Blaise Douros
Forum Replies Created
-
Listen to Todd. He knows what he’s talking about.
-
Dude. Why are you here, wasting the time of people who know what we’re doing, if you think you already know everything there is to know?
I’ve been working in documentary and doc-style corporate work my entire professional video career. You are here for advice from people who know what they’re talking about. I know what I’m talking about. Bouke knows what he’s talking about. If you just want to argue about it, go do it whatever way you think is best and prove that it doesn’t suck. But don’t come back to us complaining that the broadcaster QA department rejected it.
So here’s my advice. Shoot 16×9. Basically every screen on the planet uses this ratio, so unless you’re doing a theatrical release, 16×9 is the standard.
Then use the methods I outlined. Don’t argue with me that they don’t work. They DO. They’re totally normal, standard technique that any documentary filmmaker uses.
-
Do what you want, there’s no video police. But personally, I’d rather have the additional control of a new export (which only takes a minute or two), rather than a questionable copy-paste operation.
-
Why on earth would you go through this ridiculous process when you obviously have access to the Adobe suite (since you did the animation in AE? Just bring your lossless video file into Premiere, as well as your new audio, sync them up in a timeline, and re-export. Heck, bring them into AE, even! You’ll have more control using literally ANY method other than the one you propose, and you won’t be stepping on your quality by recompressing the mp4 file (which is what will happen if you do it this way).
There’s no point in using a stupid workaround with questionable amounts of control and quality when the regular way will work just as well and give you better results.
-
Shoot your interview and b-roll in whatever aspect ratio you prefer/whatever aspect ratio the delivery requires. Then get creative with the archival stuff. I’ve done a variety of treatments–my two favorite are:
– A graphical “frame” to denote archival footage. This can tie visually into a graphical element of your film’s logo or overall theme, or you could place relevant metadata about the footage in the “margins” if you want it to look technical.
– Duplicate a second copy of the archival clip, and place it behind the main footage in the timeline. Increase the size until it fills the background. Apply a blur effect to the background copy, and position it so it minimizes any distracting elements popping out from the sides.
There are a million ways you could slice this. One other treatment I’ve done which might work, (it’s time-consuming but looked pretty cool) was to place photos and/or videos in 3D space in After Effects comps with a blurry logo in the background for additional visual reference, and panned the camera between them so it’s almost like a 3D scene, with light particle effects to enhance the 3D camera movement. There’s a fast example of it in this video at the 10-second mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4oZF6_WVu8
Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
-
I mean, the only way to know if Catalyst Browse is doing it is to run a clip through and check both the MXF and ProRes output.
What you need to do is shoot a test clip. Ideally with a color chip, but if not, find a scene that is a known quantity. Make note of the waveform–take a photo of the screen if you have to.
Now compare that waveform to:
1. The MXF clip brought straight into FCP
2. The ProRes export from Catalyst Browse in FCP
3. Both clips in another NLE–Da Vinci Resolve would be the obvious choice, since it’s free.Each of these steps can help you eliminate a failure point. If the clips are consistent in every NLE, then you know that you need to adjust your exposure in-camera.
How sure are you that you’re not accidentally using an MLUT? This sounds like EXACTLY what would happen if you were using an MLUT to shoot, and actually recording in another color space. Or if you were shooting in CineEI mode with a – 1-stop LUT.
-
Does that mean I get dibs on the beer bet?
-
Probably. And frankly, you’ll get more consistent results from a scene if you set your white balance and leave it (unless, like Todd, you know that your lenses introduce color casts)–if you’re grading later, why set yourself up to individually white balance and then individually grade every shot? Figure out the color temp you want to shoot, and make those minor corrections globally in post, make minor tweaks where needed.
If you’re shooting with low-CRI LEDs, NOTHING you do will correct the color. Your picture will look washed out and crappy no matter if the white balance is spot-on; low-CRI LEDs simply don’t reflect a full spectrum of light off your subject.
-
Check the files you shoot–I’ll bet you a beer at NAB that Sony, like everyone else, is using 24p to denote 23.976. You have to get up to the FS7 (or maybe FS5?) to get the option to shoot true 24p–they don’t do that on the alpha series.
-
Are you using the Waveform feature on both your camera and in your NLE? How do the waveforms compare? Is your monitor calibrated?
Any significant difference between the converted and native files?
Also, FCP7? Wow. Does that handle MXF?
My instinct is that there’s something happening on the capture side. I’m assuming you’re using a waveform to help expose, but if you’re not, wide-dynamic-range color spaces like Hypergammas and Slog can cause you to unintentionally underexpose, because we are trained to want contrast in the shadows. If you’re exposing by eye and not using a waveform, I would suspect that you’re overcorrecting dark for the dynamic range effects of a wide-dynamic-range. I used to do that when I shot Slog2 and Slog3, until I learned how properly to gauge exposure with them.