[Max Palmer]

Todd- doing shorter takes, and being able to switch between the takes with cuts would be ideal. I’m hoping I can script it so that this is easy for us to do. Also another reason why I wanted to explore the multiple-camera route, so that we can concentrate on getting good takes recorded, instead of re-shooting just for the purpose of angles. More complicated for sure, but might be better in the end.

Just sort of weighing my options!

[Max Palmer]

Mark- do you know of any examples of that sort of setup I could look at?

Are you talking about two cameras, or three? If I could manage it with one cam, that would actually be best, but I wasn’t sure how well I’d be able to do it. But yes, all in all, it’s a just-for-kicks, low stake piece, and if it’s less than stellar, nobody will know or even care. But practice is practice!

[Max Palmer]

So if I shoot at 1080, put it into a 720 file, you think I’ll have enough resolution to play with if I’m shooting both newscasters at once?

Does anyone know offhand how much I can scale a 1080 file up in a 720 project, percentage wise?

Thanks for the suggestion! It certainly would make my life easier if I did it that way.

[Max Palmer]

Well, I guess it does come down to RAM! My company will be getting us new machines soon anyway, so then I will get an opportunity to stuff it chock full of memory.

I guess what I’m trying to accomplish is taking my edited footage from a series of interviews, and exporting to AE for motion graphics and titles. From now though, I think I may just export from Premiere, which doesn’t take too long, and then just bring the exported video files into AE. I don’t ever use DL to go from AE to Premiere though. Do I have to worry about caching then?

[Max Palmer]

That does make a lot of sense, thanks for the suggestion!

[Max Palmer]

Thanks Andrey- after fussing around yesterday, I was able to get the effect to work great with Trapcode 3d Stroke.

But, that second method- you’re saying that you can apply the stroke effect to a path on a shape layer, and then animate the stroke? I’ve never used that technique, but I will try it in the future.

[Max Palmer]

That’s a great writeup Mark. Definetly gives me something to think about!

The footage is in 1080i, and I’ll most likely be outputting down to DVD, so I definetly have some wiggle room if I want to do some panning or dollies.

[Max Palmer]

Hm, good to know I’m overthinking things- as usual!

Thanks for the other suggestions too- all helpful!

[Max Palmer]

So what would be the method of choice, if say, I was panning across a scene that went from an area that was darker, to an area that was lighter? Let the camera auto-iris, manually adjust iris, or just leave the iris alone and let some parts of the picture blow out?

[Max Palmer]

That’s very helpful, thank you!