Crowd Control August 17, 2009
Posted by admin in : Software , add a commentIf you’ve ever wished you could add actors into to your presentations, motion graphics, animations, websites, or 3D visualizations, but felt that you didn’t have the time or money to do it, that’s about to change. Introducing Crowd Control - The world’s largest stock-footage library of actors keyed out from their green background, and ready to be added directly into motion graphics, 3D architecture, and visual effects projects.
http://allbetsareoff.com/products/crowd-control/
After Effects Tutorials August 17, 2009
Posted by admin in : Software , add a commentCreative Cow is the one stop site for all your media application tutorials including After Effects, Photoshop, Avid & Final Cut Pro.
http://library.creativecow.net/tutorials/adobeaftereffects
Virtual Cameras March 24, 2009
Posted by admin in : Principles, Software , add a commentI found this really good article on virtual camera’s in after effects. Have a good read of it, it will help all of you who are using cameras in your video’s
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1273350&seqNum=2
Green Screen Shooting March 4, 2009
Posted by admin in : Lecture notes, Principles, Software , add a commentLast week we looked at a simple introduction to green screen shooting. Blue and green are the most likely colours used for colour keying. Blue works best for shooting on film, green for video. Firstly, why do we use green or blue? Well, the simple answer is that that is blue and green are considered most unlike our skin tone, but the reason for using green on video and blue on film is a little more complex use the link at the bottom for more information.
For the colour comparisons, check out the color wheel as a reference. Its important to get used to this, as it is important to know your way around it for colour correction, etc.
There are 3 important things to remember when shooting in front of a green screen
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The lighting of the green screen
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The lighting of the subject
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Positioning of the shot and subject.
Two of these important factors need to be dealt with before we get in front of the green screen. So for the lighting, if the shot we are going to be compositing on to has all the lighting from the left of the screen, then we need to make sure our subject is lit in the same way. Although there is a lot we can do with lighting effects and colour correction in post production, it will make it easier on you if you plan these shots before you go filming. The same goes for the angle of the shot, plan both shots before hand and it’ll make your compositing a hell of a lot easier. Use backlights to eliminate green spill, and make sure the subject is far enough away from the greenscreen to avoid shaddows. Also, make sure we light the green screen and our subject as separate entities, even switching off the lights from one to light the other.
When it comes to lighting the green screen itself, remember less is more. The only thing we want to achieve is an evenly lit screen. We want one tone of green throughout with no shadows or highlights. It doesn’t need to be bright, just even. Too much light on your green screen will result in green spill on your subject and we don’t want that! There’s some great information on lighting a green screen here…
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/onneweer_barend/chromashoot.php
We also took a quick look at compositing. The techniques we discussed and tried out are explained in the following links
Colour Correction in for Green Screen Compositing
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/coots_brendan/greenscreen.php
Using light spill for compositing (bluring the edges of our matte over our foreground)
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/dewar_john/light_spill.php
and here’s a great video co-pilot tutorial using Keylight.
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/basic_color_keying/
enjoy!
Talking about the brief… long time coming March 4, 2009
Posted by admin in : Lecture notes, Principles , add a commentOk, so its been a long time coming, and to be honest I didn’t realise I was meant to be writing on here, but we better get started…
The idea of this module is to introduce you to a variety of post production techniques and to use these to make yourselves become better storytellers. We’ll be looking at motion graphics, green screen, compositing, as well as some editing and sound design.
I’ll start by discussing the brief as we did in the first lesson. Your brief is to create a short film at least 30 seconds in length that shows your knowledge of these post production techniques. The idea is to turn an everyday, normal activity into something interesting and exciting to watch. In other words, take the ordinary and make it extra-ordinary. However, we don’t want to see a bunch of people shooting Hadouken’s from their hands (thats a kind of fireball for those of you that don’t play street fighter II), we’re looking for something a little more stylish and subtle than that!
Remember the idea is to become greater story tellers, not greater show-off’s! When you get your idea, try and relate it into a story. It doesn’t have to have a narrative as such, but just a beginning and an end, rather than just a random bunch of effects that have no purpose except for the effects themselves. We see so many blockbuster films that seem to do just that, but a suprising example of an idea first is Terminator 2: Judgement Day. When the film was conceived, the technology used to create the famous liquid metal effect didn’t exist. This is a great example of films leading special effects (post-production) and not the other way round. In fact, it was George Lucas who first came up with non-linear digital editing when he was cutting the first Star Wars film.
Think about the techniques we’ve learnt so far and try and think how you can use these to enhance your own films and idea’s. Always remember that the sign of great post production is post production that no-one notices.
Don’t just think about the visual elements, sound is as important if not more important than what we see on the screen. Think of all those times in horror films when you are made to jump, do you jump from what you see, or what you hear?
The other use of sound we looked at was in the form of voice overs. The following 2 clips are ones we looked at where voice overs are used to pull us away from reality so we can actually visualise what is being said.
Fight Club
As well as the obvious, look at the interesting shots used when he’s looking in the fridge at the end.
Stranger Than Fiction
