Celine & Elvis

[kilowatt]

LAST EDITED ON Mar-26-10 AT 11:06PM (MST)[p]This is amazing!

For those of you that didn't see the show, Celine Dion appeared to walk out and stand next to Elvis as the two sang a duet of the classic "If I can Dream." It was like he was raised from the dead. Everyone has been asking how it was done. ET said tonight it was a hologram.. Totally amazing what they can do now. Estimated cost of this was said to have cost between $50,000 to $100,000 and it is said it took months and months to create. Prior to the performance, Celine practiced with an Elvis impersonator. However it was done, it was totally amazing . She sounded great singing with Elvis. The duet was fantastic.
Celine Dion in front of a LIVE Studio Audience. This is absolutely unbelievable how they have done this. It really - really does look for all the world that Elvis is actually standing there live on stage singing along side Celine Dion in front of the live American Idol audience. Watch and listen to the audience going berserk, as they themselves think they are actually seeing Elvis right there in front of them. A truly amazing use of modern day technology brings Elvis Presley back to life in front of your own eye's. Click below!

http://thehumorzone.co.uk/Videos/elvis_celine.wmv


Brian

 

[Bates7]

The link doesn't work KILO.

"Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians - except for the occasional mountain lion steak."
-Ted Nugent-

 

[kilowatt]

Try it now as it still works for me.

Brian

 

[sageman]

Thanks for posting.worked great for me.

 

[OutdoorWriter]

That was super.

I did some searching and found this video that explains how it was done. The explanation starts after the song is over.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/968493/3744941

And this is the original of the Elvis TV clip that was used.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/772088/3299731

TONY MANDILE

How To Hunt Coues Deer

 

[OutdoorWriter]

ELVIS MEETS CELINE IN AMERICAN IDOL'S IMPOSSIBLE DUET

Following the eye-popping Elvis and Celine Dion Impossible Duet on American Idol last month, viewers around the world were buzzing with the question: "How'd they do that?"

Thanks to the talented pool of VFX artists at Time-Slice Films and some new rotoscoping tools from Imagineer Systems, the impossible was not only quite possible, but an opportunity that raised the bar for dazzling, realistic rotoscoping projects.

Bath, UK-based Time-Slice Films, innovators in the field of film and television frozen-time effects, full digital image capture, interpolation and post production techniques, was invited to participate in this project, as they had previously worked on a similar TV show in the UK called Duet Impossible. Also, as this episode of American Idol was for charity, Time-Slice was keen to get involved, and consequently, almost everyone who worked on the show worked for free.

The VFX team faced a range of challenges on the project, not the least of which was the 12-day deadline - which consisted of rotoscoping nearly 3,500 frames for two minutes worth of footage. As the team set out on this newest challenge, they would discover this was just one of many challenges that lay ahead.

Visual effects supervisor for Time-Slice Films, Callum Macmillan, notes, "Adding to the challenge, the source footage was not shot on film, which would have provided us with good resolution to work with. However, Elvis's 1968 Come Back Special performance was one of the first items ever to be recorded to videotape. As such, Time-Slice received footage that was in 29.97 drop frame with quite extreme interlace artifacts. Considering the demands for a pristine final product, the source material quality was not very good. From the outset, we had to decide exactly how much careful smoothing and field blending we were going to apply across the board as this would dictate what kind of edge we would be rotoscoping to."

Along with colleague Graham 'Gee' Clarkin, Macmillan put together a team of eight roto artists who formed quite a broad range of skill sets.

"We had Shake artists who came from a feature film background and then Combustion and After Effects artists who came more from a motion graphics and television background. Having beta tested Imagineer Systems' motor on the UK Duet Impossible show the previous year, Gee and I knew its potential and were keen to integrate this software alongside all our other applications, especially as we were facing such a tight deadline," states Macmillan.

To tackle the complex roto requirements, the team looked to Motor from Imagineer Systems. Macmillan continues, " One of the main areas where I felt Motor did well was to hold a consistent shape around the back of Elvis's head. There was also this misconception that it was very straightforward for us to extract Elvis from the original footage via some basic luma keying. This was not the case. While keying of different sorts enabled us to get some edges, Elvis's black hair on a black background provided no edge whatsoever to roto with - we were literally guessing in the dark. However, we found that the planar tracker in Motor was able to pick up enough of the small, twitchy movement of such an organic object that once we had defined our shape, we could leave Motor's transform, scale and shear functions to keep the line of the head, thus pretty much eliminating any edge boil normally associated with such guess work."

Once all the roto and matte work was completed, Macmillan upconverted and retimed the footage to 720p 59.94fps using further smoothing effects and an optical flow retiming plug-in.

"The final product was then FTP'd to the team at Chainsaw Edit and American Idol, who did the amazing job of compositing and editing our matte work into the final sequence. From start to finish, I feel everybody involved in the project did their absolute best. I'm pleased with our creative team and the innovative tools from Imagineer Systems that enabled us to play a key role in raising the bar for this type of effect to be used in television."




TONY MANDILE

How To Hunt Coues Deer

 

[cowboy57]

Awesome,thanks for the post.love to see Hank JR. and the old man do that.cowboy

 

[sageadvice]

Kilo wrote; This is amazing!

... Totally amazing However it was done,... it was totally amazing... She sounded great singing with Elvis... The duet was fantastic.
This is absolutely unbelievable... the audience going berserk,...A truly amazing use of modern day technology brings Elvis Presley back to life in front of your own eye's. Click below!

Geeze Kilo, I guess you liked it, huh? I wish my puter had sound. Looked good though

Joey

 

[fireball77]

Thanks Kilo that was Amazing, cant go wrong with either one of them, and they sound great together.

 

[eelgrass]

That was super! Thanks Brian.

Eel

 

[kilowatt]

Joey,
I thought you were more updated than Manny, come on man, get some speakers your missing out.
Brian

 

[sageadvice]

Kilo, lol I guess between having no speakers and hunting, Manny and i got along, i hope he's doing OK!!

Yeah, i'm about as low tech as it gets. I learned the little that i know on the puter, 100% self taught, bout 6 years ago. My speakers don't work, scanner-printer don't work, 1% remaining memory... i'm afraid to turn this thing off for fear of it not starting again.lol

I've hundreds of old pics of harvested bucks from past years and that ain't even talking about all the fishing pic's i've got, some that i'd like to scan and share on occasion, but i got what i got in there now and i generally make do.

Do any of you guys remember seeing the Hank Jr and Hank senior Duet on video? "TEARS IN MY BEER" i think, It came out several years ago and i thought at the time that it was great and really good tech but they don't seem to show it much anymore.

Thanks & Have a good one Kilo!!

Joey

 

[Gator]

That was nice.


"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".

 

[eelgrass]

Here you go Joey. This is all I could find but it sure sounds great. Enjoy!

Eel