Gregory Gesch

Hi Desiree. A couple of things to try: In Adobe After Effects draw a tiny, tight mask* around your 4 pixels and set the mask to Inverted (you will now have a 'hole' in your footage where the problem pixels were). Put another copy of your footage on the layer underneath and offset it's X position 2 pixels (or Y position, or both if neccessary - it will depend on the shot). The hole will now be filled with the neighbouring pixels. If that doesn't work, or works on only some shots, add an adjustment layer above the footage it doesn't work on. Delete the mask on your footage layer and make a slightly larger mask (say 8 x 8 pixels) on the adjustment layer. Add Effects/Box Blur to the adjustment layer and set its Radius to (say) 4. The size of the mask and the radius setting might need playing with. *When making the mask on your footage place a white solid underneath - when you create the mask it will make it easier to see that you only have the four pixels selected. If you see any fading edges move the corners of the mask until the fading stops and the edges are clean. Then delete the white solid and replace it with the copy of the footage. Does that work for you?

Hi Hamza. Yes, the Videocopilot Designer Sound FX has 100 Swishes and 100 Hits plus Drum hits etc. etc. I've just finished a station ident using some - they certainly are punchy and I'm fairly sure were used in the video you instance. When working with sound effects like that you often layer them over each other, which is why you may not be finding exactly what you are looking for?

Hi. This is a collection from VideoCopilot which might interest you: https://www.videocopilot.net/products/dsfx/ You might also want to visit this great site created by some very good audiophiles. Free and mostly public domain: http://www.freesound.org/ The only other word you might want to know is "Hits" - which often follow whooshes as they impact.

Hi. It's called Film Flash or Film Clutter. There is a lot of stock footage or you can easily make your own in After Effects. There are a few tutorials around such as this: http://allbetsareoff.com/tutorials/creating-a-film-flash-effect/

Hi Jakub. I understand your frustration and trying to know where to look. My advice is to look at YOUR shots which do achieve the "Filmic" look, and skip forward and back to the shots before and after to analyse the difference. To my eye in "Festiwal" the man and woman at 1:55 and certainly the boy with the orange drink at 2:08, and the kids at 3:13 get that look, as does the girl's closeups at the end of WKD particularly the last one at 1:08. To me, in those examples, it's the balance of the light - foreground and background - with some keylight lighting the subject cleanly. In the end what you are shooting is light, if the light isn't great than the shot cannot be (and is some of the reason that all those people are in a film crew and all that equipment is around). There is also a huge amount that can be, and is, done with colour grading and correction in post - the examples here are what I mean: http://www.taoofcolor.com/ Please note that I know nothing of this course apart from these videos. My other thought is experiment with making the camera look like it has more weight, less "float" more "glide". Please also note that I may have no idea of what I'm talking about, AND good luck with your projects!

Hi Matt. You don't tell us what sort of scene it is (street, outer space), what he is interacting with or what he breaks - all of which make a difference. However on the presumption that he he could be moving through a real location/set where there are other people or objects and that he will be handling objects which he drops/throws (well I have to start somewhere), I would suggest you could think of doing most of it in camera with a portable greenscreen. Yes, locked off shots. Think of it in layers: Background (everything he walks in front of)- shoot clean plates at 300fps. Mid range (your actor)- 24fps moves through the set with a portable greenscreen behind him. Foreground - (anything that goes in front of the actor)- 300fps maybe you'd need to do several individual shots ie: another actor walking across the set with portable greenscreen behind him, a pillar - put into position and place greenscreen behind it, a bird in a cage - hang in position with greenscreen held behind it. The reason for doing it all on location is that your lighting and camera angles/lenses etc will all composit together without any problems [however be aware of shadows and reflections]. In the above scenario there would be 5 layers in your NLE: Background, Actor, Walking Character, Pillar, Birdcage. Using the portable greenscreen means you should only have to do minimal rotoscoping - probably feet. Then you probably need to make the breaking objects in a 3D program - depending on what they are, you might be able to use real objects in front of the greenscreen shot at 300 and matched up with his actions????????? In either case you need to be able to match up his interaction with the objects and what happens to them - green prop versions that he handles which are then keyed out and replaced with the 3D models, or perhaps you might be able to have 2 cameras running (24 for the actor and 300 for the prop) for the sections where he breaks things with the area where they are broken covered in green as well? Without any detail it's impossible to say, but that might give you something to think about. Good luck with it.

Hi James, Send them the script. They are expressing interest in working with an unknown person on an unknown project. Though it is understandable that you want to be sure of them before handing anything over, it is also understandable that they want to be sure of you and the project before commiting to handing over their time and expertise. If you replied to an ad for a director wouldn't you expect to see a copy of the script as the very first step - I certainly would. The people who then follow up are fully aware of what they are signing up for and that they are not going to be asked to do a cheap porno (or are being asked if that's the case :-). As Bill suggests make sure you have that copyright protection. Good luck with it.

Hi Andrew. I'm a little confused by your image - shouldn't the masks have cut out the windows? Anyway, what I would suggest is mask the window as you have done but ignore his shoulder and estimate where the hidden corner of the window is. Set this mask to 'Subtract' (you should now have a rectangular hole). Now draw another mask where is shoulder is crossing into the hole (leave this set to 'Add', and make it a closed mask), you will see his shoulder appear, move your vertex points to get a clean edge. The important points are the ones that cross over the window, the others can be just a rough shape. This second mask is the one to keyframe. With any luck the shoulder is not changing shape much and you might be able to just move the whole mask rather than the individual points(?). Don't keyframe every frame if you can help it (apart form the work, it can start to look very jerky), go through the shot and reposition the mask every 10th frame, then go back and reposition it every 5th frame where neccessary, then every 2nd frame if neccessary, etc. Make the mask with the minimum number of points you can - your current number seems ok, but only you know how much movement and change of shape there is - and don't worry about keyframing the points that aren't over the window area they can usually stay where they are. Don't use Roving keyframes, they will even out the speed of all the moves which you don't want. Only feather it if the edge is too hard, and the smallest amount that you can get away with 1 pixel, 2 pixels. There's nothing wrong with the way you are doing it but by using a seperate mask for the shoulder you may be able to save time by being able to reposition the whole thing. Trust that might help.

Hi Lee. Depends on your shots and location, however if you do shoot at night you won't have to worry about blacking out windows, doorways etc and would probably find it easier and quicker.

PS: Why rotobrush if you could greenscreen. Also just noticed that they masked out the heads in the first couple of poses, that'll teach me to be hasty.

Hi Mark. That's very effective and surprisingly simple. Greenscreen. Your performers move in and hold frozen pose for length of clip, then change position and hold pose for remaining length of clip, repeat for number of poses required. In the edit, key the shot, cut each pose into a seperate layer starting on the last frame of the proceeding pose ('frozen') and layer them first to last and drag each to begin just after the preceeding pose has 'frozen'.

Hi Chris. I suspect you are overcomplicating things. I would suggest only shooting on location, firstly with a portable greenscreen behind the seated character, then remove the screen and shoot the clone. Exactly the same lighting and setup, angles etc. and easier continuity. Your fx person then only needs to put a garbage matt around the seated character and key the shot. Things to be aware of are shadows and reflections, it could be wise to make sure the main lights fall away from the table, it's easy to put a drop shadow from your seated character onto the background character/set if neccessary (and perhaps even desirable). It also means that your seated characters can do whatever business they want on the table (eat/drink/whatever)and that can be included in the matte. Well, them's my thoughts and first post. Hello all.