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Is there anything that cannot be fixed in post?

H

harmonica44

I am editing my first short film with real actors, but have not done any post work yet. I got the Adobe CS5 and am learning it. There is a lot to learn and how to use it but I would like to reshoot what I have to now, with the actors and locations still available. The locations looking very much the same and the actors looking very much the same. I don't know if I have to reshoot anything cause I don't know what's not fixable.

For example, I found out that if the lighting is darker in some takes, then in others, within the same scene, I can just use AE to change the colors, thereby making all the takes in a scene look like they are lit the same. Or if some of the sound is too quiet I can use the audio programs to bring it up louder. Or if a take isn't as in focus I can use AE to make it more. But is there anything that I can't fix, so I know that it needs reshooting or rerecording now? For example some of my sound is a little hissy and muffled. Can I clear it up? Or anything else that's good to know that cannot be redone? I've looked it up but couldn't find many websites that went into such specifics. I know it's a dumb too general of a question, but my actors need to know and I really don't know what to tell them since I have a lot to learn yet about the progams. Thanks.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Well this doorway shot is one of my favorite shots of the movie for the acting mainly, so I would like to rotoscope as much as I can. I already had that in mind, just not sure how to do it. Thanks, I will try that.
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I can't remember if you're using After Effects, but if you are it has some downright amazing rotoscoping tools. Learn as much as you can about those before diving in. You can always fall back to keyframed splines if you don't have access to the fancier tools. I prefer the inner-outer method as it's better for complex edges, and can even do hair in many cases.

(Keyframed spline animation sucks in general, but is totally doable if you can put in the time necessary to make it look right. Be sure to feather/fuzz your edges to get the right kind of edge blending, and use as many separate splines as you need [as opposed to one big spline with a zillion control points]).
 
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You can reduce the worst of the hiss by using a low-pass filter (sometimes it's included in the parametric EQ). Insert it on the dialog channel(s) or the dialog sub-buss; you'll probably have to automate it. Start at about 12kHz and slowly work your way down; you'll have to compromise between reducing the hiss and maintaining the upper end intelligibility.

Gain-staging your mixer/recorder is something that takes time to learn. When you've finished this short spend some time and do some experimenting
 
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Okay thanks. I've actually done a lot experimenting with the sound recorder before, and still figuring it out. I got the new hypercardioid mic after my first scene of shooting, and decided to use that for the rest of the indoor scenes, but perhaps that one needs to be set differently on the gains, as oppose to the shotgun I have been practicing with before?
 
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lol... Actually there is one thing that concerns me. Some shots the exposure kept changing cause of changing sunlight. So the aperture had to be readjusted but we kept noticing the sun when it was too late, and kept changing the aperture too late. So about half the shots of the scene, have a different aperture under different sunlight.

The problem with using color correction is that it seems to eliminate shadows. I am still exploring After Effects with what little time I have while in production still, but is there another way to fix this besides recoloring, so I can keep the shadows? What about turning up and down the brightness, like on a TV?

Another question I have is cropping. On a couple of shots there are continuity flaws. The person behind the camera shot it at a wider angle, then what I had said to do. So one of the actors is in the side of the frame, that should not be, cause it gets in the way of continuity, since she is suppose to be a few feet further away, in the intercuts. It clearly does not match. So I have to zoom in a block her out. However how much zoom in post can I get away with, before too much resolution is lost. I will have to zoom in about 1/4 to 1/3 to block her out.
 
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Yea, adjusting the brightness and contrast or using the curves filter should help you match the video. Again, it's so bright that the whites blow out or so dark that it's a giant black blur then there's not much you can do.

About scaling the image up to crop people out, what you should do is release this in 1280x720 resolution. It's still a great, high-res online option and you can move all your giant 1080p footage around wherever you want. Or, if the shot is perfect as is, just scale it down 67%.

Do this by changing your AE composition's resolution, then moving the files in there. We're doing this exact thing on our current short for a number of reasons. Hollywood does it too, just with 4K to 2K usually.

Sounds like it's coming along, glad to hear!!
 
