scolling old skype messages

[jak3fx]

a crucial scene in the feature i am working on right now involves shots of the lead actor reading his old skype chats from the previous few years.

my post house needs me to screen record that scroll.

my question is this...how do i fake 3 years of chats with time stamps/date stamps/etc. changing system time and date on my computer has no effect on Skype.

I know that one solution is to make assets in photoshop, but that will take forever for them to animate when they do the screen replacement and i think it will look less natural as well.

thanks!

 

[wheatgrinder]

I see no better way than to create a graphic asset. I mean if its important whats in the chat then you need to type it anyway, if its NOT important, then you dont need to show it.. so meh..

On a side note, this is a typical post job, so Im not quite sure why they say the can't do it. Iv done it a couple times.. screen replacement is pretty common. You can shoot to make it easier on them, but should be within their skill set.

 

[CraigL]

There appears to be this for accessing but only viewing Skype messages:

http://suurjaak.github.io/Skyperious/

And then this if you've got any Ruby skillz:

http://rubygems.org/gems/skype-history-import

Seems to just take a csv file of some format, once you discover that, it should be pretty straight forward to build up the csv file, import, boom, you're all set.

CraigL

 

[jak3fx]

cool going to check these two programs out.

and yes posthouse is doing the screen replacements, but they have asked me to provide the assets that go on the screens, if that makes sense.

it's a pretty big post house. should they be able to just take my plain text and create the whole thing? they seem reticent to do so for whatever reason...

 

[Zensteve]

should they be able to just take my plain text and create the whole thing? they seem reticent to do so for whatever reason...

Are you paying them to do it?

If so - sure, they should be able to work miracles with plaintext transcript. That's what you're paying them for.

If not, and they are doing you a favour (or paying them a token amount) - time to give 'em what they ask for. You're getting what you paid for.

that will take forever for them to animate when they do the screen replacement

 

[wheatgrinder]

arguably, I think doing this practically is a better solution. Doing it all in camera will just look better and be cheaper in the long run.. even if you have to hire someone to program a simple UI to "scroll" your text on the screen.