Starting up, need advice regarding HD, sound and postprod.

CLowDownMerci said:

- I want to embed 3D in the movie. However, the camera only records in interlaced mode. Can I still do this?

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Yes, but it will be a little more work. You'll probably want to deinterlace to do the motion tracking and compositing, then after matching grain, etc.. export as interlaced footage that will match the rest of the footage. You'll probably need some additional tools besides those you've already touched on. Specifically something for match moving. Syntheyes is fairly inexpensive... Pixel Farm has a trimmed down inexpensive version of pftrack (pfhoe). Or you could dig up a copy of icarus from somewhere, and try to use it, but I believe it can only be used non commercially.

CLowDownMerci said:

- Recording will be in normal daylight and morning. Lighting concerns? I already know that the camera is best in normal light, but how can I reach the best results in a dim environment?

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Simple. add more lights.

Thanks Will!

By deinterlacing the footage, will I have the same quality as original progressive film? I have a gut feeling the answer is no, and that there will be diminished quality by going from interlaced -> deinterlaced -> embedded 3D ?

Regarding the lighting, right, simple answer to simple question.

Now regarding the audio, I'm eager to hear if anyone could help me with that issue also.. "The camera doesn't have mic inputs, so I'll need to record audio separately. I know there are electronical devices that exists, but which to choose? I'll be recording sound in an outdoor environment with background noise (wind, people walking, cars going by)."


Thanks again Will for helping out a film newbie!

Paul

Hi! Im also a noob on this forum. But regarding the audio device, I think you're reffering to an audio mixer.

an audio mixer is a nice tool, i love them, but they are really independent from the filming proses, be a lot of work too line up the mouthing with the voices.....

idk what the best way to do it is, i can only say that, if i was only using one camera, i would connect the camera to my computer and connect a mic to my computer, cancel the mic in the camera(if you cant no big deal, just delte the sound later) and then hit record (from your program)..... but i am not really the best guy to take advice from.

well thats more complicated for me atleast Idk, I think that the audio mixer is one of the best choices, however, I know there are probably more solutions to this.

Really any digital audio recording device that has an external input for microphones should work... Cheapest option might be to pick up a used minidisc recorder, but getting the audio off of it onto the computer could be a chore (or only possible in real time)

DAT is a good way to go, but more spendy than other options

A good middle of the road solution that won't cost an insane amount of money, and will be relatively easy to work with after audio has been recorded would be a recorder that uses some sort of flash memory. You'll also want to make sure you slate every shot, using either a clapboard, or just talking and clapping your hands to indicate the sync point. (make sure that's captured on both audio and video)

On the other hand, if your camera has a built in mic, syncing can be a little easier because the onboard mic audio can be used as a guide.

Thanks! Here are some more thoughts and questions.. Thanks for bearing with me. lol


@Will:

My camera has a built in mic, but I want to be able to record more accurately, say a conversation between three people in a scene on a sidewalk with lots of background noise. I doubt that my cam can do this accurately (if standing a few meters off). So I'm looking for a solution similar to a hanging mic above the people in the scene. I don't know the term but... the kind of mic you can see in movie bloopers, that drop down into picture in a movie scene.

- Is it as simple as, say, buying a flash memory recorder and hooking it up to a mic that is sufficiently close to the scene and of good enough quality (the mic) to suppress background noise?

- I already know that I will do most scenes outdoors, so I'm bound to use battery all the time, camera and mic. Can a quality mic be powered by a small hand recorder, such as a Flash memory recorder? I bet that such a mic will use a plug way too big for a normal hand recorder..?

- The clapboard / or clapping hands to help syncing film with sound sounds good. I'll keep that in mind!


@dvdguy & @tongoll:
- I'm only going to use one camera so as Will said, I can use that as a guide to sync audio and film. The primary issue for me now I believe is the actual recording.

- I won't be able to connect my camera to a computer (to cancel the mic) during recording, since I'll be outdoors (and it feels dreary to carry the laptop around just to cancel the audio). So, I'm thinking I'll go with recording audio and later "overrunning" conversations with audio that has been recorded with a standalone mic (see above, the "microphone hanging in midair abve the scene").

