Bad Film Edit Effect

tjglfr wrote on 6/25/2006, 10:50 PM

There's an effect that i've seen a lot lately. It looks like a bad film edit.
Like when the film goes off the projector's gate and it jumps up and down, or when the sprokets break. Can this be created in Vegas or is it part of an effect from a plug-in for Vegas or other NLE. I've seen it on some commercials and entertainment shows.

Comments

Serena wrote on 6/25/2006, 11:08 PM

Just to get the description fixed, I think you want the effect of "lost loop", where the film is pulled through the gate with some irregularity (the claws catch now and again but the sprocket is pulling constantly). The film remains in the gate, so there is no sliding off to one side or other mistracking.

EDIT: this isn't an editing defect, of course. Obviously you're after a post production effect that use can insert into video!

Grazie wrote on 6/26/2006, 12:15 AM

As Serena quite rightly says - not a bad edit. You want bad edits? I got plenty - lol!

But yes to the , "Like when the film goes off the projector's gate and it jumps up and down, " try some of the "Film Effects" fx parameters. You get: Jitter and Flicker. These are great parameters to adjust.

" . . . or when the sprockets break. " . .and then what happens? The "film" jumps and remains in the searing heat of the "bulb" and then burns? That effect? If that is what you are after then it would be a still "grab" from Vegas and an export into a graphics package to attain the "burn-out" effect on THAT frame and import back into Vegas. Great fun!!! OR . .and I haven't done this, but videoing CAREFULLY a large sheet of THAT trannie colour-printed frame being er . .distressed? - Koool!!! and then bringing this "footage" back into Vegas.

Hell!? Haven't we come a long way from reality? When you think about it? Here we are - videoing - not filming - in 2006 to make something appear BAD as though it was filmed on sprockets?!?!? Yah just gotta love this craft?

So, jitter and flicker yes .. oh yes . . you also get dust and scratches too!!

Have fun!

Grazie

Grazie wrote on 6/26/2006, 12:28 AM

Another thought . . do you want it to appear as if the film is slipping through the gate and being seen as sliding so you also see the frame borders as a long "smeary" moving image? Is that what you are after?

If this is the case . .interesting!! This sounds like a job for a pinch of vertical Gaussian blur PLUS maybe use of 2 tracks of the video with say track 1 using a lower opacity and just slightly out of phase with T2? Interesting!!

Grazie

busterkeaton wrote on 6/26/2006, 2:13 AM

tjglfr, I would say with knowing exactly what you looking for, that yes this can be created in Vegas. However this is probably not a preset effect in Vegas. Knowing the Vegas tools, however, will allow you to understand how many FX you need, how much keyframing, how many layers you need, how much track motion you need, etc. Often quite sophisticated looks are the results of combinations of simple effects.

For starters you can look at the Film Effects filter and keep grain and tint at zero and turn jitter and turn up flicker an jitter. You may want to add a hint of linear blur.

farss wrote on 6/26/2006, 3:28 AM

Serena has pretty well nailed it although I've had this happen many times due to a bad edit, well a bad splice actually, I guess they count as 'edit's?

Now first read Serena's explaination, save me retyping it!

To reproduce this is not simple as it's a temporal effect.

What you have happening is you're seeing part of one frame and part of the next with a black strip in between and the vertical frame offset is a function of frame rate and mechanical effects in the gate.
I wish I still had some footage of this happening for real to carefully analyse but hey, one tends to cut these bits out.

But here's how I'd start.

Apply vertical shift using track or event pan / crop. This will leave space at the bottom / top of the frame. Use keyframes so it's quite jittery in it movement and add an initial and final jump to simulate it going in / out of the gate.

Now duplicate the track, offset one frame before or after. Now apply the same pan as above but use the opposite direction and leave a small gap.

I wouldn't add MB as that'll blur everything and that's not what would have happened in the real deal. Instead I'd try over / under sampling to introduce some more judder.

This would take a LOT of fiddling around but it can be done in Vegas.
Definately something for a rainy day.

Bob.

Grazie wrote on 6/26/2006, 3:36 AM

I think Bob may have it there too. A bad cemented edit? Oh yes!!

farss wrote on 6/26/2006, 6:41 AM

Nah,
tape ones, the edge of the tape would stick to the gate. Or the other cause was torn sproket holes. The cement ones used to just come unstuck as the film unwound or as it went around the first bend.

DJPadre wrote on 6/26/2006, 6:59 AM

umm.. i didnt read the whole thread but an easy way instead of using track motion, is to apply the old film look as well as the TV simulator.

using keyframes u can tweak the vertical hold and trigger a gate burst (from normal "reset to none" to a full ball V hold spin out

thats the quick n dirty way anyway

tjglfr wrote on 6/26/2006, 9:04 AM

I think Serena explained it better than I. (English is my second lenguage). The jump takes place at the cut for about three or four frames. In some cases you can see a black edge of what it would be the film frame.

johnmeyer wrote on 6/26/2006, 10:09 AM

I spend a lot of time looking closely at the film gate in my projectors. The usual reason for this several frame discontinuity is that the claw that pulls down the film to the next frame cannot find a sprocket hole. This usually happens around a bad splice, where the splicing tape is covering the hole, or the hole has been ripped. The film doesn't get pulled down all the way, and so you see part of one frame and part of the next, with the horizontal bar between frames being prominently displayed. Often the pressure from the film loop above will force the film down far enough that, in two or three frames, the claw once again "finds" the holes and resumes pulling down each frame correctly. In the interim, the portion of the next frame that shows in the gate changes. Thus, if you wanted to mimic the effect, you would want to take two adjacent frames, and put one on one track, and one on the other. I think I would take 3-4 frames of video, copy it, move it to the track above, and then offset it in time by exactly one frame (i.e., move it to the left or right by one frame). I would then use pan/crop to move those 3-4 frames up (or down), and move the frames below (on the original track) in the opposite direction. Move the bottom frames a little further to create the horizontal black bar. That should give you one bad frame. Do the same thing for the remaining frames, but use the keyframe option to change how much of one frame shows vs. the other. Set the keyframes to "hold" so there is no motion between keyframes.

To add to the effect, I would add some gate jitter, using film effects. You would also want to feather the edges of the video so the horizontal black bar doesn't appear too "clean." The edge of the film is usually quite irregular and fuzzy.

I haven't tried this, but I think it will get you close to what you are looking for.