[Kevin Camin]

I don’t know about the particles in AE. But I personally would do them in Cinema 4D and it would be pretty easy. But it seems like he did do it in AE somehow.

For the flashing grid: I’m sure he built the black grid in Illustrator and the flashing is just a pattern that moves up it. The pattern is animated to jump a line’s width each time and either has its opacity adjusted or is in a blend mode.

This is off topic, but that video lacks cohesive vision. Please don’t do stuff like that.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

I don’t know what to say about the cinematography. You shot a lot of b-roll type footage on an overcast day; to me it’s not particularly engaging out of context. It would be nice to see how it fits into telling a story.

The first two shots work with the Magic Bullet presets. I won’t go so far as to say it looks like a Hollywood movie. I think most serious color graders don’t use preset software. They manually massage the picture into their vision with pro software; much like one using Photoshop uses masks, adjustment layers, blending modes, etc. to target parts of the picture with a fine brush. Preset software is often heavy handed and lacks secondary correction control. I think this preset software is for aspiring filmmakers or for working professionals who wear many hats at a company and who are not color grading specialists, but are sort of required to do some type of grading–this is usually not high end stuff.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

Your effects sort of feel pasted on and not really part of the scene.

I might shrink your canvas a little bit and add a wiggle expression to your camera to make it look hand held. And then, when the energy and lightning effects hit, I would ramp up the shake.

The scene’s lighting should change when blue energy enters the scene. Tinting part of the scene that color would help.

On a different note. I would move your camera angles around the room a little. The jump cuts are very disconcerting and confusing.

I know your intention is not to make a Hollywood caliber X-Men film, but I feel your piece still has very far to go to get the intended chuckle you want from people. Go to videocopilot.net and watch some of his tutorials on effects work. Pay close attention to the little details he focuses on, which in the end, sell the effects.

Good luck.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

Just for the basic understanding of how light works,”Light, Science and Magic”.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

Hi Phil,

I think you are referring to an 18% gray card, or more accurately a 12% gray card (12% will give you a photographic middle gray).

The problem is that it doesn’t address the dynamic range of the scene. He could have black being crushed or diffuse whites being blown out. This is where a hand held spot meter would be useful. Or at least examining a histogram of the scene to see if clipping is occurring.

Cinematography or photography is all about the control of light to meet an expressive end. Everything needs to be examined and considered, unless you are doing bottom shelf ‘run and gun’ work with no concern for quality.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

I agree with Peter that you should shoot cleanly and do everything is post. It will take a lot of work in post to make it convincing. One thought is that you might want to rent a Bolex film camera and shoot on B&W reversal film and fluctuate the frames per second while shooting. There is a place in my city, Minneapolis, where you could send it to for development and digital transfer. You would be 3/4 of the way there by this method. You could probably do all this for a couple hundred bucks (rental, film stock, transfer).

One other thought is that the mis-en-scene of those period films had an aesthetic distinctly their own. Their set design was almost like the stage of a play. The acting style of that time was still heavily rooted in theater style acting and appears over the top to us today, but made perfect sense to audiences back then. Make-up and hair was of a certain flavor. I’m sure you or the director is thinking about all this but thought I would lay it out as well.

Good luck!

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

Ok, good luck with that. I don’t think it is ‘fine’ or a professional or a reliable way to work. I would look into analyzing exposure on a deeper, professional level and then you would never ask this question on a forum.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

I want to add that the pop out screen alone on a video camera would never be an accurate way to judge a scene. The 80 and 100 zebra patterns would be used to access maxed out white levels on traditional video cameras, and the video signal would be run through a waveform monitor to judge the health of the entire signal.

On a DSLR, it is just like taking still photographs or shooting with cinema film cameras. There are plentiful ways to analyze the scene but they all go above eye balling a 3″ LCD with its own independent brightness level. Just like any filming, I’d be worried about crushing my blacks or blowing out my highlights (unless they are specular or I’m aimed right at a bright light source).

Good luck.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

You could always take a still and analyze the histogram to make sure you are getting a healthy exposure. You are shooting highly compressed footage that doesn’t hold up well to a lot of exposure and color correction; they recommend getting it as right as possible in camera.

I meter my scenes with a hand-held light meter.

Best regards,

Kevin Camin

[Kevin Camin]

In the future I would try to white balance your camera before you shoot. You are shooting highly compressed footage (h.264) and it doesn’t hold up well in post to dramatic color work. They recommend trying to get it right in camera because of this fact.

Anyways, I agree with another poster that your color grade is still not fully corrected. Below is a quick and dirty correction I did to assure you that all your color is there.

https://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii281/kevinkamin77/ColorGrade.jpg

I recommend taking some courses at Lynda.com on Final Cut Pro color grading. Or if you have ‘Color’ even better. It’s only $25 a month, with no contract, and worth every penny. I am not affiliated with Lynda.com in any way, but the site has been a bit part of why I am a working creative professional. They have complete comprehensive courses which is a lot better than getting snippits off Youtube by random wannabes.

Good luck!

Best regards,

Kevin Camin