[Scott Rachal]

After Effects has 2 plug-ins included with the software: “Audio Spectrum” and “Audio Waveform”
They are very customizable…

crow

[Scott Rachal]

You need to study color temperature, and avoid mixing different temps in your shots. Usually the first indicators of amature production are scenes lit with tungsten light that show blue exterior light (through a window, on the ceiling, back or sidelighting your actors…). it smacks of “Here we are, let’s shoot!” without regard for taking the time to color correct your lights to match your environment. If you want to step up a level, that is one area you can improve quickly and cheaply.

crow

[Scott Rachal]

If you need a cheaper model try this place. These turntables are made for product displays, trophys ect…
They are definitely more delicate than the welding table above, we use ours with a ultimatte blue painted wood top for product shots.

https://www.vue-more.com/index.html

[Scott Rachal]

I’ve used one method that is an extra step, but makes thngs a lot easier.

(I assume that the band did a good job of syncing their performance to the CD playback. If they were sloppy, there is not musch you can do to fix that…)

1) Digitize all of the takes, and place each take on a timeline. (Set up the timeline timecode to match the camera timecode)
2) Place the master cd track you will be cutting to on the timeline.
3) Sync the beginning.
4) Watch the playback.
5) If the music gets out of sync, snip 1 frame from the music about 5 or ten seconds before the point where the music is noticiably out of sync. If it gets worse, un-do the snip insert a break edit, and add 1 frame.
6) Repeat until the song syncs to the end of the take.
7) If you have access to the camera originals, edit the music from your fixed timelines onto 1 track of the camera master. (Be careful not to erase your master…DUH!)
8) Redigitize the takes with the new synced audio track
9) PROFIT!

When you start to edit, edit in the music from the digitized footage onto the timeline along side the master music track you are editing to. Any sync problems will be readily audible when played with the master music track.

If you don’t have access to the camera originals, or you are hesitant to attempt to alter them, export your fixed timelines as footage, and edit using them as source.

[Scott Rachal]

Here’s what I did on a Lottery spot to go in and out of “dream land”

https://www.vidox.com/sample/Holdem_Poker.mov

in this case, a big, growing lens flare got us into the dream sequence, and the yelling audio carried us back to reality.

[Scott Rachal]

Backing up to the shooting part… Go to the SDX900 menus, and set one of the user buttons on the side of the camera to “Y GET”, also make
sure the viewfinder has a cross hair in the middle of the image.

Pressing the “Y GET” button acts as a temorary spot meter at the crosshair location. Light the green screen first, and make sure your green
screen reads 50% when you press the “Y GET” button.

Bring in your talent, (or a stand-in) and light your foreground WITHOUT touching the iris. When the foreground looks good be careful,
because light for your FG elements may have spilled onto the green screen and brightened it. Try to keep the green at 50%

In a perfect world, the green would be 50% edge to edge, but here in the real world, I usually end up with a 48%-52% variation
in the green brightness.

Of course… make sure with a test ahead of time that those levels will work with your particular image path and keying technology.
Here, we shoot SDX900 50 mb 24P (30p when I want to slow down to 24p for a soft slo-mo look).
Import footage thru SDI uncompressed, key in Aftereffects w/Keylight.

Also in the studio, we shoot SDI Direct out of the SDX900 uncompressed into our FCP Workstation via the optional SDI output card we bought with the camera.

-scott

[Scott Rachal]

Brilliant!

[Scott Rachal]

“Have you tried starting with a sequence preset that matches your 1920×1080 footage (rather than a 1440×1080 sequence)”

Yes, that’s how I started, but I ended up with 16×9 anamorphic footage.

I want the middle of the 16×9 frame, throwing away the edges of the widescreen picture (The footage was shot for SD 4×3 delivery, with 4×3 framing) That’s why, on my second try, I tried the 1440×1080 sequence.

I am worknig with a production company that is being dragged kicking and screaming into HD production. They normally shoot incredible, gorgeous 35mm film, transfer at a fine transfer house with a skilled colorist, and deliver footage to me on SD Digital Betacam 4×3. Any framing decisions were made in the transfer, and I would edit the footage on Avid or FCP, and deliver a finished spot.

They are being pressured into shooting HD, and I get to hear all of the complaints from this DP used to shooting 35mm film, with an optical reflex eyepiece, all of the expected follow focus, prime lenses, separate audio recorder, and a camera assistant in charge of film loading, gate checking, exposure setting and all that.

Now, he has to make sure the audio is in the camera, the pro-35 adapter makes the camera setup “Five feet long”, (He forgot to turn on the spinning ground glass on a couple of takes), he can’t see crap thru the b/w eyepiece, etc. And by the time they add all of the add-ons they are used to with 35mm shooting, the camera costs more than a 35mm rig. And the footage I get looks worse, because it hasn’t had the added value of a 3-5 hour colorist/transfer session.

All valid complaints, in my view. And for all of this, the clients expect to pay a much reduced price for the production, because “Hey, its video now…video is cheap!!!”

[Scott Rachal]

I think I have isolated the problem to the BlackMagic CODEC.
BlackMagic footage keys fine in AE6, but has the edge problem in AE7.

I will send a test file to you at the Foundry.

-scott

[Scott Rachal]

All the settings are the same, in fact, I opened the 6.0 file in AE 7, so nothing changed.
I have also encountered this in a project I started in 7.0, so I don’t think its an
‘opening a 6.0 file in 7.0’ kind of thing.

The problem is only in the edges, not within confines of the keyed image, so I
don’t suspect AE’s 3:2 pulldown removal.

I’ll look into the pre-blur defaults for Keylight. Maybe those are different in AE7.

-Scott