Enter The Foundry: Visual Effects Software That Is Unbeatable!

If you do not have the time to read this entire article, then here are the vital statistics:

Product Name: Keylight
Product Manufacturer: The Foundry
Product Type: matte-extraction and visual-effects compositing plug-in for After Effects, Autodesk, Avid DS, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Fusion, Nuke, and Shake
Price: 250 United States Of America Dollars
Is It Worth The Price? Definitely. It would still be worth the price if it cost 1,000 USD.
Available From: www.thefoundry.co.uk
Rating: 5 Stars!
My 3 favorite aspects of Keylight: The instruction-manual is perfect! • The plug-in is extremely forgiving; cinema-industry-grade RGB values for rear-illuminated blue/green screens or cinema-industry-grade CMYK values for painted/curtained blue/green backdrops are not required in order to extract cinema-industry-grade mattes. • Once the plug-in is applied from the FCP “Effects” folder to the “Filters” tab of a video-clip, then all of the image-manipulation necessities are at hand; there is no need to search through the many other QuickTime folders or FCP folders in order to locate similar functions that do not work as well.

In ninety-percent of my spare-time— using my own money— I produce low-budget films that make extensive use of composite-shots. Since 2001, I have used Final Cut Pro (versions 2-6) for all of my film work.

I have never had access to cinema-industry-grade blue/green screens or paint/material. So, shot-compositing was always a laborious, time-consuming, and frustrating process for me. I was able to create visual-effects shots that were never questioned by my audience, but were disappointing to me because I did not have what I needed in order to make the shot exactly the way that I wanted it to be.

My workflow went something like this:
• Set my Sony VCR to “Line 1.” This sends a uniform blue signal to my Sony fifty-seven-inch rear-projection 16:9 HD television (the signal is not at all cinema-industry-grade blue, but it can definitely fool the uneducated eye).
• Using Sony prosumer and/or professional video cameras, shoot the action within the limited area of my fifty-seven-inch “bluescreen.”
• Transfer the video data to my Macintosh G4 and G5 computers.
• Battle— for hours, and sometimes days— with FCP’s color-keying and matte functions, with disappointing results (I do not blame FCP; I blame the fact that I do not have a proper bluescreen or greenscreen).
• After failing to extract a satisfactory matte, use FCP’s “Export” function in order to generate an image-sequence (at 30FPS, this would yield hundreds— and sometimes thousands— of JPEG images).
• Utilizing PhotoShop, MANUALLY subtract the background, perform color-correction, and add any other necessary elements in order to complete the effect, FOR EACH OF THE HUNDREDS TO THOUSANDS OF JPEG IMAGES!! Just imagine: a ten-second shot, which is 300 images, could require an entire week for me to finish! And that is only if I had nothing else to do in my life!
• Import the images back to FCP, and then assemble them.

I have been, in effect, shooting live-action, for the purposes of producing an animation, in order to create a live-action film!

After eight years of doing it the hard way, Enter The Foundry. Founded in 1996, The Foundry* is a software company that is based in The United Kingdom, and it is a leading developer of visual-effects and image-processing technologies that boost productivity and workflow in film and video post-production. They have created Keylight, which transforms my matte-extraction ordeal into a joy.

The first aspect of Keylight that creates this positive experience is its (should-be-award-winning) instructional-manual. I have devoted an entire article to The Foundry’s excellent work of typography and graphic-design (see post, And, The Academy Award® Goes To… An Instruction Manual!?!)

Before I used Keylight, the primary problem that I encountered is that, with the Final Cut Pro color-key and matte functions, I could never extract a clean matte from my source footage. My television does not produce the RGB values for a cinema-industry-grade bluescreen, and even when the camera is centered and perpendicular with respect to the screen, the television does not produce uniform illumination.

Here is the second positive aspect of the The Foundry’s plug-in: my amateur visual-effects equipment was of no concern to Keylight. Literally, within minutes of reading the “Basic Keying” section of the instruction-manual, I subtracted the entire background from my shot (see compare-and-contrast screen-captures 1-3 from my video-testimonial for Film School On Demand). A few minutes later, by employing the “Despill Bias” and “Foreground Colour Correction” functions, I produced a perfect composite of myself sitting in front of LeMans race-cars from Ferrari and Aston Martin.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST
1. Source “bluescreen” footage: Note the erratic illumination of the screen. Note the reflections from the room.
2. Final Cut Pro parameters and composite: Note the color-distortion of my face; while it is not unnatural in appearance, screen-captures 1 and 3 more accurately represent my complexion. Note the black contour that exists between the background and the foreground. Note my clipped ears and head. Note the hint of blue on the perimeter of my head. Note the triangular black “powder” that exists above my left shoulder (from not being able to extract a clean matte).
3. Keylight parameters and composite: Perfection. I wish that I had access to this plug-in when I produced my video for Dave!

The secondary problem that I encountered, before I learned of Keylight, is that it was time-consuming for me to find the color-key, matte, and image-adjustment tools that I required in Final Cut Pro. It is wonderful that FCP includes such a large amount of picture-manipulation features, but they are spread through— and buried in— so many folders and sub-folders that the time which is spent in locating the necessities is counterproductive. Considering the matter with a positive frame-of-mind, though, it has helped me to develop my patience and persistence.

Keylight is the opposite. All of the compositing and color-correction tools are contained within the icon that is to be copied from the FCP “Effects” folder into the “Filters” folder of the video-clip; no hunting is required. That explains the third positive aspect of this plug-in.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST
1. The many Final Cut Pro folders through which one must sift in order to locate tools.
2. The Keylight folder.

Keylight is worth every bit of its 250 USD asking price, and if The Foundry charged 1,000 USD, then it would still be worth it. Five stars, two thumbs-up, and A++! This is my compositing-software of choice!

*www.thefoundry.co.uk