How To Replace One Object With Anotrher

Dear Forum:

I've run into a bother. I shot a twenty minute short movie where one of my characters holds up a black and white photo of an airplane. Unfortunately, the copyright holder of the photo refuses to grant me permission to use that photo. How do I replace this airplane photo with a royalty free generic photo of my own choosing? Thanks for your time and assistance.

Hugh

Track the original photo using whichever tracker suitable (planar track preferred) and merge new photo over. Roto everything that moves in front to mask it properly. Recreate lighting changes and reflections if necessary.

This is actually very broad question, depends on specific shot. For example if character bends the photo you will need to do some elaborate warping to match the same deformation unless you find a good automatic way to apply same movement to new element.

Is the photograph in the image for the whole 20 minutes?
Apart from that, what Hendrik says.

Building on Sander de Regt's answer: if you can edit around as much of the photo as possible -- i.e. concentrating on the character's face, people's reaction to the photo, etc -- that'd be good. The less time the photo is onscreen, the less work for you.

And in particular, if you just have footage where the photo is relatively square to the screen, doesn't bend much, doesn't have things passing in front if it -- including the actor's fingers -- that's an easier task than if you show the actor picking the photo off of the table, flipping it up for people to see, and it flexes and bends as they do so. Better to show less of the photo and have your replacement look realistic than to try to be a VFX expert and have the photo slip around and look unnatural and draw the audience's eye.

Ugh. I hate photo replacement shots. Actors like to flip things around, wave them in the air, hide them behind their fast-moving blurry fingers, bend them, spin them.

It usually involves a good deal of rotoscoping, tracking, grid warping, color correction, and reflection creation. I usually expect to spend a full day, at least, on a shot of that kind on a television budget. Actually, I just checked a project where we did a lot of them. Looks like the minimum spent on an easy one was about 5 hours. We spent up to 14 on some of the harder ones.

I usually start with a Grid Warp. Set the divisions to 1x1 in both the Source and Destination grids. Crop outward on the photo a little bit so you have some padding outside the corners of the image, and set the Source Grid to just outside the boundaries of the actual photo, but inside the boundaries of the crop. That will give you edges that can be blurred—if your warp goes only to the edge of the photo, it will cut off unnaturally.

Switch to the Destination grid and Merge the new photo over your image. Then move the corners to cover the original photo. Set animation on the Destination grid, and start animating.

That's usually the most time-consuming part. Once you're done, add roto for the fingers and anything else that occludes the image, and evaluate. You'll probably want to turn on Motion Blur for the grid warp. You might also need some additional blur to match focus and motion that the automatic motion blur didn't match adequately.

Then color correction and matching lighting. Depending on the circumstances, this can take a while, too, as you'll probably need traveling mattes and animated parameters on the color correctors. And if you have reflections, that'll need some additional work. Although sometimes you can lift reflections off the original photo if they're enough brighter than the content that you can luma key them.

Finally, don't forget to add grain!

And if you have reflections, that'll need some additional work. Although sometimes you can lift reflections off the original photo if they're enough brighter than the content that you can luma key them.

Thank you for the great response Bryan (as always)! Do you have some tips on recreating/adding reflections from scratch in those cases. I'm not satisfied with my current approaches when it arrives and would love to know how someone as experienced as you handles these. Obviously every shot is different but maybe you have some general tips?
(But don't feel obligated. It's totally fine if you don't have the time)

Not really. It's a matter of looking at the existing photo and trying to come up with a solution that works for that shot. A lot of times I just roto the existing reflection and use that to mask a white background that goes on top. Sometimes I add it and soft clamp the result. If you're close to the paper, then a little bit of bump in the edges can sell the texture.

Always let the original photography be your guide for color, motion and edge properties.

Thanks for the answer! Seems like I wasn't doing more work than necessary because that's what I've been doing so far.

I am grateful for everyone who has taken the time to respomd to my request for assistance! You know, I will try and find a close up from cam 2 that automatically crops out the photo and use that. Hopefully! But, if I can't, I will do my best with your advice given. The photo stays on screen for about three seconds, appears relatively small and remains relatively still (the actor just turns it 90 degrees) for that three seconds.

I am grateful for everyone who has taken the time to respomd to my request for assistance! You know, I will try and find a close up from cam 2 that automatically crops out the photo and use that. Hopefully! But, if I can't, I will do my best with your advice given. The photo stays on screen for about three seconds, appears relatively small and remains relatively still (the actor just turns it 90 degrees) for that three seconds.

Three seconds out of those 20 minutes? Then it shouldn't be a problem whatsoever in the end.
Of course if you can crop it out even better.
I probably wouldn't even have bothered to clear the picture if it's only visible for such a short amount of time, depending on what kind of project it is meant for.

Well, I gotta tell ya, a lawsuit is not something I look forward to. That lady at the Chicago Tribune sounded like she meant business when she said I could not use the photo.

Yeah, and once you've alerted them with the request, they might just follow up to make sure you didn't go ahead.

Definitely better safe than sued. And if it comes down to it, you can always hire the job out! That's how I got stuck doing so many. Another VFX company subcontracted them to us.