[Ritchie Mellor]

And what are wrong with Star Wipes exactly Todd??? ????????????

I agree with all your points, and I do want the audio as good as it can be. Given the way in which we are doing things and having looked at the work you do, I can see that there is as large disparity in the two, your videos are obviously professional and have a different purpose to what we are trying to achieve. That said, it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t want our videos to look as good as yours, so I will take on board what you have said, after all, that is why I asked for your opinions, you guys know what you are doing and do it to a very high standard, and I am fumbling around trying to make the best of bad situation.

I guess what I am wanting is to be better than our competition in the local area, and do something that is more than what they produce video wise, which is videos straight from phones without any post production or thought beyond capturing it. Does that make sense?

[Ritchie Mellor]

Again, this is a constraint we have as generally there is just the band, but I am trying to work out the least conspicuous locations for them!

So would you recommend the budget action cams and just interpret to 24fps then as opposed to the GoPros? Obviously lighting conditions arent great so wondering if thats another factor to account for?

Ritchie

[Ritchie Mellor]

Hi Mark, as with Todd, thank you for taking the time to give such a lengthy and detailed response to my post, it really is appreciated!

I have to say I agree completely on the sound, it is killing me that we are having to deal with the quality we are when we are using the gear we have going through the very expensive PA! I have had a look an a Zoom H4n is on order. That way I can run out from the desk and do the ambient in one hit, and hopefully this will correct this element of it. I was hopefully that the audio I could get would be more than good enough for what I wanted to achieve, and with the iPhone it is definitely better than the GoPros, but I know its not where it needs to be really. I was tempted to spill a drink on the desk so we have to buy a new one that multitrack recording, but think the Zoom is probably a better solution ????

I have read good things about the Filmic Pro app, and will get it, however its limited as to when that will be there and as its the girlfriend using it (see previous vodka statement!) its not going to be a key element in the production, only something that add an additional angle and element to the mix.

One reason I got the GoPro Blacks and not the cheaper 4k knock offs was the fact they don’t shoot at 24fps, and I wanted to get the vids shot at this. I had read bad things about interpretting footage from 30 to 24 and wasn’t sure if it would give good results. Obviously I could get 4 knock offs for the price of 1 GP Hero 7 Black, so do you think it is worth it and just deal with the frame conversion?

I have bought a load of cheap accessories to mount them, as well as a few of the lightweight Gorillapods and they work well, but being limited to 2 cameras at the moment, I am putting one behind to capture the venue and crowd and one facing us to capture the band like in this vid (the second camera is the iphone and girlfriend on this one). I have two gigs I have recorded that I need to do videos for that will show the angles, one of which I moved the 2nd camera around between sets. I am still trying to find out what works!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1WPuvKXQrs

One thing that concerns me with angles and what you have said is basically theft or damage. Obviously they are not cheap (especially when adding in mounts, memory cards etc…) and having them in close proximity to people that are drunk is always a worry, or worse that they get stolen, so I do have to be careful in terms of where they are located. And as I said to my reply to Todd, in Britain if you have a camera up, then its like an invite for people to start acting the fool directly in front of them!

Thank you once again for the reply and the assistance, I really hope I have clarified our situation a bit more, but I have definitely taken on board what you are saying. I just need to now convince the GF to use the gimbal because she says she feels a fool walking around with it!

Ritchie

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Ritchie Mellor]

Thank you Todd for taking the time to not just reply, but to give me such a detailed response.

So, the crazy effects you are on about was the “Human” video only, and I wanted to do something a bit different to the rest of the videos we post. I loved the camera angle, however the crowd in the bar weren’t really cooking that night, so flipping between angles to the cam looking out would have kind of killed the mood. It’s certainly not something I would do on other videos, and I transition it out to the normal video when it kicks into the pre-chorus / chorus. It probably is overdone and I’m suffering from the noob mistake of “oooh, that looks cool” and slapping it on with all the care and delicacy of a wrecking ball. The guys in the band love it because it is something different, but then again they are love an automated iMovie video, so that kind of gives you an idea of why I am trying to do things a bit better ????????

