Potential disaster.HELP!

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Here’s what happened.
Our agreement with the customer was that we would shoot the wedding in High Def, archive the tapes, and deliver the final dvd in standard. Our 2nd camera op, screwed up and shot their ceremony (and some b roll) footage in sd 4:3, while the other two cameras shot in hdv 16:9.In addition, He also shot 10 minutes worth of interviews at the cocktail reception in sd 4:3.( he had just come from a morning job that had to be shot in sd 4:3, and forgot to switch his camera back to hdv). And unfortunately, his ceremony footage was the most important, as he was focused on the bride. In other words, we can’t leave his ceremony footage out and use the other two cameras only.
During a lull after the cocktail reception, we realized the mistake, and he switched his camera back to hdv. The rest of the party wa shot in hdv.
So the obvious questions are:
1- How can we edit this wedding? How can we mix the sd 4:3 section with the rest? ( If the sd stuff were at least in 16:9, it wouldn’t be so bad…we could have cut it all in sd and at least have the same aspect ratio).
2- When and what should I say to the client?
3- So, to sum it up, we have:
A-Some rehearsal b roll in hdv.
B- 2nd and third ceremony cameras in hdv
C- Everything after the cocktail reception in hdv.
D- First camera ceremony, ceremony b roll, and 10 minutes worth of cocktail interviews in sd 4:3. ( I could go back to the church and re shoot his b roll in hdv, but that still leaves the ceremony and interviews).
Any ideas?
Bruce Yarock

[Richard Alvarez]

1) Don't lie to the client
2) Uprez the absolute necessary shots of the bride
2)Mask the 4:3 footage to 16:9 (Or conversely, mask ALL of the 16:9 to 4:3)
4) Get 'artsy' with the 4:3 footage, do pics in pics, montage, etc to blend the various shots.
5) Offer a discount for the error - or comp it. Depending on how important the client and your word of mouth relationships are.

Just my thoughts.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Was final to be in 4:3 or 16:9 SD?

Was the SD footage zoomed in tight or do you have some room to crop and soften the footage "artfully".

From my experience the SD footage on an HDV cam looks better than "average" SD, so you may have a bit more to work with there at least?

Hard to know without seeing the footage, but I know I goofed at one wedding and forgot to switch my old PD100 to widescreen for about 5 minutes of the processional... just ended up cropping it and tweaking the footage in Vegas a bit, and it looked fine.

Before panic, I'd at least review the footage and see if there's a "save" there in post. Rough mix and if it comes out good, show the bride THEN tell her of the mistake... if it looks great, you'll probably be forgiven <wink>!

From a practical standpoint, you should be able to take the 4:3 footage and crop it to 16:9 IF the camera op was not in too tight - render it, drop it into the other project - aspect ratios match, and if final output is to SD, most people would never see the "oops".

DB>)

[Steven Gotz]

Bruce,

I forgot to put this in my email.

http://www.digitalanarchy.com/resizer/resizer_main.html

As you can see, these guys said some of the same things I did. But, to get it all out there for discussion, here is the same thing I sent you before...

----------------------------------------

Bruce,

At this point I would immediately invest in software that upscales SD to HD. That will help some. The next thing I would do is to add some fancy effects that mitigate the loss of quality due to the upscale. Keep in mind that some of this software is pretty darn good so you might be able to skip this step.

Being focused on the bride, who hopefully was in white, might allow you to blow out the whites a bit and add a glow. Consider a slow change in very slight tinting using color correction that includes the colors of the wedding. Brides always have favorite colors and it would make it look artistic.

You may find that artistically changing to Black and White or even Sepia tones will mitigate the quality loss as well. Once again, the loss should not be horrible if you buy quality software (which will come in handy again one day, I am sure).

You might be able to use the brides footage as a PiP over the other footage which you would lightly blur for artistic reasons. It will be smaller and in a different ratio, but it will look like you did it to focus on the most important part of the wedding. You might even blow it up in steps so that the original footage only lightly upsceled is framed by the same footage scaled up higher, frames by one scaled up even more, etc. And each one is blurred a little more than the one before.

Think PiPs with an interesting motion background in the Bride's colors for the interviews. Put two on the screen cocked at different angles and maybe even include some stills from other interviews as backgrounds for the smaller PiPs.

In other words, you did it on purpose! So stop worrying.

[Peter Jefferson]

if ur looking at software, try magic bullet instant HD, its THE best scaling app on the market

1- How can we edit this wedding? How can we mix the sd 4:3 section with the rest? ( If the sd stuff were at least in 16:9, it wouldn’t be so bad…we /
could have cut it all in sd and at least have the same aspect ratio).

