Auto Brightness Tool?

RalphM wrote on 4/27/2005, 12:17 PM

I've got about 15 minutes of video that was shot by a teen aged volunteer. It was a play, with strong stage lighting. While he did a very good job of keeping the whites from blowing out, he took my instructions to "ride the iris" a little too to literally, and the brightness goes up and down frequently. Too bad, because he did some nice work otherwise.

Am I stuck cutting the footage into events then trying to match the brightness between events, or is there a less painful approach that can be tried? All the editing is pro bono on my part....

Thanks,
RalphM

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 4/27/2005, 12:39 PM

Drop in Color Corrector, add keyframes as needed boost/drop gamma and gain to bring brightness into a more uniform condition. Best to watch scopes and see the waveform rise and fall on the waveform readout. Generally you'll get better results and its easier to do if you first break the problem area into smaller events that have similar conditions.

RalphM wrote on 4/27/2005, 3:41 PM

Thanks BillyBoy,

This will be a lengthy process. Guess I'll leave the camera in automatic next time I enlist volunteer help

Also, I appreciate your tutorials.

RalphM

craftech wrote on 4/27/2005, 4:04 PM

Don't do that. Stage productions on automatic will be a disaster. The camera will not read the lighting correctly. I have found that my VX2000 works best with the White Balance set to Indoor lighting slightly tweaked with the Custom Preset. And then Manula Exposure only.
I would suggest you go to final rehearsals and log the scenes in terms of exposure. Once you do that AVOID twisting the exposure control even if people are walking in and out of the light or the stage is unevenly lit. Later on when you correct it (a guarantee with stage lighting) you will have less events to correct.
Further,
Drop the color corrector on the entire event (events) BEFORE you slice it up. That way when you split the events up the color corrector will already be there requiring only adjustments rather than having to drop it into every newly sliced up event one at a time.
You also may want to keyframe the changes so that they don't jump out at you every time they change. They will be more gradual.
But there is no quick solution to your current footage problem. Just take the time and make sure you SAVE some settings with new names so you can use them on other events in the production. Some are bound to be identical and this saves time. You can toggle them. Set your external preview to Best (full), but you WILL have to render to see what it will actually look like on a television screen. Render lots of LOOPS.

John

John_Cline wrote on 4/27/2005, 4:07 PM

Ralph,

There is a slim possibility that Mike Crash's AutoLevels Vegas filter may help you out. It's worth a try and it's free.

Mike's Filters

John

johnmeyer wrote on 4/27/2005, 9:33 PM

I just had to do this with a one hour stage event that had a single follow spot. I did pretty much what BillyBoy suggested in his post above, except I found that I got better control over the results using the Color Curves. That tool is a little trickier to use, since you have infinitely possible settings, but once you get the hang of it, you can boost just the range that is too dark, without affecting the rest of the balance.

Spot|DSE wrote on 4/27/2005, 10:23 PM

To further John's comment, if you fail to drop the color corrector, curves, or other filter on before you start editing, you can always drop the filters on the media in the Media Pool/Project Media bin, and it will apply to all events culled from that original shot. For me personally, I prefer Curves over color correction, but you can make either one work.