SmartShoot Producer's Blogg

Fixing Banding on your DSLR Footage

One of the by-products of video from HDSLR is the banding artifacts that can result from the rolling shutter used to capture the video image.

When shooting under fluorescent light (very common in commercial locations) the flickering of the light source can create colored bands across your image which move across teh frame and pretty much ruin your shot.

Simplest fix is to make sure you're shooting at the correct shutterspeed. For the purposes of keeping motion-blur and strobing under controll, the 180-degree shutter rule dictates the shutterspeed be set to 2x the framerate. A 24p framerate would require a shutterspeed of 1/48" (functionally 1/50"). Only problem here is this framerate is too slow to avoid banding. 

In the US fluorescent bulbs have a frequency (flicker) of 60Hz so setting your shutterspeed in multiples of 60 (e.g. 1/60", 1/120", etc.) will negate the banding. Same rule applies for Euro countries where the bulbs are 50Hz. Here's a quick cheat sheet:

US (60Hz)

• IF: Framerate = 24p, 30p or 60i 
• THEN: Shutterspeed = 1/60"
• IF: Framerate = 60p
• THEN: Shutterspeed = 1/120"

EUROPE (50Hz)

• IF: Framerate = 25p or 50i 
• THEN: Shutterspeed = 1/50"
• IF: Framerate = 50p
• THEN: Shutterspeed = 1/100"

 

BUT MY FOOTAGE ALREADY HAS BANDING, WHAT NOW?

This can be a tricky fix to make in post -- but not impossible. All it takes is a little time with a Color-Correction Filter and tweaking some of its masking properties. 

Here's a great guide from DSLR Video Shooter walking through the fix in FCP7:

 

 

 

 

Fantastic Free Color Grading Tutorials on Vimeo

01. FCP X Color Grading Tutorial: What is Color Grading? 

If you've ever had questions or confusion about Color Correction or Color Grading you definitely need to check out Color Grading Central. The 15-part series is provided courtesy of Denver Riddle and covers all the basics of color correction and how it functions within FCPX.

The videos provide tons of helpful information regardless of the platform you're currently editing on so we highly suggest giving them a look.

Knowing how accurately match color balance from shot to shot is definitely a key skill and can go along way towards creating videos that clients love. A good guideline is to always make sure all your footage matches for contrast, exposure and color balance then worry about customizing the look for a more cinematic effect in your videos.

Do you have any special tricks or techniques you use while color grading to help give your footage a distinct look?

 

 

Cinefy - Get Scorsese'd on your iPhone

 

Cinefy has just been in beta by the App Creation Network.

The app is a pretty neat bit of tech that will allow users to do honest-to-goodness video editing on the iPhone. The app includes all the basic as well as the ability to add effects/filters on video clips as well as providing license-free music to score your project with.

While we definitely wouldn't recommend using an iPhone+Cinefy combo for paid production work this software does make "filmmaking" just a smart-phone away.

L3's & Slates - From Flub to Fab in 3 Easy Steps

        

Lower-thirds and Text Slates... they're a small element of video that you see all the time. They might seem inocuous but adding a little style to these spots are a quick and easy way to really bring a more professional look to your videos.

Here's 3 steps to making great graphics:

 

FULL FRONTAL FONT-AGE

Nothing keys says BORING to a viewer than stale fonts so steer away from the standard font sets like Times New Roman and Verdana and use something unique. Handwritten fonts are great for a creative look while fine sans-serif fonts can make things look really clean. Google Web Fonts is a great source for freebies. Here's some more tips from Larry Jordan on how to format fonts for video.

 

CREATE SEPARATION

Using drop shadows between your text and background is a great way to may a graphic pop. Similarly you can format your fonts to display with an outline, the contrasting edge will set it off from whatever you're displaying the text on. 

 

BEAUTIFY YOUR BACKDROP

Using a color gradient over a solid is a simple way to spruce up the background of your graphic. One of our favorite techniques is to slow down a clip (or just use a still image) and combine it with a blur filter, a much more expressionistic look.

 

Best of all is that you can accomplish this look within your NLE so no need to jump over to a separate graphics program

 

 

 

Free Fonts - Thanks Google

 

Another quick one today. Everyone knows Google is a great resource for free services.  Now they've add free fonts to their repetoire. Right now their library is 280 fonts and growing. Swapping out Verdana, Helvetica and the standard fonts for unique lettering is a great way to spice up a video

Magic Bullet Quick Looks - FOR FREE

Just a quickie for today. If you're familiar with Red Giant's Magic Bullet and Colorista color-grading plugins then you know these pieces of software are a great way to punch up otherwise dull looking footage.

