Commercial shot with A1

Tim Follin · June 1st, 2007, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Naus

wow, I'm impressed with the sfx, nice how the 'ribbon' shines through the tree, could you give any hints on how you did it?

Thanks Jeremy! I don't think I got the glow right really but basically all that's happening is that the glow is added after the trees and sky and fx are composited, and it's set to a threshold that only kicks in with the fx and not the sky, but this is before it's graded - the grade flattens it all so the difference between sky and fx isn't as obvious.

Glenn Thomas · June 1st, 2007, 06:09 AM

Impressive looking clip. The colours look so vibrant. Love the look of those city shots aswell. Just curious, was it difficult to set up lighting for for the outside view of the guy in the window towards the end?

Raul Rooma · June 1st, 2007, 06:19 AM

Very nice indeed!good job.

Doug Davis · June 1st, 2007, 10:01 AM

Spectacular.... Really impressive shots... Even did the reflection of the ribbon thing in the windows... Did you just create two cylinders in 3ds max and render out the videos with an alpha layer? Or did you create those objects in After effects?

Nathan Quattrini · June 1st, 2007, 10:33 AM

Wow! great work! I loved the angles and variation on the shots, very nicely composited as well. Great attention to detail. The one thing I would have improved (unless it was the company standard logo) was the company font on the logo seemed a bit ordinary, like Arial or another regular use font.

Gert Kracht · June 1st, 2007, 03:44 PM

Very nice production. Very professional shoots!
I'm also curious about the ribbon comming from the tree. Did you key on a blue sky and then replaced it with another sky filmed appart from the original?

Please tell us more !

Tim Follin · June 1st, 2007, 04:30 PM

Hi,

Again, really appreciate all these comments, I didn't expect so many - thank you!

Glenn - shooting from outside the building was just about waiting for the right time after sunset, fortunately we had time to wait! We just used two Kinos lighting the actor from the floor inside the office.

Doug - the ribbon effect was an object created in Max and rendered separately for each shot, then composited in AE - the windows reflection was done partly in Max (a bent plane with ray-traced reflections) and then from a freeze of the windows I created a displacement map in AE, which gave the slight difference between windows.

Nathan - totally agree, the logo text was awful, but that's the logo so we had to stick to it. We offered a re-desgin but they didn't bite!!

Gert - the original (ungraded) sky shot was deep blue, and so it was very easy to key out the tree and put the effect behind it. The blue was then desaturated in the grade (it was a bit too video!).

Thanks for all the feedback!

Deke Ryland · June 1st, 2007, 08:04 PM

Hey Tim,

Absolutely fantastic commercial! I love it!!!

May I ask for a little bit of details as to how you were able to export this clip using H.264 with such high quality? Did you use Adobe Media Encoder to export this clip? I'm guessing you are on a windows machine since you are using Premiere Pro. My H.264 encodes have come out absolutely horrible for the most part... very desaturated and washed out. I know there is a 'h.264 bug' of sorts that causes this "gamma-shift" on windows machines, but it seems yours is not having any problems at all.

Any details you could provide to a bit of a lost soul like me with my A1 and PP2.0 and AE7.0 would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank for any help. :)

Tim Follin · June 2nd, 2007, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deke Ryland

Hey Tim,
I know there is a 'h.264 bug' of sorts that causes this "gamma-shift" on windows machines, but it seems yours is not having any problems at all.

Hi, I always got that gamma shift problem when I tried to export directly from AE, so I bought QTpro to try and that solved the problem - now I export from AE using PhotoJpeg at near max quality (it looks virtually uncompressed), then open it with QTpro and export h.264 with that. Also, for some bizarre reason, exporting h.264 at the same quality settings produces a much larger file when exported direct from AE, which completely negates the point of it! This was encoded at 65% quality, with no filters or adjustments.

Deke Ryland · June 2nd, 2007, 05:10 AM

Hey Tim, thanks for the details on your exports. I too tried purchasing QT7 Pro and have been trying that as well, however, my QT7 Pro is producing the same gamma-shift, washed out look as Adobe Encoder does. I just cannot understand what it is that I'm doing wrong. Your video at least gives me hope, since if you can do it, there must be a way for me to do it as well.

I usually export from Premiere Pro my timeline as uncompressed Quicktime, which results in a great looking video. When I open the uncompressed export in QT7Pro, it looks great, as it should, but after encoding the H.264 file, it washes out big time. Any idea on what I might be doing wrong?

And one more quick question... when you export a file for the web, do you encode it using the square (1.0) pixel aspect ratio? Or do you leave the pixel aspect ratio to the native HD anamorphic (1.333)?

Thanks again so much for your time and help. I have been so dissapointed with my exports because of this gamma-shift problem. But you are my lightray of hope.

Adam La Prade · June 2nd, 2007, 07:05 AM

Link's not working....again....

:-P

Uli Mors · June 3rd, 2007, 02:27 PM

me too: link not working...

ULi

James Miller · June 3rd, 2007, 02:47 PM

"This account has exceeded it's bandwidth quota and has been temporarily disabled."

Any chance of a link somewhere else Tim :-)

Stefano Folgaria · June 4th, 2007, 01:12 AM

no it really doesn't work....

Tim Follin · June 4th, 2007, 03:45 AM

Sorry! Long story, 123-reg are idiots, don't sign up with them!

New link (new, much better, host):

http://www.greeneyefilms.com/Debt_Connect_720p_h264.mov

Deke - I'm exporting square pixels, 1280x720 for 720p, but it's probably better to export 1440x1080 anamorphic for 1080p, as exporting the full 1920x1080 is a waste of bandwidth when the image is really only 1440 wide.