- It seems the problem is twofold. The mic and recording process, and later the actual audio mixing to sync voices with lip movements...

Thanks for all your input, very much appreciated! Your advice rocks.

A very basic question

Hi, Will. Since it appears that ClowDownMerci has had his query answered, I hope it's okay to hijack his thread, just this once.

The fact is, I noticed your answer to him regarding tracking software, and it happens that I'm searching all over for someone to explain to me the very basic fundamentals of that kind of software. I've asked the question on several dv sites and nobody seems to have an answer that helps me out.

You seem to have a clue or two about the subject, so, sorry, man, but if you can spare me a few minutes, I'm going to ask you. Actually, I registered here solely for the purpose!

To put it simply, I have no idea whatsoever about so-called "tracking" or "Match moving" software. I know that it can be used to add elements into footage that weren't there at the time of filming, and to make it look as if they were, eg buildings sitting where there were none.

I have a rough idea that the software somehow calculates and identifies "points" in the frames of film, such as bright spots or small dark spots, and will calculate the "pattern" of movement that those points made in real space when the camera filmed them. Now, beyond that, I'm clueless.

All I've learned so far is that the software merely prepares the footage for transferring into 3D modelling programs, so that three dimensional animated models can be added to the scene.

I'm not interested in doing this.

What I need to know is this: Can this kind of software be used to simply "insert" a flat image, (say, a distant building), into footage that has been analysed by match moving software, and then export or save the footage-with-building to a common or garden-variety NLE, like Premiere Elements or Pinnacle? What I mean is, can it allow you to do something as simple as place a small image of a building into the frames of hand-held footage of an open field, and process it so that the building appears to belong in the field?

Sorry, I realise that's a clumsy question, but so far nobody's been able to help me out. Maybe because I can't phrase the question in the correct terms.

If this kind of footage can be utilised in this way, I understand PFHoe is a relatively inexpensive program and might do the trick? Am I right?

Sorry to take up your time, but I hope you can help me.

Thanks,
Kurt.

4DMan said:

Hi, Will. Since it appears that ClowDownMerci has had his query answered, I hope it's okay to hijack his thread, just this once.

The fact is, I noticed your answer to him regarding tracking software, and it happens that I'm searching all over for someone to explain to me the very basic fundamentals of that kind of software. I've asked the question on several dv sites and nobody seems to have an answer that helps me out.

You seem to have a clue or two about the subject, so, sorry, man, but if you can spare me a few minutes, I'm going to ask you. Actually, I registered here solely for the purpose!

To put it simply, I have no idea whatsoever about so-called "tracking" or "Match moving" software. I know that it can be used to add elements into footage that weren't there at the time of filming, and to make it look as if they were, eg buildings sitting where there were none.

I have a rough idea that the software somehow calculates and identifies "points" in the frames of film, such as bright spots or small dark spots, and will calculate the "pattern" of movement that those points made in real space when the camera filmed them. Now, beyond that, I'm clueless.

All I've learned so far is that the software merely prepares the footage for transferring into 3D modelling programs, so that three dimensional animated models can be added to the scene.

I'm not interested in doing this.

What I need to know is this: Can this kind of software be used to simply "insert" a flat image, (say, a distant building), into footage that has been analysed by match moving software, and then export or save the footage-with-building to a common or garden-variety NLE, like Premiere Elements or Pinnacle? What I mean is, can it allow you to do something as simple as place a small image of a building into the frames of hand-held footage of an open field, and process it so that the building appears to belong in the field?

Sorry, I realise that's a clumsy question, but so far nobody's been able to help me out. Maybe because I can't phrase the question in the correct terms.

If this kind of footage can be utilised in this way, I understand PFHoe is a relatively inexpensive program and might do the trick? Am I right?

Sorry to take up your time, but I hope you can help me.

Thanks,
Kurt.

Click to expand...

You might think it not related to your needs or specific software. But if you watch this AfterEfects tutorial, you'll understand how people talk about this stuff..

