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Changing set Aspect Ratio in FCPX? Color correction for color led lights? Post focus/depth of field effect? reference pictures include
Hi creativecow! As most new users, I found this forum due to some timely trouble. Would really appreciate any help thats possible! As a beginner, I recently shot and did a edit of some footage. I’m doing some work in FCPX. I also have After Effects but have not really learned it yet, but I’m a learner and if you put me in the direction i can learn!
I have attached a link to an imgur album with my stills form my video for assistance.
Aspect Ratio
First off my project in FCPX seems to be stuck in a larger aspect ratio then the footage I’m actually working with(1920×1080 16:9). It’s apparent in all my stills in the imgur album. I have no idea had to change this. Was this something I did when I started the project and can not go back and fix at this point?Led light shots regarding Color correction
Does anyone have any advice post effects (with either FCPX or After Effects) to make the red and green color led lights more vibrant and pop out (stick out) more? I was filming in a parking garage,am relatively new to DLSR filming, had no own light sources. I had the iso at 640, aperture at 5.6, shutter speed at 50(shooting at 24fps)Kiosk shot regarding Post effect focus/depth of field
Is there anything I can do in post whether in FCPX or AE to only have the kiosk in focus as foreground and everything else out of focus. Is depth of field editing possible in FCPX or AE? If anyone can help or put me in a direction( links welcome 🙂 ) it would be tremendous help.extra problem
In the image of the kiosk, the monitor of the kiosk has that distorting effect. Is that just interlacing? What exactly is that called? Any tips on how I would film around that in the future? Any post edits tips to dim it? -
2 Replies
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The link to IMGUR did not make it into your message somehow. This forum has built-in tools to share stills: there’s a little icon that looks like a still camera, just above the commenting box. Click that, follow the directions, and you can embed the screen shots right into your postings.
Meanwhile, I can answer your last question. You CAN fake short depth of field in FCPX, pretty simply.
You stack two identical video tracks, one above the other. On the lower one, you apply a Gaussian blur filter from the pre-set effects panel. For the top track, go to the effects panel and find the “masks” section. The new “draw mask” tool is really easy to use.
Draw a mask around the object or person that should be in focus. Adjust the feathering of the mask, and now, the background will look blurred while the subject remains sharp. If the person or object moves, you can key-frame the mask to follow the movement, right in FCPX. The little diamonds to the far right in the mask control panel are for setting key frames. When you draw a bezier mask around something in this tool, it leaves control points, little red dots, which you can drag on with the mouse to adjust position and thus overall mask shape.
So, you find the mask looks good in one place, but then no longer lines up perfectly in another? Adjust the mask at the beginning and end points of the shot. Then go to the middle portion of the shot, adjust the control points there, then go half-way again between the center and either end, repeat the adjustment process. Anywhere in the shot that the mask gets off-center, you just adjust the control points and key frame, the machine does all the frames in-between, so this process can be fast if there isn’t too much gross motion going on. Adjusting the Gaussian blur amount is also keyframeable, for a pseudo-rack-focus effect.
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As mentioned, your link didn’t come through but…
Aspect ratio: click on the project, go to the project settings button in the info panel, check that you’re project is set up properly. If it is then there’s something weird about the footage so you might have to go to the info panel and change the spatial conform settings for the footage.
Lighting: if you just want to make particular colours pop, then it sounds like you just want to use the colour board and limit the effect with a colour mask and maybe a regular mask to limit the effect to a region, then boost the appropriate colours. I can’t see the picture but this isn’t something you’d usually mess with in camera – well maybe you would – but DSLR cinematography is a topic for a whole different forum 🙂
Faking depth of field is really just a matter of stacking layers, and using feathered masks and possibly lots of key-framing if the camera is moving. i also vaguely remember there being a free gradient blur effect floating around the Internet a while back that might be worth googling for. I personally use the depth of field preset that comes with the SliceX plugin quite a lot for simple static shots.
Jeff Kirkland | Video Producer | Southern Creative Media | Melbourne Australia
http://www.southerncreative.com.au | G+: https://gplus.to/jeffkirkland | Twitter: @jeffkirkland
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