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knightly said:
Sorry, just LOL'd - I read that last bit as "incontinent pirate prostitute" at first glance... that's a different thing that can be fixed.
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IncontinentPirateProstitute.jpg
 
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Yes thank you people as well! So Paul, you say to release it at 720p, but would I be able to only release the footage that has to be cropped at 720p? The thing is is that I edited one of these. Some of the scene I shot at 60fps at 720p, for slow motion. The other shots I shot at 24fps at 1080p. When the footage switches from 1080p to 720p, there is hardly any difference that I can tell. So wouldn't it be better, to release it at 1080p, with the 720p shots stretched out the same size, since there is hardly any noticeable difference at the same size? I'd much rather release it with 90% in 1080p, and 10% of it in 720p, all at the same size ratio, rather than release the whole thing in 720p.
 
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harmonica44 said:
So wouldn't it be better, to release it at 1080p, with the 720p shots stretched out the same size, since there is hardly any noticeable difference at the same size?
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Nope, the max size you can release in is the lowest resolution you shot in.

What resolution is you monitor? Do you have something that's 1920x1080 or larger that you're watching on? If your watching in lower resolution, of course it all looks the same.

Nothing wrong with 720p for online videos. Of course we all like 1080p better, but almost everyone that watches it online will watch it in 360p or 480p anyway, almost every laptop has a resolution lower than 1920x1080, as do phones and tablets. That makes up most of your online audience. The few who do have 1080p capabilities again probably won't watch in 1080p (unless it looks really stinking sweet, then you click over to 1080 and are willing to wait for the load), so the very very small percentage of viewers who want to and can watch in 1080p will probably not be that bummed that it's only 720p.
 
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Then you show it in 720p... There's not going to be much difference in the projector doing 720p on a 16' screen and your 720p footage blown up to 1080p on a 16' screen. It'll look about the same 30' back.

On a monitor 20" from your face though, 720 blown up to 1080 scaled down to 480 or 720 again is going to be more blurry.

Edit:

Sorry, last bit was a little over sarcastic, didn't need to say it haha.

If you don't like my advice though no sweat man, if you want to scale it up to 1080p then do it. Your project, your call. Just offering some insight on a topic I have a tiny amount of experience with.
 
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Okay thanks. I really appreciate your advice, it just comes with more questions, in order to further understand what one can and cannot do, under what circumstances and all. I am confused, cause some movies are shot with multiple different cameras with different resolutions. Some even digital with film. How do they release there movies in such high resolution or high quality, since one of the cameras was much lower quality?

Another concern of slow mo was this. We were pressed for time on a set and the action scenes where mostly the only ones left to do. I didn't have time to experiment much with lighting so I shot at 60fps with the shutter at 60.

The thing about slow mo is that you have to light the scene real bright and shoot with the shutter at 125 for 60fps. I forgot to light the scene real bright when we started, and by the time the slow mo shots came I thought 'oh crap, if I turn the shutter down to 125, it's going to be darker, and I can't get the camera any brighter. The plan was to shoot at 60 shutter, with bright lights and just turn down the aperture or/and ISO. But since I forgot to do that, there was no going back, cause I would have to restart the whole scene that day, which I did have time to do.

So I shot the slow mo scenes at 60fps with the shutter at 60 to match the previous footage, in terms of exposure.

But when you shoot 60fps with the shutter at 60, then play it back in slow mo, the slow mo, is kind of wave-ish looking. Is it possible to reduce the waves in post anyway?
 
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Sure, it may take a few days or more though, as I am figuring out how to save it in slow mo so it will naturally play that way, and all.

As far as pixels go, I forgot that I will be changing the aspect ratio which or course changes the pixels. So I should probably blow up my 720p footage to 1080p, then change the ratio, right?
 
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Again, I wouldn't blow it up. I also wouldn't change the ratio of the file. Keep it 16x9 because every outlet is happy with that, just put letterbox on it to make it whatever aspect you want. The file would still be 1280x720 though, or (sigh) 1920x1080.
 
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