A clip I did in Vegas 5 at DVinfo.net

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 12:48 AM

The following is a clip I recently completed for an opening vignette to a project I'm doing regarding the Nurses Day Celebration at my work. I was very heavy on the filters etc- to try and spruce up the otherwise drab shots. The day was very hot and hazy which gave everything a very grey look. Vegas 5 did a great job of offering the filters, etc to help artistically color correct the footage and make it look more interesting.

Comments are welcome- positive or negative. Thanks.

http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3/...g_Vignette.wmv

Michael Best · July 13th, 2004, 05:58 AM

Wow! Fantastic - I didn't want it to end. Looks great!
What camera were you using and what filters?

Rob Lohman · July 13th, 2004, 06:31 AM

Very nice Glen! Good work. That's all I can say after watching it <g>

David Jasany · July 13th, 2004, 07:17 AM

Glen, very impressive work! Nice soundtrack for conveying the mood.

Edward Troxel · July 13th, 2004, 07:57 AM

Glen, thought you did a good job. I liked the "square" of color over the baloons :-).

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 09:00 AM

Thanks for all the kind words. It was shot on a PD-170. Here's a few visual examples of what I did in Vegas 5:

I had an oval Color Gradient on a track above all the clips. It would fade from black (on the edges) to transparent (in the middle). I couldn't get the gradient as smooth as I wanted so I added a modest gausian blur.

With the Rack Focus shot I added a Secondary Color Corrector to remove the color of the walls in the background giving the flowers focus. Overall it started as a colorful shot and could have gone either way but I felt greyscaling the background put more emphasis on the flowers...as I wanted the focus to be the rack focus on them- without it the overall colorfullness of the image distracts from the effect:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...er%20RackF.jpg

With the road shot in the beginning I had to do a bunch of filtering to make this shot interesting. The day was hot and INCREDIBLY humid giving everything a greyish haze. I added a Color Corrector first to help boost the saturation, and lower the black point to give it more contrast. The image still had a discernable humidity haze so I decided to work with it and actually accentuate it using a Glow filter. The 2nd video track with the Color Gradient vignette particularly adds to the depth in this shot:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz.../V5%20Road.jpg

There wasn't too much I did to the close-up rose shot. Just a simple Color Corrector to boost saturation and the ongoing vignetting from the Color Gradient:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...0Rose%20CU.jpg

The flower/sign shot is a good example of what I like the Color Gradient vignette to do. This shot was completly unaltered apart from the vignetting. I feel, IMO, it added some depth to the shot and made it a bit more interesting:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...20Vignette.jpg

For the tree tops shot I added a Color Corrector to help add contrast, and boost the saturation of the leaves a bit. I then added a Glow filter to bring out the light peeking behind the leaves:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...ree%20Tops.jpg

Kevin Kimmell · July 13th, 2004, 09:26 AM

Great clip!

I'm wondering... did you mean for the glow effect to give the telephone pole on the left of the opening road scene that little flash? Actually, I guess I'm assuming it was the glow that did it.

I've sometimes been getting some unexpected results when combining the glow with other effects.

-Kevin

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 09:39 AM

Yes it was the glow that did it. It seems if there is something that is within the threshold of the affected luminance for the glow filter entering a the edges of the screen it acts a bit irractically. With closer inspection I can see that it appears right as the pole with some white on it and the transformer on top enters the frame. It's almost like the glow filter doesn't know how to handle new bright areas just as they enter the frame. Good eye- though I was the only one that noticed that.

I'm not worried about it however as it's well into the overscan zone.

Kevin Kimmell · July 13th, 2004, 09:54 AM

Well all in all I really enjoyed the clip. Now I've got to figure that color rectangle across the baloon trick. That's really cool. Don't suppose you want to share the effect chain VEG for it?

:)

-Kevin

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 11:46 AM

Actually it's pretty simple- create a duplicate of your clip on the track above the original. Desaturate the top one- using Color Corrector, B&W filter, and so on (so many way to do it). Then add a cookie cutter to the top (desaturated clip) and tell it to cut away selection. I chose a rectangle then just animated the mask's position using key frames.

Edward Troxel · July 13th, 2004, 12:42 PM

Yeah, Glen - I had already figured out the "how" but it DID look good in that situation. I'll have to keep my eye out for other situations where something like that might look good!

