Make videos more "dreamy"

[Prech Marton]

I have several footage of trees, lakes, clouds, sunsets, etc..
With my friend we make a relaxation dvd, he write the music, i'm the cameraman.
The videos looks good, but for this type of work is too "realistic".
720x576x50 fps interlaced, shooted with xm2, so the colors are nice and vibrant.
But, if we want more "dreamy" video, what effect do you suggest in post processing?
I dont want to deinterlace, because the motion is smoother with interlaced footage.

Do i have to change the gamma or the levels? Add a soft focus effect?
Maybe a trail shadow? What can i do (in vegas)?

thank you,
Marton

[Rob Lohman]

I would first work on softening / blurring / adding glow to your
piece. Glow might work wonders. Deinterlacing would really
help and really should not cause the motion to be less smooth
if done correctly.

[Prech Marton]

What do you mean, correctly?
Progressive video is 25 full frame/sec, and interlaced is 50 half/sec, so i can see twice more pictures. I don't like progressiv video on TV, and yes, i even don't like the film's 24 fps.
Panning isn't smooth enough.

Thanks for the glowing tip.

[Rob Lohman]

Well no, you do not see twice more pictures. You see exactly as
many pictures as what you see with progressive. What you are
correct about is that motion has more time available to show and
thus stutter less, ofcourse this motion is at 50% resolution.

If you don't like then you don't. There is a difference in the quality
in which the way de-interlacing is done. I would check Vegas
project settings before dismissing this option so fast, you can
choose from: blend fields (default) and interpolate fields.

Again, if it's not for you then by all means don't use it. Anyway,
experimenting with such sequences is key to find the look you
are after / are comfortable with / works for your project.

Settings that I might like for my dream project might not work
for yours. Good luck and fun with your experimenting!

[Ben Lynn]

I think that your options are pretty limited if you don't want to de-interlace your footage. That is probably the biggest way to make the footage feel less 'realistic'.

I think that anything that you do in post is going to leave it rather harsh. You may want to start looking into some Tiffen Soft Diffusion filters and really focus on the production end of capturing the footage.

Ben Lynn

[Ian Stark]

How about the Pixelan filters? Specifically StepMotion and StepTime. $99 download and there is a demo at www.pixelan.com.

The reason I mentioned it is that there are a couple of presets called Dreamy1 and Dreamy2!

Might be a bit over the top for what you are looking for but you never know.