Jonathan Ziegler
Forum Replies Created
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Hey there, you may also want to just shoot a glass pane with a plain black background (or make one in AE) and add water drops to it. I would first comp the glass on black and adjust the blur to match your green plate first, then comp the 2 together. This may actually be easier without the green one you already have.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
It depends largely on what look you are going for. Is the floor thick carpet, tile, hardwood? Presumably carpet for floor. What’s the shot? Is it wide, med, closeup? What’s the lighting like? There are going to be complex 3D solutions and practical solutions too.
The way it was done in the good old days of film before 3d apps, it was dummy earth that fell down in a shoe shape to appear as of it was being pushe down by some weight.
I would shoot the same shot of the carpet at the same angle as another shot of shoe shapes – have an actor walk in paint and then on some paper on the floor. May new to make it in Photoshop. Then take the image of the footsteps and over lay the carpet shot to match the perspective. Reveal footsteps one by one in AE as shadows on the carpet. It may not look like the carpet is being pushed down, but it will give with the settings and look at what actual carpet being pressed down looks like say under plexiglass.
Experiment a bit and you’ll come up with something that will work.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Heh, upgrades are a really loaded question. I agree, I think you should upgrade to CS5 (or 5.5), but that may not be an option. Honestly, if you plan to do video for any length of time, think about getting a machine dedicated to that purpose – no email, internet, contact list, MS Office, games, etc. You want a workhorse that doesn’t have a million things on it, mucking up the registry, taking up RAM, etc. This is true if you use PC or Mac.
I was going to launch into a bunch of needlessly drawn out drivel about how I love Macs, but I won’t. Lucky you. 😉 Truth is, both PC and Mac platforms have great, viable configurations for not too much money.
If you have a laptop, upgrades are often difficult or limited. First, see if you can upgrade your video card (probably not if its a laptop – desktop systems have the advantage there) or increase RAM (max your RAM). I’ve seen a lot done on poorly configured machines, but RAM and video memory are gonna be key factors. Check out the hard drive – can you upgrade to a faster drive (ie: you may have a 5400RPM 32M cache 2.5″ SATA drive- can you install a bigger drive that spins at 7200RPM with a bigger cache?). May seem small, but when you are dealing really big video files that stream out at 100s of megabits per second, every little bit helps. If you can get 8GB of RAM on your machine, it can really help.
RAM will help your video editor handle its job, video memory will offload processor time to a dedicated graphics CPU, and a bigger, faster hard drive will help shift data from RAM-to-drive and back and drive-to-drive. Also, you may be able to upgrade your CPU, but these are usually pretty limited and you may have to reinstall your OS.
Finally, check the various Cow hardware forums for info on PC, Mac, video card, RAM, hard drive, et al, configurations.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Try selling them on renting a Phantom or other high-speed camera. They shoot a broad variety of frame rates, but take some getting used to.
You can fake and tweak footage a la Twixtor, but it won’t work well when there’s only a few frames of action and 60fps just won’t give you the look you want. You need a specialty camera.
Short exercise: How fast does the object travel when it reaches the target? You’re gonna need to know that, then the relative size of the area you want to shoot. Get the velocity down to # feet per second. Example: a ball moving at 30MPH equals about 20 ft/sec. If you are shooting a space 2’x2′, the object will pass by in about 1/10 of a second. At 60fps, you’ll get about 6 frames. If you wanted a nice 5 second slo mo clip, you’d have to shoot at 1500fps (150 frames / (0.1 sec) = 1500 frames/sec). Now, you can shoot at something like 1000 fps and use FCP to make up the missing frames which would work – you can make up a few frames between existing frames, but not hundreds. Maybe someday you’ll be able to, but for now, nope.
