IMAGING

Here I am again, seeing if the Alito hearing is any more interesting if I’m sitting behind Ted Kennedy.

Now Comes the Fun Part:

Making Your Fake Video

I put on the only suit I own and set up my camera on a tripod in my living room. In order to get the camera angle right, I print out a still image from the Alito footage and make adjustments until I have the same approximate angle. I don’t worry about placing myself in the corner of the shot; in fact, I shoot myself central to the frame, knowing I can hand-place the shot in the corner later.

I originally shot myself doing various things such as drinking beer and making faces and hand gestures. But I found that the faces and hand gestures were just too obvious, too over the top. The beer drinking was subtle. In fact, when I showed the finished composite shot to some people, they had to watch it twice before figuring out that something wasn’t right. I consider that success.

Once the fake video is shot, I’m ready to composite all the elements together. I use Final Cut Pro, but After Effects or Premiere will also work. I import my three elements — the original video, a PNG matte, and the replacement video — into a project. I place the original video into the bottom

146 Make: Volume 07

video layer, the PNG matte into a new video layer above it, and the fake video in a third layer above the first two.

The method used to put the fake video into the matte area of the real video is called travel matte alpha. I double-click to select the fake clip, open the Modify column, and then, near the bottom, open the category Composite Mode. I then select the Travel Matte Alpha option near the bottom of that subcategory. The fake video now plays only inside of the shape of the matte.

The video may now need to be moved into position to look correct. I had to resize mine a little and move it to the left until I was “sitting” next to the girl in pink. I also did some color correction so that both shots looked consistent.

The last step was to record a loud burp. I used the voice-over option in Final Cut to record that additional sound. I’m done, unless I want to eat chips behind Senator Kennedy.

These clips can be seen at barminski.com.

Bill Barminski is a multimedia artist currently teaching in the School of Theater, Film and Television at UCLA.