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Visual Effects Help!?

I'm working on a short film right now titled "The Day After The End". In the movie there is a scene where a barn is being blown up. When we film this I want to be able to film one of the actors in the movie running away then have the barn blowing up in the background. I have After Effects and all the stuff to make it possible, the only problem is I just don't know how to actually do it. Can anyone help me out?!?
 
I'm working on a short film right now titled "The Day After The End". In the movie there is a scene where a barn is being blown up. When we film this I want to be able to film one of the actors in the movie running away then have the barn blowing up in the background. I have After Effects and all the stuff to make it possible, the only problem is I just don't know how to actually do it. Can anyone help me out?!?


You'll have to roto around the actor running away from the barn as its being blown up if he's directly in front of it. That way you can comp in explosions and debis :)
 
Can anyone help me out?!?
Sure. Do you want the shot to be handheld or locked off? Do you have a portable green screen? The easiest way to shoot it would be to put tha camera on a tripod and first shoot a clean plate of the barn and than the shot with the character running with the green screen between him and the barn. You can also do it without the green screen by rotoscoping. In that case I would advise not to frame the character right in front of the explosion to minimize the amount of rotoing needed because that is time consuming and the risk of imperfections increases. If you are going to use a moving camera, make sure the shot is trackable(i.e. not too much motion blur). You can get away with 2d tracking if the subject is far away enough and the camera movement is limited to panning. In case of 3d tracking you must make sure there are enough track able points at different depths and there is enough movement sideways or in/out for the software to do the calculations.

If you want someone to do the actual comping, I can give it a go.
 
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