Go check out Koo over at nofilmschool.com and get your hands on a FREE copy of Magic Bullet Quick Looks. It doesn't have all the customization options of the full Looks plugin but can you really argue with paying $0?

 

Great Editing Tips from the CNN Newhounds

 

A great mini-guide on successful editing from one of CNN's iReporters. If you want to edit efficiently and give yourself more time for the creative process you've got to be smart about it.

One great point that's highlighted is subtlety; a big part of being editing is making sure you adding value to your content visuals or message. Star-wipes and page-peels tend to get in the way of story and aesthetics.

When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all*

*bonus points if you know the source of this quote

Free (& Legal) Music for Your Video

 

Vimeo now has a page where filmmakers can find music tracks to put in their videos. These tracks are licensed and authorized to use in your videos, opposed to the music you might download from the web for personal listening. 

Perusing the Music Store is slightly different. The search bar automatically start predicting tags you can search withby putting in a Theme, Mood, Genre, Temp or a particular Tempo, etc. Making it that much easier to narrow down to the rigth track.

Most tracks are $1.99 but bunches are free! 

 

Automatic Duck for Zero Bucks?!

If you haven't heard by now then you'll be excited to know that Automatic Duck - purveyor of some snazzy solutions to up the integration between Adobe and Apple's softwares is GIVING AWAY their suite of plugins. Wes and Harry Plate are the father-son duo behind Automatic Duck and have recently landed over at Adobe hence the sudden altruism.

If you find yourself struggling with roundtripping with FCP and After Effects this will be a solution you'll be interested in.

Check out this vid for a glimpse of how Automatic Duck's plugins can streamline a workflow:

 

NovoCut - Free + OpenSource NLE editing

 

A cool project that we stumbled across on Kickstarter recently. NovoCut is a free open-source NLE system being produced by some very passionate and talented folks.

They are taking a very interesting approach to the design of editing tools, namely looking at some key metrics and how they impact editors/artists and their storytelling ability - a quip here from their site:

This UX design focuses on three profitability metrics:

1. Person hours - if artists can produce the same end result with equal quality but in fewer total person hours, they are more profitable

2. Risk - if we can eliminate avenues where likely user error will cause loss of work or simply waste time, artists are more profitable

3. Cost of collaboration - if great artists can collaborate with lower overhead, or collaborate when they couldn't otherwise, they are more profitable

If you have a chance check out the NovoCut team's Ubuntu Wiki or if you want to get involved kick them some dough throught the NovoCut Kickstarter project

 

This may wind up being a great solution for those with the sour taste of FCPX in their mouth or anyone else who's looking for an alternative to Avid or Premiere.

NovoCut looks like a very interesting project aimed at solving the right problems for editors.

Final Cut Pro X on Sale Now!

 

FCP X is officially available for download in the Apple App Store; alonside with Compressor 4 and Motion 5. As previously announced Apple has dramatically changed their pricing for these softwares:

FCP X - $299

Compressor 4 - $50

Motion 5 - $50

 

We've read a lot of initial reactions to the changes in Apple's NLE package; if you've got some thoughts shoot us a comment below

Premiere 5.5 Feature Tour

 

Premiere CS5.5, FCP X? We're seeing a lot of exciting happenings on the NLE front these past few months.

If you haven't been keeping up on what Adobe's cooking up for CS5.5 you can check out their product feature videos here

They've got some pretty neat tools and gizmo rolled into the new release so check it out

New FCP Announced!

Well it's now official - you'll be able to buy the new Final Cut X this June out of the Apple App Store.

Tons of changes and improvements are rolled into the software, check out this article from FCP.co to get the full list that was included in the announcement.

64-bit compatibility, background rendering, Color and Soundtrack Pro included in the UI, the list goes on. Initial pricing is set at $299

As with any new software some people love this announcement some not so much. "Is FCP X just iMovie on steroids?", "What's up with Motion, Compressor and the rest of the suite?" Lots of questions abound as June approaches

Monthly Licenses coming for CS5 Users

Lot's of buzz around Apple and the new FCP this week but Adobe's got some big news as well - they've just announced a new pricing model for the Adobe Creative Suite.

Where previously you'd have to drop $2500 or so on the full suite and license for the software Adobe will begin offering monthly and yearly subscriptions to each program in the suite. Check out this article from CrunchGear for a full rundown of the pricing.

Whether or not this fits traditional production models is still a question mark but it does provide some food for thought

FCP Users - Free Plugins!

 

We came across a nifty resource for some free quality plugins for Final Cut editors out there:

www.filmimpact.net

Haven't yet tested all the effects available - so far the one's we've had a chance to play with look very nice 

We highly encourage donating to Film Impact so they can continue to churn out awesome free content like this.

