Squarezero brings Frank Sinatra back to life, for 1 night only at X Factor mogul Simon Cowell's 50th

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct 06, 2009 -
The party organizers wanted the hologram to look 100% realistic-as if Sinatra himself had stepped on to the X Factor stage for a private performance.

In order for this to be achieved, the Musion hologram system requires a full body, full colour, static HD camera shot of Sinatra on a solid black background.

This proved to be problematic-as the archive only had footage of Sinatra singing without a body (all done in close up, for a variety of films).The best possible archive footage of Frank was eventually found - a performance of ‘Pennies from Heaven’, which had already been cut out ( rotoscoped ) and put onto a black background. Unfortunately the footage was in close up and didn’t include Frank’s legs and lower half.

So SquareZero set about finding Sinatra some new legs, and lower torso to attach to the archive footage of Sinatra’s head.

To get a full body clip of Frank they used a body double -  a Frank Sinatra tribute performer called Paul Holgate .  With a screen set up showing Franks performance in mirror image, Paul rehearsed the song many times to get the most identical performance as possible - concentrating on the body position and movements. Very careful lighting was set up, to light up the dark suit he was wearing to make sure it would show up on the black background.

Head of animation Olly Tyler and compositor Gabriel Sitjas, then dedicated four full days to rotoscoping 24,000 frames of Frank footage. They needed not only to cut out his head, but also to separate his eyes, neck, mouth, hat and hat brim. With these areas separated they colourised each part from the original black and white footage after de-graining and restoring the film damage within it.

Jonson Jewell then worked around the clock to convincingly attach the cut out Frank Sinatra head footage, with the filmed and headless body double. The task was very difficult - the slightest mismatch of head and body, would show up badly around the neck area.

A very accurate tracking of the body double's neck area had to be applied to the head, and then minor readjustments made every half second throughout the song.

The Sinatra estate allowed his image to be shown for one night..and one night only.

The end result? A very surprised Simon Cowell being sung to, from one of the original members of the Rat Pack…priceless!

X Factor contestants may just have a happier judge to contend with next week!

Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/10365712/1