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 01:09 PM

Edward yeah I've been looking for a time to use that effect. However my first intention was to have the balloon clip start in greyscale then have each of the 4 balloons light up in color after one another. Problem was I couldn't figure out how to choose more than one color with the Secondary Color corrector. If I could I could simply ad a key frames to animate them lighting up in sequence. Or I could create 3 separate clips...one with the first color, another with the first and second, and a final one with the first second and third balloons in color. Then I could sych the 3 separate clips and do dissolves into each other giving it the effect. This strategy also required that I select more than on color in the secondary color corrector.

When I went with the idea of having a shape scroll across the screen in color I originally had the clip and it's duplicate (which was needed to achieve the effect) nestled where they belong on the timeline. Despite the dissolve in and out matching on both clips...towards the beginning and end (during the dissolve) you could see the beginning of the clip fade in at full color. I'm assuming because during the dissolve in each clip is in partial transparancy- 50% color clip and 50% black and white.........so that give you a clip that is roughly 50% colored. To fix this I had to move the two clips off of the original sequence to a vacant area of the timeline, get rid of the disolves (in and out) then render the clip as a separate DV AVI. Once rendered separately I moved the new rendered clip back to where the original two clips resided and added the dissolves they originally had, maintained conveniently by some well placed markers. lol Sounds like a lot for a 4 second shot....all in all it took maybe 3 minutes though. If you look closely I added a bit of a glow to that clip too...you can see it in the highlights of the balloon relections. I'm a glow'aholic! lol

Edward Troxel · July 13th, 2004, 01:27 PM

I believe you would have needed FOUR extra clips (fifth would have been the B&W version) EACH with a secondary color corrector for one single balloon color. Could have looked cool, though.

Glen Elliott · July 13th, 2004, 01:39 PM

Hmm- how could I do that...use a "color" compositing mode to blend them?

Graham Bernard · July 13th, 2004, 01:46 PM

Glenn . . I've said it all elsewhere . .. still it is very beautiful indeed!

Grazie

July 13th, 2004, 12:48 AM	#1
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	A clip I did in Vegas 5 The following is a clip I recently completed for an opening vignette to a project I'm doing regarding the Nurses Day Celebration at my work. I was very heavy on the filters etc- to try and spruce up the otherwise drab shots. The day was very hot and hazy which gave everything a very grey look. Vegas 5 did a great job of offering the filters, etc to help artistically color correct the footage and make it look more interesting. Comments are welcome- positive or negative. Thanks. http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3/...g_Vignette.wmv

July 13th, 2004, 06:31 AM	#3
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Very nice Glen! Good work. That's all I can say after watching it <g> __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

July 13th, 2004, 05:58 AM	#2
Michael Best Major Player Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Oceanside Harbor, CA Posts: 446	Wow! Fantastic - I didn't want it to end. Looks great! What camera were you using and what filters?

July 13th, 2004, 07:17 AM	#4
David Jasany Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: North Carolina Posts: 313	Glen, very impressive work! Nice soundtrack for conveying the mood.

July 13th, 2004, 07:57 AM	#5
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Glen, thought you did a good job. I liked the "square" of color over the baloons :-).

July 13th, 2004, 09:00 AM	#6
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Thanks for all the kind words. It was shot on a PD-170. Here's a few visual examples of what I did in Vegas 5: I had an oval Color Gradient on a track above all the clips. It would fade from black (on the edges) to transparent (in the middle). I couldn't get the gradient as smooth as I wanted so I added a modest gausian blur. With the Rack Focus shot I added a Secondary Color Corrector to remove the color of the walls in the background giving the flowers focus. Overall it started as a colorful shot and could have gone either way but I felt greyscaling the background put more emphasis on the flowers...as I wanted the focus to be the rack focus on them- without it the overall colorfullness of the image distracts from the effect: http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...er%20RackF.jpg With the road shot in the beginning I had to do a bunch of filtering to make this shot interesting. The day was hot and INCREDIBLY humid giving everything a greyish haze. I added a Color Corrector first to help boost the saturation, and lower the black point to give it more contrast. The image still had a discernable humidity haze so I decided to work with it and actually accentuate it using a Glow filter. The 2nd video track with the Color Gradient vignette particularly adds to the depth in this shot: http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz.../V5%20Road.jpg There wasn't too much I did to the close-up rose shot. Just a simple Color Corrector to boost saturation and the ongoing vignetting from the Color Gradient: http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...0Rose%20CU.jpg The flower/sign shot is a good example of what I like the Color Gradient vignette to do. This shot was completly unaltered apart from the vignetting. I feel, IMO, it added some depth to the shot and made it a bit more interesting: http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...20Vignette.jpg For the tree tops shot I added a Color Corrector to help add contrast, and boost the saturation of the leaves a bit. I then added a Glow filter to bring out the light peeking behind the leaves: http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...ree%20Tops.jpg

