Digital Compositing for Film and Video is a hands-on, how-to guide that addresses the problems and difficult choices faced by the professional compositor in real-life situations. This book presents you with tips, tricks and techniques for dealing with the badly shot elements, color artifacts, and mismatched lighting that bedevil compositors. Included in this book is: in-depth, practical methods for bluescreen matte extraction, despill operations, compositing operations, and color correction-the "meat and potatoes" of all digital effects. Written in a completely software independent style, it is totally applicable to any brand of compositing software.
* companion DVD with 3.7 gigabytes of test images, including hard to get HiDef video and feature film scans
* new section on digital intermediate, the feature film finishing process of today
* new material that reveals the add-mix composite, light wrap, slot gags, and how to defeat banding problems
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
indispensable!, October 13, 2009
By
L Boy (Atlanta, GA)
You can't be a great effects artist without a deep understanding of the inner workings of a composite.
You'll learn so much more than how to mush images together. whether you want to or not, you'll learn
everything you need to know about compositing. What I enjoy most about this book is the information on light and how to
pull flawless keys.
A great book for beyond-beginners, June 6, 2009
By
Grant Beaudette (Missoula, MT United States)
This book is really an expansion on the author's other work: Compositing Visual Effects: Essentials for the Aspiring Artist. But whereas that book is geared for people totally new to compositing and visual effects, this one is far more technical and in depth for those ready to take the training wheels off.
The most covered topic in this book is pulling mattes. I like how Wright covers every aspect of how these operation work. It's mostly so you know how to cobble together a matte even if your software doesn't have the option, but just knowing how everything works makes for more intelligent compositing work, no matter what tools you have.
The other major, in-depth section is on light. How it works, how eyes, film, and video see it. And how to manipulate it for color correction. Again, the more you know the better you can handle whatever a client throws at you.
Wright has an entertaining writing style that makes extra dry topics like gamma correction and log images a lot more accessible.
This book doesn't teach any of the fancy or pretty visual wizardry, but when you need to know the nuts & bolts of the foundation elements required to pull that other stuff off, this is a great one to have around.
most universal text, July 1, 2008
By
C. Eidsvik (Athens, GA USA)
I use Shake, and for simpler stuff, Final Cut's little compositor or else and old version of After Effects.
Wright's approach to principles makes the shifts easier. He explains well.
Useful Update from First Edition, June 14, 2008
By
R. B. Currier (Sunny California, USA)
I found the second edition to be a worthy upgrade from the already very good first edition.
For those looking for an image slice tool as used throughout the book, if you use Adobe After Effects you can get the image slice tool as part of the Test Gear plug-in for After Effects.
(Disclosure: I helped create the Test Gear product. But the image slice tool *is* a very useful tool and it's otherwise not commonly available, despite it featuring prominently in this book.)
An Essential Guide and not just for compositors, July 8, 2007
By
Mad Dog (Canada)
If you've ever been on set and heard the catchphrase "fix it in post" this book is for you.
Not only is the information detailed and thorough, but also extremely readable. Some ironic asides demonstrate Wright has the experience to back up his text. He covers all levels of compositing, from basic luminance keying to green-screen/blue-screen, to color corection and matching foreground and background elements, motion tracking, alpha-channels (to premultiply or not premultiply) and the differences between film and video.
The book is not software specific, and the enclosed exercises and demonstrations can be done on most software with compositing features -- including Photoshop!
Why four stars and not five? The extra money demanded for addional exercises seems to be an unfair gouge. But the book is definitely worth the cover price! Even if you have no immediate aspirations at all to composite something, you'll at least see just how tough it can be.
Producers, Directors and Camera departments (aspiring or experienced) can all learn something here -- and with any luck they'll learn it before they light their next green/blue screen.
Too bad the cover is so damn ugly.
