Jaan Shenberger

five little things that are necessary, beyond motion tracking markers... - build a physical stand-in for the material/surface of the dinosaur that's as big as you can get it, and shoot a seperate reference take of every vfx shot with it in place. seeing how the light interacts with something of the same color, luminance, specularity and texture will be an invaluable resource for when you're trying to get the dinosaur to "look right", especially if your compositor isn't super experienced. i know it's impractical to build a full size dinosaur prop, but a large blob would probably suffice. you might wanna try buying a large vinyl beanbag chair, solidifying/plumping it up with more styrofoam, and then applying the craftwork to get the surface to look like what you want the dinosaur to look like. then figure out some easy system to rig it up with c-stands for the various shots. - shoot cast shadow plates, or even just reference. meaning, for every shot that the dinosaur appears in, find a way to shoot a pass that has the dinosaur's cast shadow in real cast shadow (the real cast shadow will undoubtedly exceed the area of the dinosaur's cast shadow). you can either use a large flag or design your lighting in a way that allows to turn off a single source to do so. this way, you can use the 3D render's cast shadow pass as a matte for the real cast shadow, rather than try and use the 3D rendered cast shadow to look right (which is very challenging). and generally speaking, you should just try and design your shots to omit the dinosaur's cast shadow, or minimize its size and complexity. especially if you're shooting amongst a lot of foilage. - an old trick in vfx is to plan some shots to have foreground elements (when the 3D is in the midground), and then add them in the composite to help spatially integrate the 3D. an example would be to have a shot of the dinosaur in the midground, and have marked c-stands in the bottom of the screen in the foreground (or if you are confident enough in your 3D tracking, you won't need the foreground markers). in post, track the c-stands and replace them with tree branches that partially or momentarily obscure the dinosaur. if the trees are out of focus, you may be able to get away with CGI trees, but i'd recommend shooting those elements on red screen for better results (though this may not be feasible depending on your camera move's parallax). - if there will be anything made to be out of focus in compositing, make certain that the compositor has a depth of filed simulator that properly emulates bokeh/circle of confusion. i see so many low-budget/amateur composites that are probably passable, except they completely ruin it because of use of gaussion or box blurs to fake depth of field. - and also, your 3D person may already know this, but it is absolutely necessary to use multipass rendering if you want to enable your compositor to even come close to achieving photorealism/intergration to the footage. best of luck.

or i guess you could shoot neg, make a print (thus clipping your whites) and go on from there.

dunno if it's an option, but emulating an aged color shift look in DI is a very simple process (a truncating of individual RGB/CMY levels). you could even give the colorist an example like the one you've shown and he/she can recreate (pretty much exactly) the color shift. also, it's important to note that most aged color shifted prints do not have "pure" whites... usually they have a subtle red-yellow tint. recreating this photochemically is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, if shooting on negative. it will be possible to "tint the whites" by shooting reversal (thus clipping your whites) and then adding the color when creating a neg, as done by lance accord for "buffalo 66". hope this helps.

i had about 4000 ft of 16mm transferred 1080 to hard drive at spypost. it was all b/w reversal and flat transferred, so i can't really give insight into color performance (i believe they offer 4:4:4 and 4:2:2 10-bit lossless/blackmagic codec), but i can say that the footage is so crisp that you can pretty much count the grain... the spirit exceeded my expectations in this regard-- i would recommend that you opt for at least a little grain reduction (i had none). their rates are great and they were very accomodating in regards to dealing with the mild headache of all that data (i think it was about 2 terabytes). my next transfer will definitely be with them. the only thing i'd warn is that their estimated file sizes were a lot smaller than the actual, so be prepared to deal with a lot of data. hope this helps.

the correct framerate for 1/12 would be 83 fps. i'd give you the formula, but i dunno how to type the square root symbol. it's easy to find online, as well as plenty of other info regarding shooting miniatures. try checking CML. one thing to note-- fire and water do not scale well, meaning that you need to get your scale ratio as low as possible if you're aiming for realism. often 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 are used for miniatures involving fire or water... though a professional pyro person can really help in achieving scale in explosions and flames (via different accelerants). and if you have a framerate ceiling (ie. 48 when you really need more) and are planning on using twixtor, etc, then be certain to adjust your shutter to correlate to the shutter speed/angle of the "final" framerate. otherwise, you may end up with an unnaturally high amount of motion blur. best of luck.

art forum named starship troopers as one of the 10 most artistic achievements of 1997, for its unbridled use of irony. the story is so "ra-ra hooray for our hypocritical fascist society" all the way through to the last frame that it left me with an uneasy feeling, which is probably exactly what verhoeven wanted. it's almost like he conned the studio into making a big budget conceptual art film by distracting them with all the effects/gore, and by keeping the tone "positive". --- the film SFW is hollywood at its worst-- thinking it can take elements from various independent films and cram them into a typically dumb script and cast a bunch of pretty people. it's painful to watch.

