Sometimes things just go horribly wrong.  And sometimes, you don’t realize just how wrong things went until some time later... much, much later.  So was the case of the model I created for the exterior of the Vega Hotel and Casino.  Of course, I have only myself and my admitted total lack of experience in filmmaking to blame.  Although the pics and videos below are not exactly a source of pride for me, I thought it important to share my epic failures as well as my moderate successes.

The Vega space station was one of the first models that I built and the first miniature that I filmed in front of a green screen.  As such, I managed to do just about everything wrong.  The embarrassingly bad video below was actually the best of the bunch.

(The original Vega Station shot with a $99 Flip video camera -- just one of the reasons it sucks)

The artifacts in the video are due to (a) the fact that it was shot with a cheap Flip video camera and (b) breaking all the rules when filming in front of a green screen.

(Paying the price for inexperience)

First, the station is silver --which means it reflects the green from the screen even under the best circumstances.  These, however, are not the best circumstances.  The model is too close to the screen and is, in fact, setting on top of a table that is also covered with green (and a completely different color of green to boot).  Additionally, the screen is not evenly lit and there are shadows all over the place.  There is also no backlighting on the model to help separate it from the background.

For the still images below, I’ve removed the background so you can better see the extent of the problems.

(Vega station lookin’ a bit green)

You can see just how much of the station is tinged with green.  All this green would become see-through in the final footage. While removing the station from the background in Photoshop is fairly easy, trying to do so with video in After Effects is obviously more problematic.  Even with all of the great tools in AE, there was no practical way to salvage any of the footage... unless I rewrite the script and turn it into a ghost station that has a cloaking device that just happens to be on the fritz.

Of course, it wasn’t enough for me to paint the station silver and have it ridiculously close to the green screen.  I also decided it needed some shiny transparent bio-domes.

(The botanical gardens on the Vega Station... because the silver paint job wasn’t reflecting enough goddamn green.)

As I said in an earlier post, we simply don’t have room to store all these sets and models in our apartment.  After I’m finished shooting the initial footage, they get tossed into the dumpster.  That means there is no going back and reshooting this station.  It must be rebuilt.  But in a way, it’s a blessing in disguise.  Over the past two years, I’ve gotten considerably better at building miniatures and I believe I can do a much better job the second time around.  The new station will be of an entirely new design.  Because many of the materials I use are pieces of junk that I just happen to come by, I could not recreate this one even if I wanted to. 

NEXT WEEK: Making a giant space rock...