First Days Filming - Early Test results

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mysticjim
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First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by mysticjim »

Hey there

Finally I got to begin filming my music video project for my friends band this Saturday just gone. You can read the full story on my blog about how it went, http://www.mysticjim.blogspot.com - but just as a test piece, here is a bit of test footage from my first attempt at filming using a green screen;


youtu.be/

This was shot using a Fujifilm Finepix S5800 at 640x480 4:3, and also is my first attempt at using my lighting rig.

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
john ingham
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by john ingham »

this is something i would love to try in the future..well done jim
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
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TimStannard
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by TimStannard »

Surprisingly good, given the comparatively low resolution. As mentioned elsewhere the wispy hairs can cause a problem and the reflectiveness of "silver" hair causes others. I might have been tempted to have in in a hat to avoid this, but, of course that might not fit with the theme/character. For only a second attempt at a video, this shows an awful lot of promise. Looking forward to seeing more. i shall follow your blog with interest.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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mysticjim
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by mysticjim »

Hey guys, sorry being such a stranger here, had to wait three months to get to do the concluding shoot for the music video I'm working on, but finally got some progress.

Have finished the first big task in the editing of my music video - here is the band performance element of the video, plus there are a couple of filters and a light ray effect thrown on in a hurry - this is just a rough edit, and when the final version with the extra footage is complete, this footage may end up looking different again, but for now I thought I'd upload this, purely because I'm pretty happy with it - it has already surpassed my previous video making attempt by miles in its own right!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9oyssUywkQ[/youtube]

And you can also read the blog post relating to it here;

http://mysticjim.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11 ... video.html

Hope you guys like it

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
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FredD
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by FredD »

Hey Jim !!
The boy dun good !!
And no one electrocuted !! :shock: :lol:

Fred D
"Films are never released, they escape !" Ben Burtt
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TimStannard
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by TimStannard »

Hi Jim,

As one of the seven people who has listened to all of your podcasts (and at between 1hr 30 and 2hrs 15 each, that's quite an investment of my time, even if I did do it whilst driving) I feel entitled to be as critical as I wish!

I think you've already highlighted some fo te problems in your blog. The light rays have come out rather overdone. It looks like you're trying to give all the members of the band God-like status. I suggest that rather than just dial it back, you introduce some movement into the effect - such that in some clips it increases during the clip. But for heaven's sake don't do that on every clip!

I really like the colour you've given the footage. Have you thought about using different hues, perhaps different colours for different band members?

There are some sync issues. This is most noticable with the drummer, but any muso will spot that the guitarist's licks don't match. It may be geeky, but for those who do notice, it totally destroys the effect. Funnily enough, it is worse to show something that is not quite right than something which is totally wrong (think of all those 70's video edits where they showed a guitarist in slo-mo whilst the audio plays at normal speed.

I'm well aware that you had to film the band members individually and you did quite a good job of covering that, but after a while it does rather become obvious and samey. I wonder whether you could have injected some sort of narrative story running alongside the performance clips. Even just the singer walking along a canal or a road and ending up somewhere (maybe singing the material, maybe just stopping along his way looking wistfully at something here and there, maybe chatting to people he meets) just something to give the video a bit of a story, so the viewer wantst o keep watching to see where it leads.

Just a thought ...

Keep up the experimentation.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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mysticjim
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by mysticjim »

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback, firstly to Fred for ensuring that I didn't electrocute myself or any of the band, as it was a real possibility when I first got started!

Secondly, Tim, many thanks for your dedication to the podcast, nice to know we have at least one fan! The next episode was actually due to be recorded last week, but I was still a bit ill, and then we were going for tonight, but alas, Elliott, my 2 and half year old son, is poorly so I'm on childcare duty! So, I think episode seven will be recorded early next week, and we'll do a shout out to your good self for such a loyal listener!

Anyway, thanks for your constructive feedback about the video, a few thinks to note;

Out of Sync: Have to mention the sync issue, its a youtube problem not a footage or editing problem, the band's performance in most cases was spot on in terms of sync, and I was painstakingly careful. The render I did from Song Vegas is perfectly synced, its bloody Youtube that has delayed the audio by a fraction, hence the loss of sync, as you say, most noticable with the footage of the drummer. I'm told that Youtube favours uploading of clips in MP4 format, not WMV that I used, so I'll re-render in MP4 and upload that version and see if that sorts it out. I have to admit I was so gutted with the sync issue as most people assume its due to bad syncing on behalf of the band or bad editing on my part when in fact its neither. Until I manage to upload synced version you'll have to take my word for it, but when viewed perfectly in sync the whole footage is much more watchable and enjoyable.

