Remember the beamed holographs seen in Star Wars episodes? At the time the movie came out, this was an exceptionally cool thing, never seen nor conceived before. Star Trek had a simple transporter beam effect that used masks to create the look of being transported, but the holograph was a method of communication and projection never before seen. Playing around in Vegas on a VASST tour, I was working with a piece of footage and realized how simple this would be in Vegas. To accomplish this look you'll need to shoot against a solid backdrop, preferably green if you are shooting with DV.(See my tutorial on why green is better) Shoot your footage with your actor dressed in imaginative clothing, but color of the clothing won't matter much, as we'll be applying a blue filter over the original footage to mask most color detail. Just be sure the clothing doesn't contain colors that are the same or fairly similar to the background color. You'll have the most effective look if your actor is shot full-body, but even half or 3/4 works acceptably well. However, to mimic the Star Wars look, you'll want to do a full body shot. Remember, if this is to look like a communication transmission, your actor should look at the camera just as though he can see a video or holographic representation of who they are speaking to.

Watch the preview stream: (Windows Media, 1.2 meg file, press ALT+Enter to see full screen)

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For the purpose of this tutorial, the footage shot started out looking like this:

The original footage was shot against blue, as this was done in an analog-based studio.

 First, I used the secondary color corrector to pop my blues, allowing for better extraction from the background which has a few gradients, as we didn't use the cyc's full lighting system. I then added a chromakey tool, and using the "Show Mask Only" checkbox, I cleaned up my output. The project veg file has left these two tools in place, merely turned off, so you can work with the demo media to see how I popped the blue and cleaned up the output. I then used the Pan/Crop tool to create a 16:9 letterbox, and used the Track Motion Tool to stretch the body and create a thinner and off-aspect appearance to the shot. After getting the mask set up, I found a background jpeg that I wanted to insert the original image into. In this case, it's a shot of a living room.

Next, I rendered a new track with the Show Mask Only box still checked. I unchecked the "Include Audio" from the render>Custom options, as I wanted the new mask track to lie directly above the original track with no audio, and the audio from the original track was used in the project, removing the need to have a second, duplicate audio track. This allowed me to create a garbage mask or matte to be used as a parent to the original image. Don't create the mask/matte til the Pan/Crop and Track Motion attributes have been determined. Be sure ripple is disabled before rendering to new track. On the original track, remove the Secondary Color Corrector and Chromakey from the original. With the matte above the original track, Parent the matte to the original by pressing the Parent/Child button on the original track. This will allow the original track to show through. At this point, you should see a fairly clean image over top of the selected background. Set the opacity of your matte to 75% for starters. This will allow the background to be seen through the hologram.

Match the sliders in this screen shot to create fast pulsing sync lines.

Using selected filters, we'll now create the image of the hologram. Drag the Gaussian Blur filter to the matte. Set the values for both horizontal and vertical blur to approximately .025 for starters. This will likely be tweaked later. (the project veg is set to .027) The blur helps create a soft edge on the original media. It also washes out the screened edges, and blends the image into the background a little more smoothly.

Drop the Secondary Color Corrector onto the original video track. Choose the Desaturate All but Red preset for starters. Slide the Saturation slider to the right, to a value of 3.000. Now slide the Limit Hue value to the full right, to a value of 360. Slide the corrector target dot to the lower left in the color wheel, setting the track to a blue color. Set this to the desired level. This should blow out the edges of the original media. This step is not necessary for creating this particular look, I simply wanted to blow out my edges.

Now drop the TV Simulator on the original media. Select the TV Look preset. Slide Line Sync, Scan Phasing, Phosphorescence all to the right to create a fast scan image. Add a tiny value of Static if you'd like to distort the image a little further. If you want less interlacing (the horizontal lines in the image) reduce the Interlacing value to zero. For a really cool look, keyframe Line Sync and Scan Phasing  value movements to make the picture 'break up' every now and then.  Notice there are no keyframes in the project, I left these blank so you could experiment with these values on your own.

Now drop the Brightness and Contrast filter on the original image, setting the Brightness value to .22. That's all there is to it, the project ready to be rendered.

Some options you might want to try, depending on source footage if other than the media used in the training file;

These tips are fairly simple, and only the rudiments are presented here so that you can feel free to experiment and create your own looks. Download the zipped project and veg files here. (1 meg download) You'll need 4.0E to open this project. If you have an older version, update first.

For more tips on creating great projects in Vegas, visit the Sundance Media Group Vegas file sharing site, www.sundancemediagroup.com/help/kb where over 200 training files and projects are found for your free use. You are invited to submit your own cool veg files as well. Also be on the lookout for a VASST tour coming to your area soon!