because of the varied response curves and noise levels of the various CCDs of the different cameras, i feel like graphs can be a little misleading. i would really like to see someone take all the relevant HD cameras and shoot two or three different setups with varied lighting and subject (including a macbeth chart), and include specified spot meter readings from numerous points in the image... and then make the frames available for download in the particular camera's "purest" form possible (ie. RAW, HDCAM SR 4:4:4, etc.). it'd also be nice if stocks 5217, 5218 and 5299 were also included and flat transferred at 1080 or 2k from a spirit.

the reason for that is probably because that line wasn't written by frank miller-- he seems to only know how to write dialogue that should be coming from the mouth of a cro-magnon or an on-duty stripper. it's a supposed quote from the actual battle.

i get the gist of what you're saying regarding early western culture, but the battle of thermopylae preceeded the birth of islam by roughly 1000 years.

some little no-budget pointers for shooting when knowing you will be doing ADR... no matter how loud the background/camera, have someone with a shotgun mic on a boom (even if done sloppily), hooked up to a minidv camera, which is shooting the action. have the actors act out the dialogue as if it's being used. in post, synch up your minidv audio to the telecined 35mm footage (assuming you're editing digital/nonlinear). if you can't do your ADR the pro way in a studio with synchronous picture for the actor, you can use my foodstamp version, which is to cut individual clips of each set of lines for an actor and put each on an ipod. have them listen to the line looped with headphones on. they can pretty easily memorize and mimic their speech pattern/breathing/innotations and you can record it on dat/minidv via a shotgun mic in a similar location for the subtle reverb signature that even a shotgun mic picks up. it usually helps if you can first show them the scene so they can mimic their body movements to recreate the breathing pattern. i have been astonished at how well this works, especially considering it's cheap and fairly easy to do. i personally hate most ADR i hear because it sounds like a person standing in a pleasant cushy studio talking into a $5000 mic that's inches from their face, picking up the sound of every saliva bubble in their mouth. also, some actors seem to get distracted when doing ADR to picture. i've shot a longish project on 16mm MOS and have to say that there are some genuine benefits-- the shooting moves faster, and your camera is liberated from ever having to frame or light for the boom (which will inevitably happen in a no-budget situation). a great example is sergio leone's films... many of his shots would've been very difficult to get proper production sound from. hope this helps and best of luck.

if you're not very excited about it becoming something good, then at least use it as an exercise in technique... maybe use lighting to try and enhance his conveyed emotion (happy lighting changes to angry lighting to anquish, etc.)... this is obviously a valuable skill that might be worth practicing.

some general tips that might be useful for a director/dp combo on a no-budget feature... - rehearse extensively with the actors, as much as you can. the blocking may be TBA, but try to start rehearsing all the scenes months in advance. try to get the characterizations/interactions down pat before production, because a director/dp will be very distracted and busy on set. this will save a tremendous amount of time on set if the actors already have a thorough and solid understanding of what you want from them... and time is going to be your greatest enemy everyday on a no-budget feature. - get an experienced gaffer, even if you can't afford to rent much/expensive gear. - get an AD, and try to get them two PAs. you should try to pay the AD if they're experienced, because their job is going to be a mild nightmare. in your situation, the AD will probably make or break your movie. - when it comes to audio, you generally get what you pay for. - try to ask everyone what kinds of food/drink they like and try to cater to their tastes. i have found that this can make a huge difference in diminishing grumpiness. also, there's a book called "the practical director" by i think mike crisp(?) that has a lot of useful tidbits that are particularly applicable to shoestring budgets. hope this helps.

it has been done before, to match footage to preexisting 60i hd/video footage. i believe there's been commercials that use 60i sports footage and shoot additional elements on film to cut or composite in with it, often to create the illusion of "tv realness". but i would assume that it's telecined as frames (23.976 with pulldown or 29.97) and the conversion to 60i is done in post (which is very easy). it's deemed safer (by worrisome ad agency people) to shoot film and just "videofy" its look in post or telecine than to shoot the additional elements in 60i video. and it's a lot easier to do compositing with 60p footage rather than 60i, even if the final is rendered in 60i. of course, this use of film at 60 fps to ultimately emulate video is probably much more rare now because of the option of shooting 60p hd.

"dreams" is one of my favorite films... a masterwork of cinema. but it was not his last film. "madadayo" was. aside from being a great film, "madadayo" is particularly worth watching when you consider its subject matter-- an old man reflecting on his achievements and contributions as he nears death. i would highly recommend it if you enjoyed dreams. also, i would recommend you see "dreams" on dvd instead of vhs if possible... with all those wide shots and use of texture.

the best way to get source for reflections is to shoot it black (essentially just turned off). this can easily be composited over the added footage to look very accurate. if the budget is slim or the post turnaround is tight, then the greenscreen with tracking markers is probably the way to go. in my opinion, the best way to go, if quality is paramount, is to shoot it with the tv simply off, with small white or orange tracking markers adhered to the screen (though this will require the edge of the screen to be roto'd). i would suggest also shooting a few seconds of the tv with random footage playing for the compositor to reference, especially for the subtle reflected light/color on the edge/trim around the edge of the glass screen (the lack of this is often what makes tv composites seem fake). hope this helps.