Light rays: yes, of course they will be dialled down in the finished version. This particular cut was done purely to showcase the band performance footage, and without the light rays you see far too much of the background. I'm not deliberately increasing the effect mid shot, I suspect its when the band member moves back and forth in front of the lights, changing what the light ray effect is reacting to.

Lighting: Most definitely for the final cut I'm considering a different hue for each band member to keep it a bit varied, the band themselves were quite keen on that idea.

The full video: The footage of the band performing is only one facet of the video, no doubt, Tim, you'll remember the footage I got from the first shoot back in the summer? As well as the footage of Jon, the singer, doing his faux-live performance footage, I've also take a few takes with him as the newscaster in front of the green screen, and an alternative take where it looks like he is being interrogated in a padded cell, plus I have some stock footage of rioting. The plan is to create the finished video using an interspersion of all four elements.

For the green footage I'm going to utilise the virtual studio that I showcased in the earlier bit of footage I posted within this thread. So, I have the four elements to cut between - plus the virtual studio also has a screen in the background, so simultaneous footage can appear there too. As the song progresses, Jon's performance in both the green screen and padded cell footage gets more extreme, and I have some fantastic footage where the rioting also includes the odd explosion which will sit on some of the cuts brilliantly. This was the original concept and narrative for the video, the performance footage is merely to fill the gaps and to show the band doing their thing - you're quite right, on its own it does not have the variation, but as I said, it was never meant to. Its just that it came out so much better than my previous attempt at a video, I thought I'd share it!

Anyway, thanks again for all the feedback, I look forward to sharing the finished version with you all before Christmas.

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
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TimStannard
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by TimStannard »

Sorry, Jim. For some reason I'd assumed that you'd moved on from the green screen/newsroom test footage and this was a different video which I was judging as an entity in its own right. These will make fine supplementary footage - even wuth the light rays as they are.

Incidentally, I wasn't suggesting that in this video the rays are increasing - I was suggesting that you might do that in order to add another element of movement.

I'm looking forward to seeing this video pieced together. Keep up the good work.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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mysticjim
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by mysticjim »

Having some real issues with this whole Youtube and audio out of sync problem.

I've been told that my best bet was to upload vids in MP4 rather than WMV, so I did a render direct from Sony Vegas using the h.264 Mpeg codec, lo and behold, I get the same sync problem straight from the render as I get when I upload the wmv to youtube. I also get the problem when I try and convert the wmv straight to MP4, somewhere in the conversion or coding process I'm losing frames, but seemingly only when I want to get it into MP4. This is weird!

Can anyone suggest anything to help?
'Game over, man, game over!'
john ingham
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by john ingham »

Try loading up to Vimeo
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Dave Watterson
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by Dave Watterson »

YouTube's own help system says:
We prefer that you upload your video in the original format and in the highest quality possible.
We prefer de-interlaced files.
Audio and video lengths should be the same and audio should begin at the same time as the video.
On that basis maybe a click on the soundtrack to coincide with the first frame would help.

Dave
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mysticjim
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by mysticjim »

Looks like the problem is with Sony Vegas. I was mistakenly believing that the original WMV file I rendered was in sync - Windows media Player has been playing it in sync, but everything else I've played it on, such as VLC Player, has revealed the sync issue. I've found some support forums with suggestions - the main one that keeps coming up is to use wav files for audio instead of MP3, but why that should make any difference is beyond me. I'm actually considering having manually shift the audio back a few frames in sony Vegas just to get it to line up properly, which is frankly really annoying.

I was thinking of upgrading to a newer version of Sony Vegas, I've got Vegas Platinum Pro V10 (a cheap version) - I was thinking of moving up to the latest version of Movie studio(cos I sure can't afford Pro!) - but now I'm wondering whether I should go with something else? I almost went for Coral Video Studio last time, might check out a demo of that soon.
'Game over, man, game over!'
col lamb
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Re: First Days Filming - Early Test results

Post by col lamb »

If you are considering changing I suggest that you try Edius Neo

It is similar to the full Edius 6.5 but way cheaper, its only really in the output options and quantity of effects that differs from Neo. Edius 6.5 demo is available to download and test for 30 days

WMA files are notoriously fickle, if you do not have the correct options it produces a video file and a seperate WAV audio file

MP4 is much better and you should not have any sync issues unless there are sync issues on the timeline which others have commented on that there are

I am unfamilar with Vegas encoding but if you search Vimeo and Youtube I am pretty sure you will find help

Check out my Vimeo site as I have a tutorials there on encoding using Premiere and Edius
Col Lamb
Preston, Lancashire.
FCPX, Edius6.02, and Premiere CS 5.5 user.
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