't believe me, start your 7-day trial completely for free...
...by following the first link in the description below.
The first thing that you wanna do is position your camera on a tripod...
...and make sure that you have a good angle that you wanna use...
...for the final result.
Next we'll put up a green screen in this area.
And It's actually not that hard and will save us a ton of work in post-production.
There are two types of green screens that you can use.
The first one is the portable green screen,
it kind of just unfolds like this,
It sets up very quickly, it doesn't have much wrinkles...
...because it's tighten up within this frame.
The only downside of this green screen is that it's usually pretty small.
If you wanna stand completely on the green screen...
...or you are with multiple people on it then you'll need a bigger setup...
...like this one right here.
This is actually just a fabric that we got in a local store...
...a green fabric, and we've attached that to one of these...
...movable walls, but you can also set up something with light stands...
...or C-stands, or...
...anything you can find to get that fabric into place.
Important though, is that you don't see any wrinkles, so this here is not that well.
We need to tighten that up more so that all these wrinkles are gone.
However, we have a dedicated tutorial...
...so if you wanna see how to set up the perfect green screen...
...you can find a link to it in the description below.
To pull off a green key, light is important.
There're basically two rules when it comes down to lighting a green screen.
First of all is that your subject doesn't cast shadows on the fabric.
You can eliminate that by taking distance from the green screen...
...or moving your lights around.
And the second rule is to light the green screen evenly.
Don't create hotspots, like you can see here.
This actually comes from a dedicated tutorial we once did...
...that goes really in depth on how to setup a green screen.
You can find a link to it in the description below as well.
If you don't have lights, try to find a super soft light source.
This could be outside on a cloudy day,
or perhaps a soft dome like we once used to make ourselves fly.
Also a link in the description.
We went for a light setup and here's how we did it.
The idea of a good green screen set up is that you create two zones.
One zone is the lighting for the green screen...
...and the second zone is the lighting for the subject.
So that's why we have these DIY lights right here...
...these are just fluorescent tubes in a fluorescent fixture...
...with some black wrap on the side, and that way the light won't spill on me...
...but it'll create just one lighting zone for the green screen fabric itself.
Let's turn on the lights!
So, this is the first lighting zone behind me, the green screen.
The second one is going to be for myself, the subject.
I'm going to play a stormtrooper in just a minute.
And for that we have two general lightings on my left and right side.
So, this right here is the Stella 5000,
a new light that was sent to us by Light & Motion.
We're going to make a dedicated video about this as well, very soon.
It's a great light, it works on batteries, internal batteries...
...and it comes with some accessories like this very soft...
...very small... dot or ball.
It creates a general fill light for your scene, which is perfect.
So, let's turn that one on.
Like this.
Whoops! There we go.
Very nice light. Very good quality as well.
There we go. So this is going to work for myself.
And I wanna make sure that I'm not going to cast shadows...
...of me -the subject- on the green screen.
Pew, pew, pew!
The idea now is that you play several characters.
I played sixteen characters in total.
You can make copies of yourself, but if you're going to create an army of 1,000 clones,
copies will start to get noticeable.
So, the bigger your army is, the more poses or characters I would record.
Everything is shot from the middle of the camera frame.
In post-production we need to offset some characters to the sides.
But because they where shot from the middle, the perspectives will not match.
And that's why we shot everything from three angles.
Several characters from the middle,
then we panned to the left having the character stand on the right side of the frame...
...and then we panned to the right.
After that you can remove everything from your shot, because...
...we will need one empty shot from the room as well.
For a natural depth of field, I stood in front of the camera...
...where the first line of the clones will come.
And then I set my focus on that point.
Then I ran out of the frame and let the camera roll for several seconds.
-Pew! Pew!
-Pew, pew, pew!
-He's having a mental breakdown.
-So, in this scenario,
we had to create something funny right now...
but we're out of id...
...out of ideas.
And now it's time to bring everything inside Premiere Pro.
You can already put your empty shot on the first video track.
Next I select one character from the green screen...
...and place it on video track 2.
With the clip selected I head over to my Opacity property...
...and from here I can click on the Pen tool...
...to draw a mask around myself.
You wanna remove as much as you can from the scene...
...which will make the keying easier.
Then I search for the Ultra Key effect and drag that to the clip.
With the color picker I can select the green and remove it.
You probably wanna fine tune your selection more with the controls below.
I'm not going to dive too deep into this,
because we have a dedicated tutorial about that as well,
which goes really in depth throughout all the settings of the Ultra key effect...
...to pull off the perfect green key.
Again, link in the description below.
And now it's just a simple matter of taking your other characters...
...and placing them on different tracks in your timeline as well.
You can copy the Opacity and Ultra Key properties...
...and paste them onto the other clips to instantly get your keying done.
With the Position property you can offset the characters to fill up the room.
The first row should be on the upper tracks.
The clones in the back go below that.
The further away the clones are, the more you have to scale down those clips too.
I'm using the clips that where shot in the middle of the frame...
...also in the middle of my composition.
The ones where I was standing on the right...
...also go on the right side in my edit, etcetera.
This way we have a more realistic perspective.
After you've used up all your characters, you can start copying those layers.
But make sure that you don't have a noticeable pattern.
Spread them unpredictable over the scene.
Once your army sits in place we'll work on some more details to make it more realistic.
Using Lumetri, I'm going to decrease the exposure for the clones in the back.
The further away they are the darker they become.
This makes it more realistic for the single light we have setup in the front.
Finally I'm also going to add a Gaussian blur to the clones in the back as well.
Just like with the exposure,
you wanna add more blurriness the further away they stand.
And this is to make that depth of field more realistic of the camera.
It's already looking good, but we can make it more dynamic...
...by just selecting all of the layers, right clicking on them and then hit Nest.
This will group all of those layers together.
On this group I'm going to add a fake camera movement preset,
which you guys can download for free from our website.
Once again, link in the description.
This will take the edge off that static tripod shot.
Furthermore, you can add a global color grading to the scene on that group as well.
And to tip it off I got a lens flare from Videoblocks,
which I blended into the clip as well.
So, that was it, guys! Now you know how to make an army of yourself...
...and fight whoever you want to.
Thank you so much for watching...
...and always remember:
-And stay creative! -Hey! that's my line!
Damn it!
[Cinecom Music]