Jonathan Ziegler
Forum Replies Created
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Well, when you key out the green in AE, it becomes sort of transparent – you have to render it out to see it I think. I don’t know about Premiere.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Hey no worries, it happens to all of us. I use the size features for things like client avatars and such so I can quickly get a huge logo down to a simple jpeg with a crop and a resize in one go. Then I always forget to clear it… 😉
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Egads! This is a dumb question, but when you have the crop tool selected, look at the tool info up top. There should be “width,” “height,” “resolution” and, on the right, a “clear” button. You likely have “1px” in the width and height fields and should be able to click on “clear” to revert back to the default Crop tool.
Failing that, trash the prefs (Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS5 Settings). Hope that helps.
I am running CS3 on this machine so it may be different with CS5.1.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
It would be nice to have a “stitch together” feature in AE or Premiere, but you will need to use good old fashioned blending and comping such to make it happen, I think.
You will need markers in all of the footage to overlap to make each disparate clip line up (usually part of the background or a dot in the greenscreen or a set piece or something). I would use After Effects for this comp instead of Premiere (I’m not as familiar with Premiere and comps like this in AE are pretty easy to do, but if you know the same technique in Premiere, then go for it). You would start in AE with the comp the final size, import all of your footage, then line them up and run them a couple times to see where you will need to trim out mattes and where to have one clip over the other, etc. If its a really long video, you may want to try breaking clips up to make shorter render times and then edit finals together in Premiere – that’s if your machine is slower.
I read a post a while back with a group that shot a 4K film with multiple DSLR footage combined to form 4K footage. I think it was a short or a video or something like that (couldn’t find the link, unfortunately). This was a year or 2 before all the 4k cameras got released. Now there’s tons of them!
Can you post the clips? Even just 10-15 seconds would be fun to see.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Depends on whether you want a permanent solution or not and what your budget is like. For that size I’d say try using just one wall painted green or use fabric. The height is of concern – 7-1/2 feet is tough because your shots are limited to head-on unless you want to paint the ceiling and floor, but then you may want to look into getting some styrofoam and making an infinity wall and soundproofing the ceiling. The options just keep growing. Cowboy studios on amazon has some good temp options (large 10’x20′ green screen fabric) as does tubetape.com. Shop around and find something to suit your budget and leave room for lights (light green screen separate from talent), soundproofing, camera in various positions, talent, props, etc. consider your workflow in terms of your software, too – how to pull your mattes efficiently will be driven by your setup.
We converted a 2 car garage into a 2 1/2 walled green room with all rounded corners, separate lighting for the walls, soundproofing, etc. it cost a small fortune, but it was worth it. Your eyes get funny with that much green too! 😉
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Charge your regular day rate plus expenses for being gone – phone charges, per diem, etc. I think you should consider work that isn’t getting done with other clients because this client is asking you to set everything aside to work on his project. I would charge a premium for that. In town, I charge a day rate, but for a whole day on a single client project because it’s a rush, I charge 2-3x more a day and more if they don’t cover travel, food, lodging, etc.
I’m putting aside my entire business to focus on their project. Always assume you will need to negotiate down and you can’t go back up. Start high and plan to come down. Start at say $1500 a day plus expenses and negotiate down from there. Who knows, they could say yes.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I have used this guy:
Taylor Davidson
Insurance
The Ruboyianes Company, PLLC
(520) 577-1040Based in Tucson but he handles insurance all over the place. He can definitely point you in the right direction if he can’t help you. We used him for production insurance for a 20 day shoot with similar policy limits.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I search for the same equipment at rental houses for the same time frame, subtract shipping charges and discount by about 25%. I consider everything negotiable and, as such, you can always bring your price down, but you can’t bring it back up. If they freak and say its too much, ask them what they consider more reasonable and the negotiations begin. Plan to meet somewhere in between their number and yours.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I picked up a really cheap 7″ in-car DVD LCD for about $60 and an inexpensive HDMI to RCA converter for $30 for my t2i. My goal was just to position the camera for a job I had made. Since I knew the signal wasn’t clean from the camera and I just needed positioning, it made perfect sense not to spend a lot. I shoot with one of a few “flat” cine settings most of the time and I plan to correct colors later in fcp so just getting positioning and framing is important. I can’t control focus real well when using the jib either so there are loads of reasons not to spend a lot.
If you feel your use of a monitor is crucial to your workflow, then get what you can afford. The nice thing is that your $1200 monitor will be useful for a long time whereas my quick fix probably won’t.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Wow, I can’t believe you found this one. This video is one of the many reasons I switched to Mac many years ago. I was using Video Toaster on a now-ancient Amiga I was borrowing from a friend (he still uses it for web videos, too!) when I saw this video! Yeah, I was switched to FCP not too long after that, but the big switch was when OSX came out and I officially abandoned Windows.
Thanks for posting this! I remember what video was like then, but it seems like so much longer ago than that.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293