DVC5 Feed Back "The Dream Stone"

Scott Cozad · April 18th, 2006, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bradley L Marlow

Seriously- Scott. You were the QT Bloated Fuzzies guy? I remember that post. It looks like you and I posted in your thread at almost the same time. I use a mac too and while it was a difficult download, I managed.

PP 1.5? Can you spell that one out for this uninformed individual?

Bradley, I wasn't the guy who started the bloated fuzzies thread, but I did run into the same problem.

Also, PP 1.5 is Premiere Pro 1.5.

Thanks.

Scott Cozad · April 18th, 2006, 09:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Philip Gioja

I felt a little bit weird about the fact that he knew right where to go to find the dream stone, and while the stereo effects were good effects, I couldn't find a motivation for them -- were they cars on a highway, jets flying over, or just dreamy/weird dream noises?

I suppose I was trying create an other-wordly feel with the stereo effects. Plus, it's a dream, so not everything makes sense.

Sean McHenry · April 19th, 2006, 08:16 AM

I seem to recall they were triple points if we used the dreaded cell phone...

I liked it too. It's pace and lack of motion in some scenes remid me of those bad Sci-Fi films on late at night or on slow Sundays on the Sci-Fi channel. Some of those things, like when they are waiting for a monster to pop out of a closet or something, seem to take a bit too long to happen. That would be a great thing in a spoof of Sci-Fi. I'll have to remember that.

I could also see the matte work in the initial mirror and later scenes. The concept was good however. I think there is an auto-match in Premiere that might have helped with the color and luminance balance to get the two overlapping images to look better. Also, if you have the option, use a soft border. It will disguize the edges much better. I try to use wipes to do a simple split screen. Sometimes you have to use a diagonal or other odd pattern to do it, like I did in mine.

You might also be able to create your own wipe patterns from a mask, like they do in some aftermarket plugins. You could actually draw your shape in photoshop, import it and use it as a wipe pattern and still use a soft edge. Very similar to mattes.

Overall, I like good B&W. If you had used a plugin to "age" it a bit, it would have had an old Sci-Fi movie feel to it even more.

I like the flare for the stone.

Sean McHenry

Scott Cozad · April 24th, 2006, 12:24 PM

OK, here's a Quicktime version (as promised). At 59 MB it's still a bit large. It took me 5-10 minutes to download with a cable modem. I'll see if I can generate a smaller version without scarificing too much

http://slygo.com/vids/dreamstone000.mov

Also, here a 19 MB Windows Media Version. The sound quality is off just a bit, but it's not too bad, I guess.

http://slygo.com/vids/ds19.wmv

Scott Cozad · April 24th, 2006, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

I liked it too. It's pace and lack of motion in some scenes remid me of those bad Sci-Fi films on late at night or on slow Sundays on the Sci-Fi channel.

If you are referring to the lack of motion in the intial dream sequence, that was due to some shaky camera work on my part. TO cut it out I had to use stills from the footage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

I could also see the matte work in the initial mirror and later scenes. The concept was good however. I think there is an auto-match in Premiere that might have helped with the color and luminance balance to get the two overlapping images to look better. Also, if you have the option, use a soft border. It will disguize the edges much better. I try to use wipes to do a simple split screen. Sometimes you have to use a diagonal or other odd pattern to do it, like I did in mine.

You might also be able to create your own wipe patterns from a mask, like they do in some aftermarket plugins. You could actually draw your shape in photoshop, import it and use it as a wipe pattern and still use a soft edge. Very similar to mattes.

The visible matte work is what I was so disappointed with. I played around with the auto-match effect but really couldn't get it to work for me. I tried to match the colors manually, eventually having to settle for what you saw because I was just running out of time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean McHenry

Overall, I like good B&W. If you had used a plugin to "age" it a bit, it would have had an old Sci-Fi movie feel to it even more.

Premiere Pro has all kinds of effects to do this, but I didn't find anything that felt right. Most of them rendered the Dream Stone into something that was not recognizable, so again, in the interest of time I settle for what I had

Nelson Cole · April 27th, 2006, 01:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meryem Ersoz

i wish i could view this, but i use a mac with flip4mac to view wmv files, and it doesn't let me download it. i tried saving it, but it only downloaded the front page of the website. it's got a compelling title, though! wish i could watch it...is there any way to bypass the front page which defaults to suggesting i download still! more! viewing software?