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/set_extensions/

Don't set your expectations so high if you've never done it before - 3D - the only camera I know of that can be configured to do this is the red - you can probably pull something off in post, but it'll be a nightmare - I can alomst promise you that. Lighting is not something you can just learn, it is skill and technique based. You can have all the best equipment and still make a really crapy movie. So learn, but do it before you make your big work. There is no worse place to figure tech things out that a full movie - because then the beginning will look different from the end and you'll have wasted the time of everyone involved due to tech errors.

Make shoot a short 2 minute movie, make it 3D and then decide if you want to do that with a feature - or if 3D is a waste of time.

4DMan said:

I hope it's okay to hijack his thread...To put it simply, I have no idea whatsoever about so-called "tracking" or "Match moving" software. I know that it can be used to add elements into footage that weren't there at the time of filming, and to make it look as if they were, eg buildings sitting where there were none.

Click to expand...

Ok.. there are essentially 3 primary kinds of tracking software available today.

2D point trackers, which take a single point and track its motion across multiple frames of video. They generate no 3D data, so are all but useless when it comes to adding a 3d element into a scene with a complex move. More on that in a bit...

2.5D trackers: This is sort of a fake 3D track, in that it will let you specify multiple points and track their relative motion throughout a series of frames, and along with their movement across X & Y (up/down, left/right) they also keep track of where the other points being tracked go to generate rotational changes and 'skew' which lets you do some basic simulated 3D.. Like tracking the side of truck driving by, and then replacing its side with a sign, and that sort of thing.

In this 2.5D realm, you also have what are referred to as planar trackers, a good example of these is the imagineer systems software (Mocha, Monet, etc). These let you specify a surface to track, rather than points, and basically give you the same kind of rotational, skew, simulated 3D track that a multi-point track can provide.. but they can give you better results with less effort in some circumstances.

Finally, we have 3D trackers. PFHoe is a very capable 3D tracker, others would include Syntheyes, PFTrack, boujou and the free for educational use icarus which Pixel Farm's PFTrack and PFHoe were originally based on.. I believe there might be a few others out there but these are the main ones.

3D camera tracking, also referred to as match moving, is the process of analyzing footage to determine where in 3D space the camera is in relation to the scene.

These programs all work slightly differently, but ultimately they do the same thing, they generate a point cloud that represents the points tracked within the scene, and a camera. This data, once properly calibrated within the program (assuming the program offers the necessary calibration tools) can be exported, then imported into a 3D package, like 3DSMax, Lightwave, Maya, Cinema4d, etc..

The reason this is important, is that the exact motion of the camera is available to the virtual camera within the 3D package. So when you create your 3D elements, you place them in their proper place within the 3d scene, using the tracked points as reference of where things are in the real world footage. This way, when frames are rendered out of the 3D Package, they can be more easily composited with the live action, as they (should) already be in the appropriate position on every frame.

It's a pretty complex topic, but that more or less sums it up. If you have additional questions, I recommend this book to get a better overall grasp on the subject: Matchmoving: The Invisible Art of Camera Tracking by Tim Dobbert. He's also got a couple of DVDs available but I can't comment on how helpful they are as I've not seen them, other than a generalized comment that they are Gnomon Workshop dvds and those are always good.

EDIT: The link wheatgrinder posted will show you a way to track a still image into footage without the need for a more involved 3D matchmove. I have seen boujou used for this though in circumstances where a simple point tracker wouldn't properly account for the moving camera properly. One of the sessions of FXPHD class on After effects that was centered around the BBC show about Atilla the Hun covered that pretty well..

But, for basic use, you should be able to accomplish what you're asking about with AE by following the set extension tutorial. Or in other compositing software with slight modifications.

Thank you.

Thank you very much indeed, Will. That does clear up a lot of my questions.

I don't own After Effects, or in fact any other program that I think would have the calbration tools to decipher the 3D data generated by any of the products you mentioned.

I'll check out Wheatgrinder's link and see what it has to say, as well.

Once again, thanks for your very comprehensive reply.

Good advice, Sammiammi. That's pretty much what I intend to do.

Cheers.