July 13th, 2004, 09:26 AM	#7
Kevin Kimmell Major Player Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Akron, OH Posts: 209	Great clip! I'm wondering... did you mean for the glow effect to give the telephone pole on the left of the opening road scene that little flash? Actually, I guess I'm assuming it was the glow that did it. I've sometimes been getting some unexpected results when combining the glow with other effects. -Kevin

July 13th, 2004, 09:39 AM	#8
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Yes it was the glow that did it. It seems if there is something that is within the threshold of the affected luminance for the glow filter entering a the edges of the screen it acts a bit irractically. With closer inspection I can see that it appears right as the pole with some white on it and the transformer on top enters the frame. It's almost like the glow filter doesn't know how to handle new bright areas just as they enter the frame. Good eye- though I was the only one that noticed that. I'm not worried about it however as it's well into the overscan zone.

July 13th, 2004, 09:54 AM	#9
Kevin Kimmell Major Player Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Akron, OH Posts: 209	Well all in all I really enjoyed the clip. Now I've got to figure that color rectangle across the baloon trick. That's really cool. Don't suppose you want to share the effect chain VEG for it? :) -Kevin

July 13th, 2004, 11:46 AM	#10
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Actually it's pretty simple- create a duplicate of your clip on the track above the original. Desaturate the top one- using Color Corrector, B&W filter, and so on (so many way to do it). Then add a cookie cutter to the top (desaturated clip) and tell it to cut away selection. I chose a rectangle then just animated the mask's position using key frames.

July 13th, 2004, 12:42 PM	#11
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Yeah, Glen - I had already figured out the "how" but it DID look good in that situation. I'll have to keep my eye out for other situations where something like that might look good!

July 13th, 2004, 01:09 PM	#12
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Edward yeah I've been looking for a time to use that effect. However my first intention was to have the balloon clip start in greyscale then have each of the 4 balloons light up in color after one another. Problem was I couldn't figure out how to choose more than one color with the Secondary Color corrector. If I could I could simply ad a key frames to animate them lighting up in sequence. Or I could create 3 separate clips...one with the first color, another with the first and second, and a final one with the first second and third balloons in color. Then I could sych the 3 separate clips and do dissolves into each other giving it the effect. This strategy also required that I select more than on color in the secondary color corrector. When I went with the idea of having a shape scroll across the screen in color I originally had the clip and it's duplicate (which was needed to achieve the effect) nestled where they belong on the timeline. Despite the dissolve in and out matching on both clips...towards the beginning and end (during the dissolve) you could see the beginning of the clip fade in at full color. I'm assuming because during the dissolve in each clip is in partial transparancy- 50% color clip and 50% black and white.........so that give you a clip that is roughly 50% colored. To fix this I had to move the two clips off of the original sequence to a vacant area of the timeline, get rid of the disolves (in and out) then render the clip as a separate DV AVI. Once rendered separately I moved the new rendered clip back to where the original two clips resided and added the dissolves they originally had, maintained conveniently by some well placed markers. lol Sounds like a lot for a 4 second shot....all in all it took maybe 3 minutes though. If you look closely I added a bit of a glow to that clip too...you can see it in the highlights of the balloon relections. I'm a glow'aholic! lol

July 13th, 2004, 01:27 PM	#13
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	I believe you would have needed FOUR extra clips (fifth would have been the B&W version) EACH with a secondary color corrector for one single balloon color. Could have looked cool, though.

July 13th, 2004, 01:39 PM	#14
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Hmm- how could I do that...use a "color" compositing mode to blend them?

July 13th, 2004, 01:46 PM	#15
Graham Bernard Old Boot Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: London UK Posts: 3,633	Glenn . . I've said it all elsewhere . .. still it is very beautiful indeed! Grazie