Please, look at this...

check out this site...

(Rovion)
http://www.rovion.com/index.asp

See the "In Person" thing??? they claim they have patent on this. It appears to be a variation of Flash 8 vid. with an alpha channel, and some scripting.

can they really patent this???

I dont think you can patent someone elses technology & they own Flash or JavaScript.

...but still can't figure out what they've patented???

Does anyone know how to create this video effect?

You have to shoot the original production in front of a chroma-key screen. In a utility like After Effects you "key out" the background and export it as a video with alpha channel. The alternative is rotoscoping, not likely in this case. The lighting, etc. looks studio.

Thanks toulouse2k. I don't suppose there would be an easier way to get this done? Why not just shoot it against a white background and then "key out" the white?

I have about 10 of these that I need to create, and therefore don't want to spend the $250 for each one.

b/c anything white, will alpha out as well. so your eyeballs will be floating and your teeth will be clear. Its not an exact science b/c your background will have some variant so picking a single color won't do it. that's why you use a color that won't exist anywhere in the final product, or else it will become transparent as well.

Good points, bmarker.

PullinGz, you really need a quality chroma-key screen and setup. If you are using video, use a green screen, it works a bit better. Video is more difficult because it tends to be noisy (all those little 1 pixel moving artifacts). I just did a fairly "clean" project and it still required some rotoscoping. You simply can't get superior studio quality on-the-cheap, unless you do it yourself (rotoscoping) and are willing to pay yourself a low hourly wage.