Mike Nicholas
Forum Replies Created
-
One other thing….you can gang a bunch of clips with completely mismatched (or missing) timecodes, create a multi-clip out of them, and then choose to synch them by in-point of each clip. I just did this for a project using consumer DVCams with no matching TC….worked like a charm as long as the shots are continuous. Try it out….
-
Sean’s right. We just worked with Fox on Die Hard, it’s a “logo”.
-
I work in visual effects and finishing, so am a bit biased about which software to use…but believe me, your students will get more out of class if you focus on teaching them concepts and practices rather than “flavor of the month” software. Not saying motion or AE or combustion will become flavor of the month, but you can learn a software package from anyone; your students will rely on you to teach them HOW to make good graphics/ titles / imagery; the tools will change (I’ve had to learn 3 packages in the past 2 years!) but the art and concepts will be forever.
To answer your question, I am partial to AE for motion graphics / logos, Combustion for keying and roto, Shake or Fusion for heavy compositing. That’s my 2 cents, because we use it here everyday for everything from features like Die Hard to commercials for Volkswagen. If I had to focus on one, AE is easily the most marketable, although Combustion is highly specialized and therefore has a built in employer-base. Good luck!
-
oh yes, legals also don’t have a universal rule….ABC likes their legals at 22 scan lines, while NBC likes them nice and tiny at 18 scan lines…the smallest legals I’ve ever placed were 16 scanlines (used on some burger king commercials) and the biggest were 24 (used on a Pacificare ad for retirees). There are some actual laws in effect, I have the nbc code of broadcast lying around someplace, email me and I’ll see if I can send you a copy.
-
Ok, I work on a fire doing finishing, and I know exactly what you’re talking about….those little legals at the bottom of the screen (usually saying something to the effect of “professional driver on a closed course” or “limited time offer, participation may vary based on availability”) are lines of text that commercials running nationally MUST have.
If you’re doing offline work, just put in the text as a place holder (within title safe, like everyone else has said), and you’ll be good. When the finishing house gets the offline, they’ll ask very specific questions to the client, who will then ask their legal department (see, lawyers affect tv too!) about what size the legals are. Your offline will be used as a guide for legal placement, and the online will usually be bit different based on network specs.A common misconception: legals are NOT PIXEL based, they’re measured in scan lines. How do you measure scan lines? on a vector scope, usually by counting the vertical scan lines in the image. The reason point sizes are irrelevant, is because if you measure the point size of helvetica at 18, and then they change the legal to garamond 18, suddenly you’re looking at a different font size.
I deal with legals everyday, but unless you’re going straight to air from your box, don’t worry too much about legal size, just make ’em look pretty and the online editor will make sure they’re the right size and what not…
-
Depends on what you mean by “consumer”…ideally, if this is going to broadcast. you want a broadcast monitor, or else whatever you’re monitoring is just a guess and not the true color/contrast/motion. FYI, a “big deal” capture card is hardly much of an expense. If you’re spending $4K on the macpro, you might as well stick an AJA or decklink card in there for less than a grand…
“Roto is not a skill, it’s a job.”
-
yikes, sorry it I took so long to reply, but I was out of town for a bit…anyways, if you’re using iDVD it will always compress the QT, no matter what you do to it. So you might have a pretty high res movie in your project, but it will be compressed once iDVD encodes it. Studio Pro gets better quality, hands down….
“Roto is not a skill, it’s a job.”
-
What are you burning with? DVD studio pro? iDVD? Depends on how you’re exporting…
-
Simple reason it’s low res: you’re not taking it in/outputting it uncompressed to tape, are you? Unless you’re using a breakout box and a capture card (blackmagic card, AJA card, etc.), it’s compressed. The reason they sell those cards is to get uncompressed, high resolution output from your system. Unless you’re using those cards, and are using them properly, you’re always going low res.
“Roto is not a skill, it’s a job.”
-
[debe] “t might be best for you to offline on your system, and rent a room that is properly set up for creating broadcast masters that also has access to the deck you’ll need for output, and finish in that room.”
I do online editing for a living, and believe me, if you’ve never done this before (and it looks like that’s the case), you’re going to end up screwing your client and yourself. Rent out a finishing room at a facility that knows broadcast specifications. Otherwise, they might have a media buy (buying air time) that will go to waste because they can’t air what you think is MAYBE right.
“Roto is not a skill, it’s a job.”