Jeff Bonano
Forum Replies Created
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To start, I would strongly suggest Crowd Control which is brought to you through Allbetsareoff.com! Here’s a direct link to the place to go:
https://allbetsareoff.com/products/crowd-control/
I’ve purchased a bunch of pre-keyed stock footage of people here and it’s not to expensive at all. I even have purchased a bunch of people dancing from here too. both front and back shots, men and women. Check it out because I think that’s exactly what you are looking for.
There is also a video tutorial on how to use Trapcode Particular 2 or Trapcode Form to create a large crowd using that footage and doing what might be similar to what you are looking to do with the crowd. If you like, check it out to get some ideas:
https://allbetsareoff.com/tutorials/rgtv-ep-25-crowd-p2/
Hope that helps, good luck!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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Shouldn’t be too difficult for this one. I would just put a black solid over the composition and apply a linear wipe to it. Key frame it so that it wipes down and back up within a frame or two, and feather the edge a bit. If you want to make it more realistic add a bottom lid and maybe if there is a lot of light, add a real slight tint of red to the solid’s color. (notice though when you close your eye, your bottom lid only closes the slightest bit, use the top lid for most of the coverage.) Then add motion blur to it and adjust the key frames so that the eyes open and close at different times to your liking.
For the vision blur, you could add an adjustment layer, create a circular mask, invert it, then add fast blur to it. Adjust the mask feather and expansion properties as well as the fast blur properties to match your needs. Then key frame (or add a wiggle expression if you like) to create a random adjustment of the eyes.
There’s a lot of different ways to create this effect. You could even play around with the depth of field or brighten up the whites to make it more of a dreamlike look while the eyes are trying to get into focus, but you would just have to play around with what looks good to you at that point.
Good luck!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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If you happen to have more knowledge in your field than anyone else in your area or department, you could try adding “consultant” to your title. consultants make more money right off the bat, especially if you are the company’s Creative Media Consultant…Or what about Creative Liaison Officer? Ah, Chief Media Creator!
All this talk makes me want to change my title from just plane “Owner” to Creative Media President or something like that! That’s right, I’m the C.M.P. of my own company! Oh Yeah!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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I agree with what everyone says here for the most part but I would like to share something I learned in my VO classes.
First, if you want to get into voice overs you have to understand there are two kind of voice overs. The announcer/actor voice over or the character/impersonator voice over. The later of the two choices is most profitable, but only for a small small small market of talented people. So unless you are really really top notch in impersonations and stuff, I would shy away from that one.
Second, yes you have to train your voice, and your mouth…but it all starts with a smile! Along with infliction of your voice, it really makes a difference when you smile while you speak. Sounds easy? Not at start. You usually find yourself forgetting to hold that smile while you speak so it takes practice.
Third, equipment actually wont cost that much like it used to in the past. Here’s a great set up that I suggest you look into:
Microphone: see the other posts for your question. I saw a lot of good suggestions. You can find a decent one for a few hundred bucks to get started but sooner or later I would upgrade.
Laptop:(or desk top, but if you want to do it in the comfort of your own living room or while on a business trip, a decent lappy is worth the investment). Don’t need much, and you can get one easily now for $600-$700 bucks.
M-box w/Pro tools: This device from digidesign will only cost you maybe $250-$400 tops and it comes with Pro Tools LE which is all you really need to get started. You plug your headphones and mic into this and it controls your audio to your liking then sends the clean data to your laptop via usb2.
Headphones: get a decent pair for around $100 bucks (or less, I’m not too picky about my headphones like others are) and if you want to hear better sound at playback, you could also get a small set of speakers for the lappy too.
You used to have to spend a LOT of money on equipment and/or for studio time. But now you can have clients that e-mail you a script, and while still in your pajamas, could be doing a big ticket job, while you are still in bed! And if you find the right deals, it could cost you only $1000 bucks or so to get started. Once you get going, then maybe later upgrade to more advanced equipment. For now just get a demo put together and get your voice out there!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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Do you have a lot of things going on in the comp? If you have a lot of plug-ins, layers, precomps nested in the comp, etc…then you’re asking Premier to do a lot of work that AE is accustom to doing on it’s own time.
If it’s a heavy comp, then I like Render out a low quality file in AE and plug it it into Premier, then when I got everything ready to go I Alt+drop the real deal in just before it’s time to render the final project. See if that idea helps you out at all.
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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It could be a couple things, so start by double checking the obvious:
In your time line check to make sure everyone of the audio tracks are turned on. If that looks fine, I would also check your audio levels to see if they are turned down. Check also to make sure you are rendering it with the proper audio setting before you process it. Give another shout out if that doesn’t fix it.
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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The problem with converting 4×3 to 16×9 is that you don’t have enough image to fill the screen. If this project was filmed and composed in 4×3 then you are kinda stuck if you don’t want to loose parts of your image.
Here is what’s going to happen. If you scale the image to 16×9 you will loose the top and bottom portions plus loose a lot of quality.
You could build a fake letterbox (just a black bar on top and bottom) but then unless you re size the whole thing, it will still only be 4×3. And of course re-sizing it again will drop your quality and you loose the top and bottom portions of the footage anyway.
Another option is you could stretch the image, but the problem there is that it’s going to look really distorted on the sides. Kinda like when you play 4×3 on a wide screen TV and tell it to stretch the image. Which if you are putting your heart into this project and the customer expects high quality, this to me defeats the purpose.
If anything was filmed in 4×3 then it’s kinda tough to do anything about it. If it’s just motion graphics then I would say go back and recreate the project in 16×9. If none of this is possible, I would just stick to the 4×3 and if the client is going to be playing it on a wide screen TV, then let the TV do the stretching. They might not even notice at first glance the stretching effect the TV makes if they set it to stretch it.
On a side note in the future, your initial consultation with the client should involve asking what kind of viewing format they need. That way you can plan ahead so that you don’t have to drop the quality or give yourself headaches.
I know I’m being a bearer of bad news but I still hope this helps you out in some way.
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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Well, we could consult the Magic 8 ball….
*shakes it and turns it over**
“Concentrate and ask again later”
Well that’s no good…
*shakes it and turns it over…again**
“My sources say use royalty free music you have rights to and bill them for that to be placed in the project”
…
……Ok, well….there you have it! The Magic 8 ball has spoken!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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I like it a lot!
As far as the conversation about it’s not technology, it’s the people who create it. I just have to mention that my first ever attempt at post production was with Two old VCRs (one made such a loud grinding noise you had to crank up the volume knob on the push button TV I had to hear the audio), a cassette tape deck for music, a bunch of cables, and for titles and such I used the classic Super Nintendo Mario Paint that I borrowed from my little brother! No one could figure out how I managed to put it all together considering I had no access to any video editing equipment. It was that setup that got me hooked into video production in the first place.
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano
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Basically what Ron and Brendan are saying is:
You can’t bill them for it…
..and not to beat a dead horse, but an extra note for you to chew on is another important one.
If you did charge them for it, not only are you accepting responsibility, but you are adding fuel to the fire by making money from reselling someone else’s music. It would be like you buying stock footage and then reselling it as your own.
I would seriously contact your client and ask them to destroy that project and go out and buy some royalty free music to replace that itunes music. It’s still possible to save the project and your reputation!
Good luck!
Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano