Does anyone know how to do this video map effect?

[Ryan Elder]

For a project I want to do something similar to what the Indiana Jones movies do and when a character flies from one country to another, I want the camera to move across a map of the Earth.

I am wondering what the best way to do this is. I don't really have any equipment to move my camera in that motion across a large map, and do not have a macro lens to zoom in real close to the map either. Maybe I can zoom in on a telephoto lens in order to give myself more movement range, but the more you zoom in on a telephoto, the harder it is to focus in a macro sense.

So I am wondering, is it possible to create this in post? But if I do, where I am going to find a map online that is enough pixels that you can zoom that far into without loosing too much resolution.
Is this possible do you think? Thank you for any input! I really appreciate it!

[Brian Drysdale]

Try buying a real physical map and taking a still photograph of it and then importing that into your NLE at full resolution and keyframing the moves across the images of map. It's a pretty standard method these days.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thank you very much. I tried this before, but I loose too much resolution by doing this when I zoom into it.

[Brian Drysdale]

You need a high resolution still camera to start with (better than your current stills camera - 17.9 MP isn't that impressive these days) and you need to endure that your NLE is using the full resolution of the image, so that you can zoom in without it going soft.

Having a large map helps.

[Paul R Johnson]

It’s a bit of a faff, but as Google earth scales accurately you can merge zooms quite well. I found that as long as you scale by using landmarks on the map, it’s not too bad. Zoom in until two objects are near the frame edges. Lakes and coastal features are easiest. Then you can match the resize and overlay. The small artefacts from the swap are at the edges and less obvious. There’s clearly issues with rights but they can be sorted.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, so when you say merge zooms, you mean take a bunch of still photos google Earth and put them all together?

[Brian Drysdale]

I haven't tried it, but I gather Google Earth Pro allows you to put together moves.

I once sent a Christmas video when Google Earth first came out to someone who lived in Australia, which I had to do by grabbing still by still, so that it could be animated in a NLE. This involved starting from a well known landmark here pulling out and flying around the world to the area where they lived in Australia. I even managed a circular move over their location. It worked pretty well, considering how it was done.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. I can try that. So I just take stills of google Earth in different stages of the movement and put it all together then? But the thing is, is that Premiere Pro will not allow a project to be enough pixels to put it all the stills next to each other though. Unless there is another way I am suppose to do it?

[Brian Drysdale]

You could try experimenting with Photoshop.

Google Earth Studio: https://www.google.com/earth/studio/

[Paul R Johnson]

I'm confused? Stills next to each other? Brian - I've Got Google Earth pro = never noticed that feature?

Ryan - do you ever actually experiment and try things? I just created a 40,000 x 1080 frame in photoshop and Premier says it is too big. It is happy with 34000x1080 however. I grabbed a dozen tracked google earth frames and stitched them up and the zooms are simple too. The time wasting thing is aligning the frames - but it just makes we wonder if instead of trying things yourself, you pop on here and ask? Why don't you ever seem to try things for real. For what it is worth - I think Google earth may be too detailed, so you might need to simplify - and also if you go in too close, you start to see features, so you'll have to decide.

[Brian Drysdale]

In my Google Earth video, I used them has a image sequence, although I assembled them manually by inserting each still as 2 frames into the timeline using a copy of DV AVID I had at the time. This was when Google Earth first came out and it was rather basic.

I think it may now be in Google Earth Studio. although Pro has a movie maker feature under tools. However, I haven't used it,

[Pete Cofrancesco]

couldn’t you also use a screen capture program to capture as google earth animates the location change? In movies like Indiana Jones I’d think they’d have an artist draw a map and animate the map and graphics like dotted lines in a program like After Effects.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

I'm confused? Stills next to each other? Brian - I've Got Google Earth pro = never noticed that feature?

Ryan - do you ever actually experiment and try things? I just created a 40,000 x 1080 frame in photoshop and Premier says it is too big. It is happy with 34000x1080 however. I grabbed a dozen tracked google earth frames and stitched them up and the zooms are simple too. The time wasting thing is aligning the frames - but it just makes we wonder if instead of trying things yourself, you pop on here and ask? Why don't you ever seem to try things for real. For what it is worth - I think Google earth may be too detailed, so you might need to simplify - and also if you go in too close, you start to see features, so you'll have to decide.

Oh okay, I tried expirimenting with some things before I asked on here, but Premiere will not allow me to do something of that size. I can try photoshop.

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

couldn’t you also use a screen capture program to capture as google earth animates the location change? In movies like Indiana Jones I’d think they’d have an artist draw a map and animate the map and graphics like dotted lines in a program like After Effects.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried this as well before, but the problem with google Earth is that when it animates the location changes, it keeps pausing constantly along the way, and it also skips several frames, and it looks really clunky and not smooth at all.

[Paul R Johnson]

NO RYAN -Premiere is totally happy with a 34,000 x 1080 frame which lets you easily scan it. My point was that I found the biggest size it would not do then went smaller - you said it wont do big frames and it will!

[Ryan Elder]

Are you talking about the settings when making a new sequence in Premiere Pro, or do you mean importing a really big still frame?