So, here's a little visual effects challenge.

You're making a television reality series. And, partway through the series, one of the main characters changes her hair colour. Like, we're talking REALLY changes her hair colour. And now all the previous interview footage taken of her doesn't match anymore. In fact, she looks like a totally different person.

Short of going to all the trouble and expense of bringing the person back to re-shoot all those interview segments, what do you do?

Well, you call Java Post Production, your electronic hair salon. That was the coiffure challenge brought to Java Post by the television series, Nightclub Confidential.

Above you see our subject, with the hair colour she had when her interview segments were originally recorded.

And here you see our subject's current (or possibly "currant," as in raisin, as in grape) hair colour. It wasn't a subtle change, to say the least.

So, as envisioned in the above split-screen image, the challenge for Java Post was to take all that interview footage and turn our subject's hair from blonde to purple...and make it look natural and believable. As natural as purple hair gets, anyway.

Being asked to change the colour of an object is not an uncommon request from a client. There are certain situations where clothing or items in a scene need to be recoloured for a variety of artistic or creative reasons. Hair, however, is a very tough challenge.

A coffee mug or a table or something like that has very solid, defined edges that separate it from the other objects in the scene, making it a little easier to colour. Hair, on the other hand, has many strands and feathery edges that show up against background scenery. And that makes for a much more involved visual effects process.

Working in DaVinci Resolve, Java Post Production colourist Jack Tunnicliffe had to create multiple masks (seen above and below) to separate our subject's hair and allow Jack to make the colour change cleanly.

In a way, it's like doing an actual hair dye, because you want to change the customer's hair colour without having the hair dye running into her clothes or forehead or ears.

Plus, in this case, you don't want it running into the background video, either.

Above is a split screen showing the blonde "before" shot on the left and some of the many areas that had to be masked off on the right, in order to make the colour change.

And voila! Our Nightclub Confidential personality now has a new hair colour, courtesy of her electronic hair stylist: Monsieur Jacque of the Java Post Production Hair Salon.

To add a little colour (purple or otherwise) to your next production, get in touch with Java Post Production HERE.

To view some examples of our work, CLICK HERE.