or some kind of editing, effect or something?

how did they make the picture look so incredibly nice?
http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/9849/bscap0047vb.th.jpg (http://img314.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bscap0047vb.jpg)http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/9849/bscap0047vb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/9849/bscap0047vb.jpg

second example:

http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/853/bscap0050iv.th.jpg (http://img314.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bscap0050iv.jpg)http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/853/bscap0050iv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/853/bscap0050iv.jpg

i'm using premiere pro and getting after effects, let me know if there's a way.

if you don't know what i mean, i'm talking about her skin looking so much like you used photoshop's blur and then faded the blur through darkening. it looks like art.


another example... any way to get that done in video?
http://usera.imagecave.com/jiggaman/kussmod.jpg

Looks like a combination of professional make-up, good lighting, pro-mist filters and colour correction.

where are the pro-mist filters?

Pro Mist filters are put in the matt box on the front of the camera during the shoot. It's not a post production effect.

oh that's what you mean, sorry didn't know the english name for that. you seriously think that's it? no computer effects? it just looks too flawlessly nice.

You might be able to acheive something similar with one of the plugins from Trapcode (http://www.trapcode.com/products.html)... But likely Clive is right, good lighting, professional make-up a filter or two and some color correction.

I would add that it looks heavy contrast which would happen with overexposure.

oh that's what you mean, sorry didn't know the english name for that. you seriously think that's it? no computer effects? it just looks too flawlessly nice.

I think there is a massive ammount of post production effect work here, but before that, stupid amounts of money have gone into production.

The truth is that to get great images you have to invest time and money into both production and post production.

For instance that image must have been shot on either 35mm film or Pro HD (Cinealta) would be my guess. The cost of the filters alone, for those cameras, would be more than the cost of most pro-summer camcorders.

With production you get what you pay for. The real skill in indie filmaking is producing work that looks nearly as good by spending a fraction of what the mainstream industry uses. But the truth is that no amount of plugins and effects packages will ever compete with good shooting on the best equipment.

I'm sure having great skin like that would also make the job easier. Is it usual to over-expose her jambles like that?

I'm sure having great skin like that would also make the job easier.

There's a good chance that she doesn't ahve great skin. Most professional models have dreadful skin created by amount and kinds of make up they wear.

ew.

I think there is a massive ammount of post production effect work heresuch as? i am very well aware of the fact that my camera isn't up to part, but anything else i can do to make it look any better then it currently does of course would be a plus.

I don't know enough about premiere to tell you.

The problem is that this kind of work is done on Avid Nitris and Inferno.

serious? the only reason i went with adobe premiere was because of the premiere -vs- avid thread in this forum, saying it doesn't make a difference. well what do you do in avid to make it look more like that? maybe somebody in here knows his way around both softwares, and can translate the name for that effect, or knows what comes close to it in premiere.

the only reason i went with adobe premiere was because of the premiere -vs- avid thread in this forum, saying it doesn't make a difference

The comparison was to Avid Xpress, maybe?

Nitris is in quite a different league. :)

Yeah, unless you have far more money than most of us an Avid Nitris station is beyond your price point :). Avid Xpress Pro and Premiere Pro are on the same level - in which case the system chosed doesn't really matter.

avid nitris station? mmm, i hadnt even herd about that one. but i'll look into it. the thing is i work for a tv station here in germany, so putting it on my work computer might be no problem. although i doubt that we have it, since all the computers there are just equiped with avid xpress.

avid nitris station, is that that much better? / does it come with so many more functions or effects?

Avid Nitris is the new Avid editing system specifically designed to do online for HD. Flame and Inferno are dedicated after effects units. These are the top end of digital prodution resources.

The truth is that your best bet to create "as close to" images as the ones you've posted are to look at the following.

1) Forget post production fixes and concentrate on learning as much as you can about lighting and photography.
2) Forget the camera you own and look at raising budgets to hire in good quality professional cameras. So instead of shooting on HD, you could shoot on either digi-beta or DVCPro50, both of which in the hands of a good DOP will get you the results you want.
3) Only use your home computer for the rough cut, find the money to go to a professional post production house for your online edit, and hire a good colour corrector for a day or two. (we colour corrected our entire feature film in two days because we hired an incredible professional to do it and he was worth every penny we spent)

The bottom line is that it's not possible to get the quality of image that you want on mini-dv and editing on Premiere. You can do interesting stuff, but the slick glossy commercial look is expensive.

It all depends on what you're aiming for.

One tip I would give is that if you look at the image you'll notice that the girl is in focus the the background isn't. Something that is easy to achieve on film and difficult to achieve on video. The reason that you work on learning about lighting and photography is that it gives you the knowledge to understand how to manipulate the depth of field. Video cameras were designed to cope with low light levels, which means that in good light they have extra ordinary depth of field (everything is roughly in focus). To compensate for this the DOP will put load so ND(Netral Density) filters in the matt box on the front of the camera. ND cuts down the amount of light without changing the colour temperature. This effectively makes the depth of field smaller, allowing the video camera to handle more like film. On a professional camera (digi-beta, DVCPro50, HD) these things are easy to do, on the prosumer cameras it's more difficult, because most don't even encourage manual control of the exposure or the focus.

So, if you've got a camera that can take a matt box, and therefore filters, alone with your ND filters to decrase the depth of field, you stick in a black-pro-mist, which will give exactly that soft, commercial look you're after.

In post production, you increase the saturation of the colours to make them rich and heighten the glow, then colour correct in more yellow to make the images warmer. The only reason I know this is because I always do the opposite, decrease the saturation and increase the blue. These corredctions are all dependent on how close to a flat image you got in the first place. Most of the professioanl cameras are now programable with preset colour correction packages which create partiucular looks. The BBC camera teasm developed a lot of these and they really save time in production.

clive thanks alot for going through all the trouble of typing that up just to educate lil ol me, i very much appriciate that. and will take everything you said to heart. of course i am not aiming completely at that image that i posted there. i was just looking into how i could make something look MORE LIKE it. i am very well aware of the fact that a 1000bux mini-dv camera can't compete with a serious hd. that much i know. i'll try the post production tip you gave me at the end, on the clips i shot.

the thing is, the video i'm making is supposed to end up in black and white anyways. but the thing is turning something like i posted up there (from the new mashonda video - black out (in case anybody cares to know cuz it's an incredible video)) into black and white, it just looks so much better then when i turn something regular in to black and white.

right now i'm trying to find a way to reduce the colors in the clips i shot, but make them stronger, putting that into black and white would give it a more comic type look, i assume. which is what the video should look like. this is far fetched but a sim city similar effect.

ND cuts down the amount of light without changing the colour temperature. This effectively makes the depth of field smaller

I knew about the light part... but not about how it affects DOF.

That's an amazing trick. :cool:

it just looks so much better then when i turn something regular in to black and white.

That might be because B&W needs to be lit differently than for colour. With B&W it's all about contrast, making sure that you have strong highlights and dark shadows, otherwise everything comes out in shades to grey.

ND cuts down the amount of light without changing the colour temperature. This effectively makes the depth of field smaller

Only if you can open your iris more though :). Once you have it wide open the DOF isn't going to change due to ND. And, of course, lenses are softer at their extremes (wide open + shut)