((create a HDV 720 project, depending on ur NLE
this will offer teh best equilibrium between 1080 and 480/576))


2- When and what should I say to the client?
((tell them there was a misunderstanding. Also tell them that there were 3 cameras rolling and only one wasnt configured correctly. In turn, to make up fo the mishap, you will offer them 4 free copies or whatever. Gtell them its not fundamnetal to the entire piece, but it may be noticable when it comes to image sharpness. Tell them the only thing which is actually affected is continuity, and that this shouldnt be noticable once the edit is complete. If u set urself up to be shot down, then expect to be... Be VERY careful with what u say...

3- So, to sum it up, we have:
A-Some rehearsal b roll in hdv.
((whas this got to do with teh price of fish.. right now u jsut want to deliver a HD product of teh actual day. If rehearsalks are a part of this, then so be it, but right now, teh KEY focus is teh actual een. I woudl recomend u forget everythign else and focus on mitigating ur losses.))

B- 2nd and third ceremony cameras in hdv
((Fair enough))
C- Everything after the cocktail reception in hdv.
D- First camera ceremony, ceremony b roll, and 10 minutes worth of cocktail interviews in sd 4:3. ( I could go back to the church and re shoot his b roll in hdv, but that still leaves the ceremony and interviews).
Any ideas?

((Scale up to 720p, as we still dont know what NLE or cameras u use, i cant recomend any settings at this time))

[Bill Busby]

I suppose the most important thing to know here is whether the final SD DVD is 16x9 or 4:3 letterbox. If it's 16x9, the vertical resize stretch options here might be the way to go, but may or may not affect final rez results for those clips, depending on what method/plugin is used . However, if it's 4x3 with a 16x9 letterbox mask, at least you won't take a rez hit.

Also, with the 4x3 letterbox 16x9 mask method, I've seen many in the past, as well as in this thread, make the comment regarding "if the shots are too tight there may not be enough room to crop", etc. I use Avid, but this should be able to do with other NLE's as well... all you really need to do is apply any type of filter that allows you to move the shot vertically. For example:

In a simple Avid timeline (the top track, V2 in this case, is the main track monitored.

V2 - 16x9 letterbox mask
V1 - 4x3 booboo clip, with filter applied that allows vertical positioning to raise or lower the clip within the 16x9 letterbox mask on the top track.

The vertical positioning stays within the 16x9 mask above it. So problems such as headroom issues for example, in this scenario are eliminated.

Just a suggestion.
Bill

[Bruce S. Yarock]

I want to thank everyone for your feedback an advice. After reading some of the solutions offered,I fell less dread and panic.
Here are some further claifications of our set up for the ceremony, and editing workflow.I'm more concerned about the miss matched aspect ratios than the hdv vs. sd.But hopefully with a good up rezzing program,the hdv/sd isuue can be somewhat resolved.

1-Main camera was a Canon XLH1. When I said that that camera was focused primarily on the bride, I was wrong. It was on both B+G, with an angle towards the bride.(behind altar, farther left on groom side).
2- Two remaining cameras (Sony FX1 and Canon HV10) were both shooting 60i hdv 16:9.
3-Editing- We edit using Cineform Aspect Hd and Premiere Pro 2.0.

We've been shooting these events in hdv, editing in hdv, and then creating a 16:9 sd dvd in Encore. We archive the hdv tape,and get the customer to provide a hard drive for storing all the hdv stuff for future use (complete PPRO edit, cinefor HD avi master,M2T file, hdv export to tape).

Richard- Good ideas. I definately wouldnt' lie to the client,but Peter makes a good point about not opening myself up for problems untill I'm done eiting.

Steven- Is the Digitalanrchy program more for changing aspect ratio for missmatched footage? Or is it for uprezzing? your PIP idea sounds like a good possibility.

Dave- If I could cop the 4;3 stuff to 16:9, that would be best, since evrything else was shot in hdv 16:9.

Peter-Excellent point about WHAT I say to the client. I'll keep my mouth shut untill we get the editing done. No sense creating problems with them now.
The 720 might also be a good way to create a balance betwen the two sets of footage.
Bill-As I said above, the final wa planned to be sd 16:9, archiving all the hdv stuff for later.
Thanks again, everyine.
Bruce S. Yarock
www.yarock

[Steven Davis]

Consider doing the interviews in picture in picture, some people actually like it this way.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Sounds like you have most of your material in HD.

How about Picture in Picture the interviews as suggested with a background of super slow motion B&W dance footage from one of the 16:9 cameras. For the ceremony, drop the SD sections that you have to use on the timeline and use them in split screen from another cam showing reactions, other angles, whatever.

Or maybe use camera two or three with a slight blur as a background behind your camera one shot. Sounds like HD to me.

There's no way I would ever say a thing to the bride unless there were no solution to the problem. But you have plenty of solutions...

[Bruce S. Yarock]

Vito,
Yes, the rest was shot in hdv. While there were three cameras for the ceremony, there was only one for the reception, party etc.
I like the idea of the interviews against the slowed down dance background.
No way will I say anything to anyone untill I se what we can do in the edit.
Bruce S. yarock
www.yarock.com