Long story short: you ‘ll need to rent a high-speed camera to do what you want. It won’t be cheap and if you’ve never shot with a high-speed camera, it will take some getting used to – you’ll start using formulas like the crude ones above.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Depending on how adventurous you are with your camera(s), you can download and install Magic Lantern which will disable your AGC. I’ve used it. It works. I still prefer recording to an external source – my H4n. To improve overall audio when NOT using Magic Lantern, I use this: Audio Technica ATR-6550 Video Camera Condenser Shotgun Microphone – Works nice for getting better camera audio then sync up with PluralEyes in FCP.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I suspect this is getting into larger hardware and software issues. I’ve run into many of these issues myself. When editing on my laptop, I cant play HD at full res either – it like 1/2 or 1/4 res. Part of this issue is that my laptop runs an intel core 2 duo with 3gb of RAM and a so-so graphics card. I’m also on a Mac. Sounds like you have a PC. look up the specs for your video/graphics card and you’ll see real fast what you may need. Don’t worry, you can always work around hardware and software issues it may just take longer.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
It sounds like the footage may be okay, but you need to convert/transcode to an editing format – something like prores for the Mac or cineform for the PC. You can use MPEG stream clip to transcode footage – https://www.squared5.com/ – the only app that let’s me take badly converted avchd footage and convert to prores.
Canon DSLRs use a modified AVCHD – basically MPEG4 with an h.264 wrapper, but using a variable bit rate and some nicer bells and whistles for better quality than AVCHD. This is what the Canon guy told me anyway and some I had already guessed. Anyhow, the point is that the footage is pretty compressed to begin with and getting it to run with no changes on most machines is trying. Some players handle h.264 / mp4 better than others, too, but get your footage to where you can edit it, do your titles, transitions, fx, etc, then export to whatever format you need. Until FCP X come out I guess… I know I’ll have to buy a new machine… 😉
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Try the stuff from Audio Technica -the have a hotshot mounted mic that uses a 1/8″ jack that works great. I still use external audio though (h4n). $30 via Amazon I think.
For the cost for now, I’m still not impressed with LED lights versus CFLs. I like a good daylight balanced CFL in a cheap clamp light. $20 with light, but get more bulbs. Look up the 150W 5500k CFL on Amazon.
Wide angle lens – skip it, get a converter instead. They run like $15. If you plan to do a whole lot of wide angle shooting, then get an actual lens otherwise I say use a converter.
Until you know exactly what you need, try a cheap tripod before you buy all kinds of expensive equipment you don’t know you’ll need. DSLRs are really small and a high-end tripod is overkill most of the time. Then again, I build my own camera mounts and rigs.
Why does everyone want a steady cam? It’s like people think it’s the only way to get a shot. After you spend weeks getting used to shooting with it, you won’t want to put it on unless you reall have to. Try a shoulder rig before a steadicam, or any of a wide variety of other rigs (DIY or otherwise) before you “settle” on a steadicam. I honestly think of steadicams as specialized equipment and they require a ton of practice before you can really get a good shot – they don’t work great out of the box, they take a subtle, gentle hand, lots of patience, etc. Really think hard before you buy all the equipment that makes you look like like you know what you are doing – get in the shooting practice so you can be a great shooter no matter what equipment you have. Seriously, forget the steadicam for now.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
I really like these steadicam type devices, but they take a lot of getting used to and adjustments. I find them nice for certain shots, but they kill the documentary feel I think (too steady) and they require setup time which can be anathema to a run-n-gun style. I have made my own steadicams before with marginal results. Honestly, after the time and effort, I think the glidecam and Varizoom products are good and worth the cost. I don’t use them, tho. I like shoulder mounted stabilizers to smooth
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293 -
Wow, yeah I run into the same things here in Tucson. Nobody has any in stock so if you’re in a pinch, you’re screwed. I pickup cheap class 10s on the web all the time for use as my regular cards and as backups. I can usually get off brand class 10 cards in 8 or 16 gb for as little as $15 for 8 and 25 for a 16. Check out https://www.supermediastore.com. They carry mostly blank cd/DVD/bluray, but they’ll have fairly regular specials on SDHC cards. I get class 10s because even the cheap class 10s will work in my cameras with no over heat issues.
Jonathan Ziegler
https://www.electrictiger.com/
520-360-8293