June 1st, 2007, 06:09 AM	#17
Glenn Thomas Major Player Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 320	Impressive looking clip. The colours look so vibrant. Love the look of those city shots aswell. Just curious, was it difficult to set up lighting for for the outside view of the guy in the window towards the end? __________________ Personal Website: http://www.avene.org

June 1st, 2007, 10:33 AM	#20
Nathan Quattrini Major Player Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Warwick, Rhode Island Posts: 740	Wow! great work! I loved the angles and variation on the shots, very nicely composited as well. Great attention to detail. The one thing I would have improved (unless it was the company standard logo) was the company font on the logo seemed a bit ordinary, like Arial or another regular use font. __________________ Cinematography Site

June 1st, 2007, 03:44 PM	#21
Gert Kracht Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Ens, The Netherlands Posts: 198	Very nice production. Very professional shoots! I'm also curious about the ribbon comming from the tree. Did you key on a blue sky and then replaced it with another sky filmed appart from the original? Please tell us more ! __________________ http://www.hdvinfo.nl The Dutch forum and website about HDV & Canon XH-A1

June 4th, 2007, 01:12 AM	#29
Stefano Folgaria Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Rome, Italy Posts: 36	no it really doesn't work.... __________________ Canon, Nikon and Apple.. the right Team!

June 1st, 2007, 06:19 AM	#18
Raul Rooma Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Estonia Posts: 113	Very nice indeed!good job.

June 1st, 2007, 10:01 AM	#19
Doug Davis Major Player Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Birmingham Alabama Posts: 259	Spectacular.... Really impressive shots... Even did the reflection of the ribbon thing in the windows... Did you just create two cylinders in 3ds max and render out the videos with an alpha layer? Or did you create those objects in After effects?

June 1st, 2007, 04:30 PM	#22
Tim Follin New Boot Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: MANCHESTER, UK Posts: 15	Hi, Again, really appreciate all these comments, I didn't expect so many - thank you! Glenn - shooting from outside the building was just about waiting for the right time after sunset, fortunately we had time to wait! We just used two Kinos lighting the actor from the floor inside the office. Doug - the ribbon effect was an object created in Max and rendered separately for each shot, then composited in AE - the windows reflection was done partly in Max (a bent plane with ray-traced reflections) and then from a freeze of the windows I created a displacement map in AE, which gave the slight difference between windows. Nathan - totally agree, the logo text was awful, but that's the logo so we had to stick to it. We offered a re-desgin but they didn't bite!! Gert - the original (ungraded) sky shot was deep blue, and so it was very easy to key out the tree and put the effect behind it. The blue was then desaturated in the grade (it was a bit too video!). Thanks for all the feedback!

June 1st, 2007, 08:04 PM	#23
Deke Ryland Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Washington, USA Posts: 213	Hey Tim, Absolutely fantastic commercial! I love it!!! May I ask for a little bit of details as to how you were able to export this clip using H.264 with such high quality? Did you use Adobe Media Encoder to export this clip? I'm guessing you are on a windows machine since you are using Premiere Pro. My H.264 encodes have come out absolutely horrible for the most part... very desaturated and washed out. I know there is a 'h.264 bug' of sorts that causes this "gamma-shift" on windows machines, but it seems yours is not having any problems at all. Any details you could provide to a bit of a lost soul like me with my A1 and PP2.0 and AE7.0 would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank for any help. :)

June 2nd, 2007, 05:10 AM	#25
Deke Ryland Major Player Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Washington, USA Posts: 213	Hey Tim, thanks for the details on your exports. I too tried purchasing QT7 Pro and have been trying that as well, however, my QT7 Pro is producing the same gamma-shift, washed out look as Adobe Encoder does. I just cannot understand what it is that I'm doing wrong. Your video at least gives me hope, since if you can do it, there must be a way for me to do it as well. I usually export from Premiere Pro my timeline as uncompressed Quicktime, which results in a great looking video. When I open the uncompressed export in QT7Pro, it looks great, as it should, but after encoding the H.264 file, it washes out big time. Any idea on what I might be doing wrong? And one more quick question... when you export a file for the web, do you encode it using the square (1.0) pixel aspect ratio? Or do you leave the pixel aspect ratio to the native HD anamorphic (1.333)? Thanks again so much for your time and help. I have been so dissapointed with my exports because of this gamma-shift problem. But you are my lightray of hope.

June 2nd, 2007, 07:05 AM	#26
Adam La Prade Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 77	Link's not working....again.... :-P

June 3rd, 2007, 02:27 PM	#27
Uli Mors Major Player Join Date: May 2006 Location: Germany Posts: 565	me too: link not working... ULi

June 3rd, 2007, 02:47 PM	#28
James Miller Major Player Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Sussex, UK Posts: 317	"This account has exceeded it's bandwidth quota and has been temporarily disabled." Any chance of a link somewhere else Tim :-)

June 4th, 2007, 03:45 AM	#30
Tim Follin New Boot Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: MANCHESTER, UK Posts: 15	Sorry! Long story, 123-reg are idiots, don't sign up with them! New link (new, much better, host): http://www.greeneyefilms.com/Debt_Connect_720p_h264.mov Deke - I'm exporting square pixels, 1280x720 for 720p, but it's probably better to export 1440x1080 anamorphic for 1080p, as exporting the full 1920x1080 is a waste of bandwidth when the image is really only 1440 wide.