Sorry but nothing for Premiere or Vegas users at the moment - we'll be doing some more digging though.

 

Making Your Clean Video File - Easy as 1-2-3

Today we wanted to do a post about the importance of uploading a good Clean video file and some quick tips for cranking these out lickety-split.

First some common questions we get:

 

What is the Clean video file?

The Clean is an identical copy of the Master video file (your finished video) with some key exceptions. The Clean has all music, graphics (lower-thirds, slates, etc.) and transitions removed.

 

Why Do I Have to Upload a Clean version of my Master Video file?

A good question - what is the purpose of uploading what amounts to a 2nd copy of the Master with a few changes made? 

When processing customer edits on videos we use the Clean video file as a source for recutting material in the video - something that wouldn't be possible with the Master video file given continuity issues presented by music, graphics, etc. which are included in the Master.

If the Clean video wasn't required it would be necessary to get an upload of pretty all your raw footage (a hassle no one wants to deal with).

 

How can I quickly make the Master & Clean video files?

1. Proceed with editing your video like you normally would but save your graphics, transitions & music for last (you'll want to put your audio crossfades in as you go)
2. When adding graphics & music make sure they are located on secondary tracks from your main footage (e.g. no nested sequences)
3. Mute/Hide the your sequence tracks that have the graphics & music
4. Export your Clean Video File
5. Unmute/UnHide your sequence tracks with the music & graphics
6. Add in your video transitions where needed
7. Export your Master Video File

Following the logistics of this process will mean that you've got a Clean video that matches your Master and hits all the necessary quality specs.

We'll be posting some videos about workflow recommendations here on the blog and on the Filmmaker Resource Center in the coming weeks so keep an eye out for these illustrated examples!

 

 

 

 

Vimeo Video School

http://vimeo.com/videoschool

One of the best video sharing sites out there just got better. They recently introduced a section on their site dedicated to teaching people about digital filmmaking and its 100% free!

Not only do they have a vast library of different tutorials, but most of them are videos! I have watched a bunch of them and they are short, educational, and entertaining.

You can browse tutorials by category:

• Behind the Scenes
• Do-It-Yourself
• DSLR
• Editing
• Gear
• Lighting
• Shooting
• Software
• Sound

*They even have an entire section exclusivily about DSLR shooting and editing.*

http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/11/introduction-to-dslr-cameras

All these tutorials are great information that will make everyone into better filmmakers!

 

Reducing Audio Noise with Soundtrack Pro

Hi Everyone,

So now that you've been to your shoot, captured your footage and you are back home editing, what do you do when you realize that some kind of annoying noise (maybe that refrigerator fan that kept turning on and off) has popped up in your soundbites?

Hopefully, if you notice the problem while on the shoot, you can find a quieter shooting location. But if not, you can try to reduce the noise with this cool Sountrack Pro technique as demonstrated by the knowledgeable staff over at geniusdv.com. This technique demonstrates a good reason to leave the camera running even if somone isn't talking so that you can utilize room tone and if possible, isolate the noise from the speaker's voice.

Below is the video from the geniusdv blog as seen on YouTube:

 

Basic Color Correction

Ok, let's not get too crazy. I promise I won't ask you to paint your walls 18% grey.

The only rule: Always use a 3-way color corrector and avoid the brightness/contrast filter. And use your video scopes!

Let's take a look at this shot. It's not bad. In fact, I bet the lights were a little yellow, so the camera was white balanced pretty accurately. But a little color correction can clean up good shots and sometimes even save bad ones!

1. Auto adjust whites/blacks using the eyedropper. (For this shot, I chose the white board and black pants.)

2. Use the Vectorscope to see information about skintone by using the flesh tone line (be sure to crop your canvas to just show skintone).

Use the 3-way CC to adjust (oftentimes, using the Mids is the way to go, just drag the central adjuster in the direction it should go according to your Vectorscope):

 

3. Use the Waveform Monitor to see how far off the whites and black are from trueness.

Use the levels in the 3-way CC to adjust:

 And admire the improvement! This one is quite subtle, but now the whites, blacks, and skintones are much more true to life.

 

And of course, there are lots videos (and tutorials) floating around on the Internet about color correction if you're dying to know more!

Webinar: How DSLR Cameras and AdobePremiere Pro Help Movies Get Made

This just hit our inbox from our friends at Videography magazine.

Due to its small, unintimidating footprint and excellent photography in low light, DSLR cameras are finding their way on movie sets everywhere.

In this free seminar, Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Jacob Rosenberg discuss how their movie Act of Valor was shot using Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR cameras and how Adobe Premiere Pro was used on set to natively edit the DSLR files in real time.

They will explain the workflow they used to edit the film and how Adobe helped knock down roadblocks in post-production.

Click here to register.