[Jim Arcon]

The effect is a very good way of making still images fit a moving image product, and has been around for a while. One of the biggest uses of this effect was in the movie “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” from several years ago. If memory serves, the effect was written up in DV Magazine and probably other places.

Basically, you cut out individuals or objects and make them a separate layer using Photoshop (or another tool that allows layers.) Use the same tool, re-build any background that might show when you move the camera in After Effects or other compositing program. Import the layered image and position each layer separately in 3D space.

If you’re really clever, you can even fake the famous “bullet time” effect.

[Jim Arcon]

Wow, that’s a tough one because you’ve got both over-eposure (on the right) and under-exposure (audience.) The over-exposure is so severe that there doesn’t seem to be much detail.

I don’t know if you could ever make it great, but you could twiddle with the levels controls in PPro a bit to tweak this.

I brought it into AfterEffects, duplicated the layer several times, then changed the upper layer transfer-mode to ‘multiply.’ that put a bit of the detail back. A bit of fiddling with the curves also helped.

To complete the task, you’d need to mask the audience, then maybe raise the level of that area just a little. You could also build a mask for the right or left side of the frame and tweak each separately.

Jim

[Jim Arcon]

“Secondhand Lions” ran the open titles and the end credits with a theme related to one of the main characters, who was a cartoonist. So we saw sketched-out credits, blobs of ink, names on erasers, etc. …a bit hard to describe. If you’re looking for inspiration, the open and close on this one would be worth renting.

At least one of the Harry Potter movies has end credits that explore a treasure map. So we saw an ‘ancient parchment’ with all the names and titles on it. The camera wandered around following a moving dotted line – maybe the path to the treasure…?

The Beatles movie “Hard Days Night” had the end credits roll over a chase scene (the Fab Four running from a crowd of fans) with the title song playing in the background. The chase scene was not one used in the movie …not expensive or complicated to do.

[Jim Arcon]

Well, duh….

I even tried this before I wrote the question. I guess it was way too late into a very long day.

Thanks for being gentle here – I really missed this one. 😉

[Jim Arcon]

Most consumer level camcorders have way too much edge-enhancement. This is probably done to make a sharp-looking picture, but as you have discovered, it looks way to “edgey” for most purposes.

Some camcorders, particularly higher end ones, have adjustable sharpness controls on one of the setup menus. I don’t know about the FX1 or GS400. It may be called sharpness, edge-enhancement, detail, or even aperature correction on the setup menu.

Barring that, there are plug-ins for AE to blur the edges enough to improve over-enhanced footage. Better to not over-enhance it in the first place if your camera allows it.

[Jim Arcon]

You weren’t specific whether you meant old stuff, or something you shot recently. Handy-cam is also a generic term that has been around for a while and usually refers to any hand-held camcorder.

The “handy-cam look” that you refer to is probably a combination of a number of things, depending on the age and quality of your handy-cam. When I am working on old stuff, I think of overenhanced video with incorrect luminance levels, poor color-balance and saturation, incorrect white balance, inaccurate black-levels, poor audio, video noise, and…. usually a shaky camera-person with a penchant for lots of zooming and panning. Really old camcorders (late 1970-80s) used a striped vidicon for imaging – lots of lag and smear, especially in low-light.

Let me say this first: I have searched-there’s NO magic button, plug-in, or procedure that will make that wobbly hand-held old camcorder footage look as good as a $50K high-end camera on a rock-solid tripod, and run by an experienced camera op.

You can however, make it look better – sometimes a LOT better! You can purchase some plug-ins that might help here – Vixen or Video Finesse (and others) provide proc-amp type controls within older versions of Premiere. Vixen also has the ability to do some picture noise-reduction.

But with a bit of care, you can do most of the same things in Premiere or AE. I tweak the video using levels and saturation controls in Premiere. This has to be carefully done on a scene-by-scene basis. There is significant time involved both in the tweaking of the controls and sometimes the rendering time, but with just the levels control can greatly improve some existing-light video. Premiere and AE also have tools to improve color-balance and saturation. Pro versions of AE come with a very-good video noise reducing filter that works amazingly well on old VHS.

If you really want to burn some time, you could also try someof the built-in audio filters and tweaks to accommodate those built-in microphones in camcorders. There’s even the possibility of stabilizing that old hand-held video (Premiere used to come with I think ?SteadyHand?) You’ll just need to strike a balance between improving the original camera footage and the amount of time it takes to finish the project. On the web and in numerous books, you can find hints and ideas to fix (or at least improve) specific problems with your footage.

I’ve tried to write about this idea a bit on my (rather neglected) blog at http://www.colorburst-video.com, but a half-hour of googling or here at the COW will yield tons of “how to tweak your video” information.

If you are referring to stuff you have yet to shoot, then I would start by recommending an external mike, tripod, and manually white balancing and focusing.

[Jim Arcon]

I’d second a tute on color correction. Something that doesn’t end in “…then adjust it until it looks correct.”

Getting to look ‘correct’ is the real problem. Barend published part-one of a two-parter that was very helpful, but we never got the second edition.

[Jim Arcon]

I have the high-end consumer Panny (maybe E100?) and haven’t had any luck doing what you suggest. I think the DVD recorder is expecting to see a camcorder that it can control. The computer is also expecting to connect to a camcorder that it can control, so they do not work together.

Maybe the next version of DVD recorders?

[Jim Arcon]

Well… like I said “I have heard of a process where you cap the lens, shoot some footage, then subtract that noise from the other footage.” It also occurred to me that at least one photo product (Qimage) has the tool built into the software. Qimage calls it “dark frame.”

Do some searching on astronomical photography – photographing stars and stuff. You would probably use one of the blending modes in AE. A quick poke at Google yielded 1,020,000 hits, the first half-dozen mentioned low-light enhancements.

One technique (https://www.photo.net/learn/dark_noise/) discusses what it terms dark noise. The site calls the technique “calibration” and even gives a recipe for the technique using Photoshop and a low-light still pic.

In any case, all the other caveats apply – amplifying the brightness in any way also amplifies the noise. Removing the noise/grain tends to blur the image a bit. (The temporal control in noise/grain also does same frame to frame averaging that smooths the noise.) But, no matter what you do, it will NOT look as good as if it was shot with more light.

You can (probably) make the images look BETTER using some of the techniques recommended by me and several others in their replies. Some techinques will work better than others on your footage. Don’t be afraid to experiment. But if you have a choice to shoot with more light or a more sensitive camera, it will yield a much better picture than any enhancement you might be able to do.

[Jim Arcon]

My guess is that your camera is a single-chip consumer camera, so you have dark, noisy, and low-color footage. Unfortunately, no amount of post-processing can take your underexposed footage and “…somehow bring my picture out in after effects so it looks properly exposed.”

However, you can probably improve its look. I have had pretty good luck using the shadow/highlights control in AE to improve the exposure (or use Color Finesse if you have it – steep learning curve however.)

The noise filter also makes a significant difference. I usually apply it first, then adjust the exposure. It should get rid of a lot of the noise. It’s a powerful tool and (for me) pretty complicated. It took me quite a bit of experimenting before I really got the hang of it.

For really bad footage, try stacking up two or more layers, then using the screen blending mode. This can improve both the exposure and the color.

Some single-chip imagers in low-light also have a non-random noise pattern. I have heard of a process where you cap the lens, shoot some footage, then “subtract” that noise from the other footage. I have not had any luck there, but the technique is used extensively for astronomical photography (about as low-light as it gets.)

good luck,

Jim