Change the text contents of a moving banner in a video clip

[Math-A-34526684n926]

Hi folks,

I'm new to After Effects. I'm trying to edit a video clip starting at 2:42 in this youtube video (also sharing a screenshot below).

Basically, I am trying to replace the text "Happy Birthday Bilbo Baggins" with my custom text cleanly on this banner throughout the clip as the banner flutters and moves across the frames.

What would be my go to tool to accomplish this neatly with minimum fuss?

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https://youtu.be/-PcUnqlPA8A?feature=shared

[Mylenium]

There is no "minimum fuss" approach if you want it to look good and quite frankly for a beginner this is a terrible shot to pick. Due to the camera and banner moving all the time, the complex lighting situation, the deformations of the banner and other factors this would require a lot of hard work even for an experienced VFX artist. In any case, study classic corner pin tracking tutorials to even get an idea what awaits you. Again, you're in way over your head if you have zero experience and don't even understand basic workflows.

Mylenium

[Math-A-34526684n926]

To begin with, is this a Premiere Pro problem or an After Effects problem?

[Rick Gerard]

The replacement has to take place in After Effects. 

For a point of reference, I have been working with After Effects since 1993. If a client gave me that shot and it was all I had to work with, I could estimate 15 hours to complete the project and make it believable. It would probably take me a couple of hours just to do the mesh tracking in Mocha Pro or Lockdown because there is so much movement and distortion in the shot and the left side of the banner moves behind the foreground.

You have to figure out how to remove the "Bilbow Baggins" Text and end up with a clean banner. Then you have to figure out how to motion track the moving banner and create a distortion map or mesh to distort the replacement text. Then you have to figure out how to replicate the shadows and highlights on the new moving and distorted text layer. Lockdown or Mocha Pro are the two most likely tools to create that distortion.

If you want to get started using this specific shot, download a demo copy of Lockdown or Mocha Pro and see if you can get the tracking to work. Expect to spend a couple of days figuring out how to use Lockdown or Mocha Pro. When you find a workflow that gets you close, you'll have to purchase the product and start fine-tuning the workflow.

There is no one plug-in, one click, one effect solution to this design problem. Even the most advanced.

[Rick Gerard]

The workflow if you are new to After Effects:

1. Spend as many hours as necessary learning the UI, workflow, and compositing techniques required to produce professional composites on shots with moving cameras, moving objects, and changing lighting in After Effects (average is 40 to 100 hours)
2. Purchase Lockdown (the least expensive full-featured mesh/3d tracking plugin available now
3. Split the footage so you are only working with the frames that have the moving banner
4. Motion track the Moving Banner
5. Create replacement banner artwork
6. Apply the mesh tracking data to the replacement banner you have created
7. Add as many other layers to the comp as required (I'm guessing about 3) to make the composite believable
8. Render the Replacement frames using the High-Quality Output Module preset in the Render Queue
9. Edit the final movie in Premiere Pro to finish the project

There are tutorials on AE Scripts that demonstrate an efficient workflow for using the Lockdown plugin. You could also use Mocha Pro or a combination of several other 3rd party effects, but Lockdown will get you closer to a professional-looking replacement banner for less money than any other workflow I can think of.