Some of these are over a decade old and though the tools used have changed since then, the techniques still remain the same for the most part. The things that have changed are generally ways we can track these roto shapes onto moving objects in the frame (examples of which are using a planar tracker like mocha, or smart vectors, or projection on a 3d tracked card).

The Art Of Rotocoping

This is a great fxguide article outlining the history, applications, software and basic tips.

Scott Squires Rotoscoping

Great videos showing a good rundown of rotoscoping techniques for beginners.

0:41 Rotoscoping Basics and Examples

2:50 Tracing for animation

6:42 Matting with GreenScreen

8:02 Garbage Matting

9:55 Mid Ground Roto

12:08 Compositing Mid Ground

14:54 Creating Twins

19:10 Colorizing

20:36 Animated Wipe

Here is his article on rotoing hair.

Silhouette Roto tutorial video

Mocha Pro Rotoscoping Basics

Nuke Rotoscoping Basics

Here is a great article by CartoonBrew that talks to those who made the music video and the whole process.

Below is the video

Another tip is if you’re using a decent Digi green or blue screen and you want markers you can quickly throw on the screen or move with little hassle, make up some markers using velcro (hooked side). On most modern screens the markers can write literally be thrown on the screen and will stick. Even handy if you have pre-marked the screen using coloured gaffer tape markers but they go for a close up and you see no markers are in shot. In this case you can quickly throw a couple of trackers into frame (faster than tape).

If you want to matchmove a shot you really want to have things at different depths for the software to use that parallax to work out the camera movement. You can either add green sticks (or c-stands) just out from the screen with markers on or make sure you have props with trackable textures. In that regard, work with the art Dept to make props, set pieces, that have some features that can be tracked built in (so the audience just sees a normal prop, the matchmove artist has decent textures to track in the set, & the comper doesn’t get angry having to paint out coloured dots on the set). Again, camera tests before the shoot will tell you what you need for your particular situation. 

Shapes of markers is a subject that’s debated. Crosses are favored by some as one cross can provide multiple points to track which can help in frames where you don’t have many markers in view. The down side is when they get out of focus their shape becomes a bit like a blobby  cloud which can change frame to frame and upset the tracker. Because of this, some match movers prefer round dots (of course that means you need to make sure you have at least 7 in shot at any one time, at different parallax distances for a matchmove (unless the set has trackable features). Heres an article and video about that.

For those not on the shoot but handed coloured markers on screens that need removing you can try having a look at this  (click here) Nukepedia written article for inspiration.
At the end of the day you’ll most likely have to endure some paint work if the above doesn’t work but creating a garbage matte so you only deal with stuff crossing close to the edge of your subject will limit this pain.

Here are a couple of videos HollywoodCamerawork did as an intro to matchmove marker placement (from their vfx course).

For more info on matchmoving in general I recommend this book:

* note that the image at the top of this article is also from HollywoodCameraworks site (click here). If you want free vfx plates to practice your keying or tracking check them out. Also their camera work course is awesome and I’ve found the vfx course good to help explain certain techniques to directors in the planning stages. 

Check out the video below

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OnBC5bwV5y0
For more info head to the page about it in their site here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z0aXoXifX5o

A bunch of links to info on the releases at this years NAB, from new cameras to software, there was a lot of interesting tidbits this year.

The N.A.B (National Association of Broadcasters) show has long been the trade show of choice for television as well as general post production industries, and now that film is mainly in the digital realm, it has become the main expo for various companies to release/announce/demo their new cameras, rigs, accessories, software and hardware solutions. Rather than me rehash the important releases (that I’m interested in), I thought I would link to a few sites that cover the event in detail so you can pick through their articles. All the links below are accessed by clicking the relevant logo/image under each description.

First up is a site I have come to love in the past couple of years for their news coverage of industry tech news, they’re called Red Shark (you can get their news weekly by way of an email or even get an app for your smartphone or tablet). Their coverage of NAB this year was really good (although a couple of the other sites below covered a broader range of releases, Red Shark covered the things I found interesting this year, so a good place to start). Click here to see their round up article about the show, then click the logo below for all their NAB articles (to pick through at your leisure)

Digital Arts Magazine has some more highlights from the show (from more the post/vfx side of things)

Video and Filmmaker magazine has a whole raft of video interviews from the floor of NAB, well worth a look.

Pro Video Coalition has a good bunch of articles.

Creative Cow has a pretty exhaustive rundown of releases.

Next is DPReview’s camera centric round up.

Broadcast Beat Magazine has probably the most in depth coverage from releases big and small (can take some picking through to get the info you want though). Has a lot of video interviews to check out as well as lengthy coverage.

Lastly is the official blog of the show which can be found here (I find the above third party sites tended to have better articles, but if you’re browsing, this could have things they don’t cover that might be of interest).