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rotoscoping 16mm footage?
I am working on a project using footage I shot on 16mm and had transferred to dv. I want to do some rotoscoping in AE, but I’ve never done so with footage shot on film and transferred to video, and even after reading a bunch of posts about interpreting 24p footage, I’m a bit unclear.
My main project is in FCP. I think the footage has pulldown (being that it was telecined)– in FCP every 5th frame is a duplicate, but on my extrenal tv monitor those frames are interlaced. I am attempting to outline people in walking shots w/stroked masks. I’ve done a few tests exporting, bringing it into AE, interpreting the fields, rotoscoping a tiny bit, and bringing it back into FCP but I must be missing something because it never looks right.
Will it never look right because of the pulldown? I apologize if I’m asking the same thing as some of the posts about roto-ing 24p advanced footage, but if someone who has experience with this could just quickly help me out, I would truly appreciate it.
So, if it were you and you had 16mm footage on mini-dv with a pulldown and you wanted to outline people walking, what would be your method of getting the footage into AE from FCP and interpreting/setting up the composition, then how would you output back?
Many thanks in advance,
Andy
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2 Replies
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I’d interpret the footage as interlaced (separate fields: lower) then remove pulldown, first by guessing the pulldown. The I’d opt-double-click on the footage to open it in a layer window, then use the PageDn key to step through the footage. If I saw any interlacing, I’d re-interpret with a different pulldown cadence until the interlacing is gone when I PageDn.
Then I’d drag the footage onto the “new comp” button at the bottom of the project window to create a new 23.976 fps comp. Then I’d roto in that comp.
Then I’d render the 23.976 comp at 29.97, adding fields and pulldown (and 29.97-ness) in the render settings. (Any cadence will do, but you might want to make note of it for the future.)This way you can edit it in FCP at 29.97.
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Thank you both very much for your fast and helpful replies. I think I’ll go about removing the pulldown in After Effects. I found the cadence, however it’s only been successful on the footage if I use the capture scratch. What I mean is, if I export just a small piece I want to use from FCP and apply the correct pulldown cadence (the one that works on the raw capture scratch), it does not remove the interlacing. This is when exporting from FCP as a quicktime movie using current settings (I tried both making it self-contained and not). Any idea why this is?
Also, Dave, the whole project is from film, but I hadn’t planned on removing the pulldown from all the footage and working in a 23.98 sequence. What would be the advantage of that if I know I’ll be going back to 29.97 anyway?
I do dislike the interlacing look, and since I plan to put the final output both on the web and on dvd, I suppose working in 23.98 would allow me to export a non-interlaced version for the web before I go back and add the pulldown for a dvd. Did I just answer my own question?
I opened the footage in Cinema Tools to test it out– what settings would you use if you had this footage? There seem to be a lot of options. I would have to use the Reverse Telecine options, correct? If so, conform to 23.98 or 24 (I’m assuming 23.98 to work in FCP). As far as the fields go, the default in Cinema Tools is set to “captured as” F1-F2, with Fields in AA Style 1. Is it similar to removing the pulldown in After Effects the way Steve said, where it’s trial and error, just test it until there’s no interlacing, or are these default settings usually correct.? (I would test them all but it takes a long time).
Sorry to reply by saying thank you then proceed to ask a ton of questions. Your help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again,
Andy
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