there are two categories of solutions to your shot-- do you want to achieve it simply/photochemically (meaning clever use of dissolves) or do you have the resources for post work (meaning compositing and/or morphing)? also, what focal length do you want the xcu to be in? because the shorter it is, the more expotentially difficult it's gonna be to pull it off. i would maybe suggest a dolly & zoom combination, so that you can have the short lens parallax as the shot begins, and have a comfortably medium focal length on the xcu. if going the simple/dissolves route, then this is what i'd suggest... 1. once you have the actor framed in xcu, have two/three/four people with buckets pour water towards his head. hopefully it will be bubbly/splashy/aggressive (lots of visual movement). 2. during all that movement of the water, dissolve to the shot of the actor submerging, and try to roughly match up the direction/tenacity/splashiness of the water's movement from the first shot. it will help sell the shot if your sound effect is aggressive. quickly dissolving between two shots of similarly splashy foreground water has been a workhorse in visual effects for decades. 3. when he sits up, do a snap zoom and dissolve on a matching snap zoom of the final shot in bed. cutting or dissolving on snap zooms or whip pans are the easiest way to create an invisible cut. 3A. or you can have the actor do some sort of distinct movement with his head (like turn it side to side very quickly) while in xcu as he emerges from the water, and you can just cut on the same action of the final shot. obviously, it will help a lot if the lighting matches up in all shots. if you wanna go the post/compositing/morph route, then there are literally dozens of ways to do it. i'd suggest you speak to whoever will be doing the vfx and plan it around what techniques they feel comfortable with. but regardless, remember that vfx shots are kinda like a good magician's trick-- they rely heavily on a distinct movement to distract the audience's attention from the element that is changing, in order for no one to notice that it ever changed. this goes for digitally-aided vfx shots as well. unless you're ILM, then you probably don't need decoys/distractions. some of the most common decoys/distractions are aggressive camera movement, fast & intense lighting changes (ie. lightning), splashy water, sparks/pyro, smoke, and the always popular something-quickly-moving-past-the-camera-in-the-immediate-forground. hope this helps.

yes, it should be no problem.

that's because i'm sure you exposed your greenscreen properly. if you wanna pay my dayrate, then just let me know.

there does seem to be something weird going on with the red channel along any high luma contrast edges. i assume this is due to the RAW/bayer/etc conversion.

a good compositor could pull a totally invisible key & composite from that while eating a donut with one hand and reading msnbc.com on the other monitor. no insult to gavin, just felt like stephen's remark is totally off-target. also, the green edge around his arm is a natural effect from the reduction in luminance from the motion blur (which brings the overexposed greenscreen down in luminance and therefore seeming to be more saturated). the shot does look pretty soft though.

david, or anyone else,... do you know if this is now standard procedure for tv (telecine full range, then tape-to-tape grade from the edit)? it certainly makes sense from the producers' standpoint. but is there ever any percievable loss in image quality (particularly "almost banding" in the mid-to-shadow pronouncing the grain) in the final color graded hd masters? (i'm assuming they're mastering in hd for the future). it seems like they could use the EDL to re-telecine for the final grade, or is the cost savings that substantial?

some useful info & insight on recreating a 3-strip technicolor look... http://www.aviatorvfx.com/?cmd=frontendOverview&id=color http://www.aviatorvfx.com/index.php?cmd=fr...ndScreeningRoom http://www.theasc.com/magazine/jan05/aviator/page1.html http://www.theasc.com/magazine/dec02/far/index.html# also, in appears that ed lachman used a similar overexposure technique in "touch" in 1997. i saw "far from heaven" projected and though there were some shots that looked more like 3-strip than others, overall it looked pretty awesome. hope this helps.

well-executed, convincing greenscreen composites require A LOT of skilled work... and if the bulk of the work doesn't occur at shooting/lighting then it will have to occur in post, usually in twice the quantity. i have heard from a compositor that worked on sin city that it was a nightmare job. from what i've heard, there was an absurd amount of rotoscoping needed. also keep in mind that doing greenscreen composites for a final b/w image is a lot easier than finishing to a color image. also, the idea of shooting greenscreen actors to match with existing locations is going to be very hard to do because of the difficulty in matching up lighting and the subtle organic color reflectance/bounce generated by the location (the achilles heel of grscr compositing). when the locations are being created via CGI, they can adjust the lighting to match the footage of the actors. also, camera moves and even panning/tilting will add great complications (motion tracking & photogrammetry will be necessary). but if you do go ahead with it, two things that will save you loads of trouble (and despair) will be to avoid showing the actors' feet touching the floor and to shave their heads or have them wear hats. not to sound like a downer, but it's almost certainly not worth it unless you yourself are an ace compositor and know how to plan/shoot around the limitations.

html inherently ignores multiple spaces adjacent to each other. it's outta tim's hands. if you're really that concerned about it, you can add the code: "&--n--b--s--p--;" (remove the dashes) after each of your sentences. it's officially correct/acceptable to single space after your sentences when on the web, since no journalist or writer in their right mind would ever do what i just suggested. a post workflow FAQ is sorely needed on the forum, imo.

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