The lighting is something that is really hard to deal with, and I have improved it on the last couple of vids by using the exposure control on the GoPro to kill “some” of the more blown out elements, and I do set them so they aren’t constantly changing settings. What is difficult with the lighting is that we are being paid to play, so the shooting has to be subtle and not really get in the way (however maybe I am being to sensible here, I am sure people wouldn’t mind that much!). What I will say though is that we want to make it look good for the audience primarily, and we do not want to say that we are recording because we will just get drunken muppets trying to find them and shove their faces in front. We are in Britain and shove a camera in the vicinity of someone with a belly full of beer and they are off on one! Many of the videos I have had to blur people dancing in front of the camera (when it was just shot on the iPhone) or use the 4k and crop in trick to try and not have the shot lost.

I agree completely with the sound, and it is what has disappointed me most about the videos. The sound from the iPhone is much better than from the GoPros which is far too bass heavy (in part from their locations which are not exactly conducive to getting the full frequency range!), but I appreciate that even then its not wonderful. I have tried playing with the EQ but I know its not going to cut the mustard. I think the fact that they are clearly shot how they are shot does allow a bit of “forgiveness” from the viewer because they know it is a phone recording, but if I up the video production quality then I know I have to do more for the audio. A lot more in fact! The Zoom H4n is on order!

What I will say is that this element has up to know been more of a case of seeing if we could get something decent without impacting on what we are doing. Generally there is not someone else there to help us, it is just the three of us, and if I do have my girlfriend along and she can get some shots on my iPhone, well I do have to correct the video position somewhat by recording in 4k and zooming / reframing due to the “vodka coefficient”! And out of all of us, it is only me that can do anything with the vids, so it has been a proof the other boys in the band that doing this is worthwhile. But the band have seen the benefit of the vids and as such are more understanding of the need to do things a bit different to get the recordings looking well.

I hope that this doesn’t sound like I am making excuses or not listening to your points, I guess I am just trying explain some of the constraints that we currently face, and how we are trying to make the best of the situation. I would love to have others there that I could trust to assist in the filming!

Kind regards

Ritchie

[Ritchie Mellor]

Thank you b

[Ritchie Mellor]

Thanks for the response.

I am at a point of trying ANYTHING! I read about reversing speed caused an issue, so was having a play.

Even just brining footage in and altering speed does it.

Will just process the speed part in AE, but really want to know why this is happening.

[Ritchie Mellor]

So, still messing around with this, and it seems to be linked to the speed / duration and time remapping options. Everything is fine until I change the speed of a clip and then that clip is choppy. I have set a clip at 120%, reverse field order, processing with None, Always Delinterlace and Remove Flicker, no difference. I have tried Render and Replacing, Render In/Out, just not making a difference, but if I chance the speed back to 100%, its perfect again, so that is definitely the issue. Same issue if using GPU or Software Renderer. Using Frame Blend does improve things, but still looks funky.

[Ritchie Mellor]

Okay, so I have used Media Browser to find one of the source clips and dragged that into the timeline to create a sequence, exported with previous settings and its smooth as I want!

Checked Sequence settings for both this and y original and they are identical! So NOW I’m even more confused!

[Ritchie Mellor]

okay, so I have rendered just a source clip and the results are smooth as I want them, so definitely something funky is happening in Premiere. I sped up the footage using Speed/Duration, but the results are the same, so not that.

My export settings are

Width: 1920
Height: 1080
FR: 29.97
Field: Progressive
Aspect: Square
TV Standard: Based On Source
Profile: High
Level: 4.2

Render At Max Depth: Off

Bitrate: VBR, 2 Pass
TBM: 16
MBM: 16

Key Frame Distance: Off

Use Max Render Quality: Off
Use Previews: Off
Use Frame Blending: Off

[Ritchie Mellor]

Have swapped footage and it’s still jerky like in the video, checked frame rate on source, stabilised and sequence. Also done the export through AME. Any ideas??