[Anhtu Vu]

I guess i’ve been lucky since i’ve started doing more vfx work a year ago, most of my gigs came from this one director and the footage i’ve been getting were impeccable…just finished 2 commercials for him doing color correction, lots of paint/roto, keying…all in Smoke with the client present. The session went great and i definitely must give most of that credit to the camera crew/vfx supervisor. So you’re totally right about having an experienced VFX supervisor on set making a big difference, unfortunately, this is not the case for my up coming gig. They don’t want to pay for an extra SFX supervisor during the shoot and since my camera/on set chops are limited, i’m trying to find out as much as i can.
Anyways, hope for the best…thanks again Jason and Phil for your inputs.

[Anhtu Vu]

Are there any ”got cha” to look out for during the shoot. The client is using a different producer and camera crew then the one i’m used to, these people usually do documentary and not commercials or vfx.

[Anhtu Vu]

Hey Jason,

Thanks for the reply. I’m an on line editor with decent Roto/tracking chops in either After effects and Smoke. I’m a bit nervous about this gig as the producer is using a different camera crew and the animation will probably be outsourced.
Anyways, would it be crucial to place tracking makers during the shoot or can it simply be done in post and get the same result ?

[Anhtu Vu]

Thanks everyone for the reply,

Great news! that i can go on and design in AE as usual. I just checked the clients’s website and they are using a simple static logo with a black bg for the introductory page. So my idea is to replace this page with an animated logo. The fonts of the loge has been provided on an Illustrator doc, basically, the template session of their business card.

You guys suggested that i do the animation in AE and use another encoding engine/app to encode to H264 for Flash.

1- Anyone knows if Flash will accept/read elementary AVC ( H264 ) stream from Sonic Cinevision encoder. I’ve been using Cinevision to encode all of our BluRay titles that goes to replication with great success. The only encoder that i’ve found of better quality is the Cinemacraft HD.

2-My animation will be over a black bg, will i end up seeing the border of this black bg once it is incorporated into the web browser, which is also black ( this will look ugly ). Ideally, i just want to have a logo animation with a transparent bg so the web guy can just lay it on top of any color bg from his web page.

3-What size do you guys suggest i should use for my comps/logo so that it will have an impact, but yet, light and speedy for web usage. Remember, this logo is on the first page where there will be nothing but the logo along with 2 small language selection ( french/english )

Thanks

[Anhtu Vu]

Actually my question is more about which frame rate should i deliver my mov. As for sizes, i got it covered by just taking my original comp (approved version in 1080) and duplicate it, then change its preset to the output size i want ( 720 and NTSC ).

[Anhtu Vu]

This logo is all generated within AE ( text, animation flares…), i’m not importing any footage with a define frame rate so there no need for frame rate conversion.

I guess my original question was not clear. Basically, I was asked to design a logo for a company, the Logo will be used on all their film, which of course, includes a variety of format.

The Logo has been approved, now i need to deliver the mov to them. There was no precise instruction from them other than give us the best quality possible. So i thought of giving them the same Logo in ( 1080, 720, 480 ) but i’m not sure at which frame rate, it does not make sense having to output every existing frame rate for each format. Suggestions ??

[Anhtu Vu]

Hi Todd,

Thanks for the reply. I just talk to Aja tech support and they mentioned that anything viewed from AE through the Kona 3G is being converted to YUV color space. He’s trying to find out wether it’s in the Rec709 space, if this is the case then problem solved for me because without color space conversion, AE is very snappy and i get real time preview with even large comp with lots of FX.

I tried the suggestions above, even though it helps, it’s still not an acceptable working solution for me as it slows down the ram render drastically AND no real time ram preview.

[Anhtu Vu]

Dave relax….to me real time playback means you are getting frame per frame playback, which i do UNTIL i turn on Rec709. Btw, i never use the space bar only 0.

Again, anyone knows why, my playback goes from real time 29.97 to 6 fps when i turn on Rec709.

90% of my stuff goes to broadcast and my monitors are calibrate under Rec709 color space.IOs this a bug ???

[Anhtu Vu]

Thanks so much guys for the advice….

I’m using a broadcast Sony multiformat 14L5 and a Pannasonic 50VT25 for monitoring.

I have a couple more questions:

1- I believe i can change the project bit depth at any point during my workflow, is it preferable to work in 8 bits, for speed sake, then change to 16 or 32 bits only when it’s time to output ? I also assume that this method is only suitable when you are using only AE project with self generated elements ( text, lens flare, particles…) and not importing footage since imported footage will be conformed to the project setting, correct ??

2- Have any of you tried/used the RedGiant knoll light plug ins ? Is it better than the ones bundle with AE ??

Thanks again

[Anhtu Vu]

I’m using AE CS5, Comp setting is:
Preset:HDTV (1080_29.97), 1920×1080, square Pixels, 29.97, resolution=full.

Project setting is 8 bit / channel

it’s odd that there’s no 10 bit / channel setting

i have the working space setting to none, should i change it to HDTV_REC709 as it’s going to broadcast ?

Thanks for your help.