Digital Compositing In Depth: The Only Guide to Post Production for Visual Effects in Film

by Doug Kelly

The Barnes & Noble Review A decade ago, only a few researchers at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch had heard of digital compositing. Today, as author Doug Kelly observes, virtually every effects house is expected to have digital compositors on staff. But how do you get to be one? And if you are one, how can you deepen your skills, strengthen your value, and get more challenging work? Digital Compositing In Depth shows you, offering a top professional's insight into the entire field — concepts, tools, workflow, and career paths.You'll learn how digital compositors fit into the visual effects menagerie; how to evaluate digital compositing software; and how several of the leaders stack up. Kelly offers a primer on the language of digital media; presents the basics of digitizing film and video for effective production; and takes you onto the set, helping you influence the quality of the raw footage you'll be working with. Next, using real-world projects from two accompanying CD-ROMs, you'll learn the fundamental skills and theory of digital working with channels, mattes, filters, transforms, luma keying, chroma keying, and more.Kelly shows how to solve the typical problems that arise, from color undersampling to bluescreen problems and noise; then moves on to more sophisticated digital compositing tasks, including rig removal, tracking moving objects, working with stabilized footage, and making lemonade out of the miserable source material digital compositors are all too often faced with.There's a full section on output, covering everything from videotape tostreamedInternet video to HDTV. The piece de a detailed chapter on how to succeed on the business side of digital compositing — as an employee, freelancer, or running your own shop. The accompanying CD-ROM contains a passel of digital media to practice with, plus demos and trial versions of Digital Fusion 2.52, Adobe After Effects, Shake, and other leading software.Kelly offers the unvarnished to succeed as a digital compositor, you need raw talent, flexibility, and a stupendous work ethic. But if you've got all that, DIGITAL COMPOSITING IN DEPTH will help you get the rest of the way.—bncom editor

650 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 2000