Blaise Douros
Forum Replies Created
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Well put, Todd, on clarifying crop factors on cine cameras vs 35mm still cameras. I sort of tried when I mentioned VistaVision vs Super35, but you put it better.
There are so many other factors other than lenses that contribute to the cinematic-ness of a scene…lighting, sound, camera movement, camera dynamic range…You can make an EX1 look cinematic if you shoot it right. Don’t believe it when anyone says they have one trick that will make it look cinematic. The real trick to making something look cinematic? Throw enough money at the right places 🙂
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There’s a hell of a lot more to it than just using two prime lenses…I wish it was that easy!
No, the C100 will not “compensate” for the crop, so your 50mm will act like a 75mm, and the 28mm will become a 52mm.
I don’t know who was giving you this advice, so I couldn’t say whether they were referring to Super35 or VistaVison as the reference for 35mm.
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You might be able to do it in AE with the CC Sphere as the basis. Tough to say without seeing what it looks like (metallic? matte?).
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If this is a narrative film, think about creative ways to use the car’s headlights in the scene. You can get a very cool, noir-ish look by using them as practical lights. Bring a spare battery though, or another car in case you need to jump it 🙂
If it’s not a narrative film, sharing details of what the scene will involve might help us to make suggestions as to how to stage and light the scene.
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The Sony X70 might be a good choice – as a bonus, it shoots a 10-bit 4:2:2 codec.
Only thing it might not have is a LANC input, can’t remember off the top of my head whether it does or not.
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h.264 footage (which is what I assume this is) will fall apart with heavy correction, but it should be able to hold up with subtle adjustments. Aaron’s example is pretty much what I had in mind.
Even if you don’t recut this for the client, it might be worth it for you to create a new cut just so you can practice refining the story. Going back and improving your own work with new knowledge can be hugely helpful.
Good luck!
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Why not just create the sphere element entirely out of CGI? You’ll have reference shots from on-set; get them to shoot a pass without the ball present, and see if it turns out better to just re-create it.
The other alternative is to make sure that the shot is framed such that the ball falls even with the focal plane, so that focus is NOT an issue.
Is there a storyboard available so that you know what angles they intend to get? That might help you to advise them. Realistically, as a VFX supervisor you (or a trusted member of your team) should be present on-set, so that you can have input to help make the shot look as good as possible.
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I’m gonna be brutal, so don’t take it too personally!
There is no overarching story to this piece. You could cut this down to the story about the pearls and iron, and that would be a nice piece all on its own, but the rest just seems like rambling.
The talking-head interview is lit really hot–try dropping this footage down by a half-stop or more. It seems a little too yellow for my taste. You could fix that by grading the white balance a bit cooler.
You need a LOT more b-roll for this. You’ve got some visible jump cuts, and TBH, she’s not a very charismatic interview subject. So you need to cover all of that up by shooting beauty shots of the finished jewelry pieces, closeups of her hands sketching, more stuff of her in the workshop…anything but watching her staring off disinterestedly in different directions in the room while she thinks about what she’s going to say next.
Speaking of that, cut out all the long pauses, ums and uhhhs, lip smacking…it’s your job to make her look articulate and interesting, and you can do that by improving the cadence of her speech. That’s why you need more b-roll.
Try starting the section on the iron piece with the clip of her talking about contrast. Then let her tell the story of how she used that principle to design the piece.
Cut out the whole last section where she is talking about what she doesn’t do. Nobody cares about what she doesn’t do, and it makes her sound really negative, especially when that’s the last thing we hear her say.
Finally, add a little bit of motion to the still images, and use cuts instead of fades to get away from them.
My two cents.
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When viewed on the same screen at the same size, there is no difference between a pan at 24p on 4K vs HD. You may be seeing judder, tearing, or rolling shutter artifacts at higher resolution due to the limitations of the 4K capture mode on your camera; but think about it. You’re viewing the same image, shot at the same shutter speed, on the same monitor. One version has more detail. That doesn’t change the way the scene moves, just the level of detail you can see. That, in fact, may be confusing the issue, since you can see more detail, it distracts from whatever the subject is.
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Yes, you can shoot 1/48 pretty much at all times without worrying about banding–under natural light, it just doesn’t happen, and there are only a few situations in CFL light that you’ll be able to detect it.
The reason that the guitar strings look weird is that they are vibrating. When they do that, their motion interacts with the 60hz strobing from your CFLs, and so only part of the string’s motion is illuminated. So it is, in an abstract sense, a form of physical moire that manifests differently than the kind we’re used to seeing (which is caused by visual patterns interacting with the sensor mesh). It’s the light wave interacting with the waveform vibration of the object.
There’s no particular artifacting that I see in this clip. Nothing besides the normal movement (which we call judder) of 24p media.