I'm on a Mac, too, and initially it wouldn't download, but I did eventually. In Safari, click on Window at the top menu bar, then Activity. Scroll down until you find something in red (you may need to open up the folders). Double click on the red and it should download in a separate Windows Media Player pop-up window.

Andrew Hood · April 27th, 2006, 06:14 AM

I used the Color Corrector in PP for most scenes in Burnt. And despite having the same lighting and positions, even with identical Color Correction settings the matted mirror didn't match. But a bit of tweaking fixed it. It did make a few outdoor bits grainy though - should have just over-exposed the sky to start.

I generally play with the contrast, brightness, contrast centre, sometimes the gamma, and also modify the colour curves. All within the CC filter. But it does take a fair bit of playing around, and I often find it hasn't improved things a great deal. After effects gives you more per-channel control, but takes even longer again. Though you can really enhance the contrast in areas you want if you know what you're doing - pity I don't.

To get any more sophisticated you'd need to do a blue/green screen for one version of yourself overlapping the other, but the lighting would get almost impossible to match. Cutaways would have helped with the jump cut, and only show one version of you. I know I found out the hard way, you can actually show (a lot) less and still illicit the same imagery in the viewer. And in my case probably not bore them as much.
Aside from the harsh edges with the (I'm guessing 4 or 8 point garbage) matte it worked pretty well. Why it doesn't offer soft edges I don't know.
You only learn by doing it, and then wish you knew what you now know before you started.

April 19th, 2006, 08:16 AM	#18
Sean McHenry Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Hilliard, Ohio Posts: 1,193	I seem to recall they were triple points if we used the dreaded cell phone... I liked it too. It's pace and lack of motion in some scenes remid me of those bad Sci-Fi films on late at night or on slow Sundays on the Sci-Fi channel. Some of those things, like when they are waiting for a monster to pop out of a closet or something, seem to take a bit too long to happen. That would be a great thing in a spoof of Sci-Fi. I'll have to remember that. I could also see the matte work in the initial mirror and later scenes. The concept was good however. I think there is an auto-match in Premiere that might have helped with the color and luminance balance to get the two overlapping images to look better. Also, if you have the option, use a soft border. It will disguize the edges much better. I try to use wipes to do a simple split screen. Sometimes you have to use a diagonal or other odd pattern to do it, like I did in mine. You might also be able to create your own wipe patterns from a mask, like they do in some aftermarket plugins. You could actually draw your shape in photoshop, import it and use it as a wipe pattern and still use a soft edge. Very similar to mattes. Overall, I like good B&W. If you had used a plugin to "age" it a bit, it would have had an old Sci-Fi movie feel to it even more. I like the flare for the stone. Sean McHenry __________________ ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m shooting on D.V.’ - my hero - David Lynch http://www.DeepBlueEdit.com

April 24th, 2006, 12:24 PM	#19
Scott Cozad Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sparks, Nevada USA Posts: 42	Quicktime Version OK, here's a Quicktime version (as promised). At 59 MB it's still a bit large. It took me 5-10 minutes to download with a cable modem. I'll see if I can generate a smaller version without scarificing too much http://slygo.com/vids/dreamstone000.mov Also, here a 19 MB Windows Media Version. The sound quality is off just a bit, but it's not too bad, I guess. http://slygo.com/vids/ds19.wmv

April 27th, 2006, 06:14 AM	#22
Andrew Hood Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Latrobe Valley, Vic Posts: 320	I used the Color Corrector in PP for most scenes in Burnt. And despite having the same lighting and positions, even with identical Color Correction settings the matted mirror didn't match. But a bit of tweaking fixed it. It did make a few outdoor bits grainy though - should have just over-exposed the sky to start. I generally play with the contrast, brightness, contrast centre, sometimes the gamma, and also modify the colour curves. All within the CC filter. But it does take a fair bit of playing around, and I often find it hasn't improved things a great deal. After effects gives you more per-channel control, but takes even longer again. Though you can really enhance the contrast in areas you want if you know what you're doing - pity I don't. To get any more sophisticated you'd need to do a blue/green screen for one version of yourself overlapping the other, but the lighting would get almost impossible to match. Cutaways would have helped with the jump cut, and only show one version of you. I know I found out the hard way, you can actually show (a lot) less and still illicit the same imagery in the viewer. And in my case probably not bore them as much. Aside from the harsh edges with the (I'm guessing 4 or 8 point garbage) matte it worked pretty well. Why it doesn't offer soft edges I don't know. You only learn by doing it, and then wish you knew what you now know before you started.