Cut with Vegas

Former user wrote on 10/21/2009, 3:56 PM

Just looking for a little feedback, positive or negative. This was shot green screen and keyed with After Effects. Then the entire thing was cut in Vegas 9b Pro.

I also wrote the music for this track. :-)

Everything else on our YT page ( http://www.youtube.com/concordiaedmonton ) is cut with Vegas. What can I say, I've been a big Vegas fanboy since V4.

Thx!
Andreas

ps: As a footnote, Concordia is a small university so we have zero budget apart from my time and the equipment which we received from a generous donor a year ago (EX1 and all the trimmings). My job is PR, aide to the president, AND producer, writer, graphic designer blah blah blah.

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 10/21/2009, 5:23 PM

Overall, very nicely done. However, I'm not quite sure why it took two minutes and twenty-six seconds to say that if a student donates $25 then alumni will match that $25 and then that $50 will be matched by the Alberta Access to the Future Fund for a total of $100.

Former user wrote on 10/21/2009, 7:10 PM

We have a great luxury in that a lot of what we produce can be tested immediately with the target audience. Now, I'm in my early 40's and have much the same reaction as you....it's kind of beating a dead horse. But, we've tried everything from 30's to the length the segments are, and lemme tell ya, they respond to the longer ones. You actually DO have to hammer it into them. And where you and I tune out after the initial message is clear, they actually sit, entirely engrossed by the longer videos.

But ultimately, I'm looking more for input on technique and production than the "effect" of the video to the audience. It's a mystery to me, but this stuff works on the kids.

Laurence wrote on 10/21/2009, 10:19 PM

On my laptop, the look depends upon the angle of the screen. If I look at the screen dead on, there's an area in the center of gradient that is blown out and blocky around the edges. If I look at it from a higher angle it looks fine. I am pretty sure this comes from using a white that goes up somewhere close to RGB values of 255,255,255. Limiting it to 235,235,235 at the whitest point would probably give you a better looking gradient throughout the range.

There is a bit of a halo around the chromakey boundry. Looks ok in this context, but that is the reason so many of us have third party chroma keyers.

FrigidNDEditing wrote on 10/21/2009, 10:50 PM

Key'ing needed some help, I would have cut all the footage as you wanted it, and then since it would appear that you have after effects ( based on the intro sequence and the use of what appears to be a modified video copilot tutorial ), I would have either served the video or rendered a PNG sequence or something to allow AE to do the keying as it has better tools for it. Vegas can do it pretty quickly and easily though if you start off with a very clean key. Just the dirty ones that are a bit more troublesome to do in Vegas.

Dave

SWS wrote on 10/22/2009, 6:49 AM

Love the title cutting. But am I just bein' cynical when I ask...Did you go to black and white for artistic reasons or to hide "keying problems"? Just askin'
mp

rs170a wrote on 10/22/2009, 7:05 AM

Lighting Infinite White by D. Eric Franks is an excellent example of a technique that probably could have been used to avoid keying.

Mike

Former user wrote on 10/22/2009, 1:48 PM

The space we shot in was a classroom. White ceiling, light walls so lots of colouring from every direction. The spill wasn't actually too bad, and the source keys are actually very clean (except that Quicktime 7.6.4 is a freakin' joke - it created a disdain for all things Apple).

The workflow went like this:

Shoot green
Keying all the shots in AE (Primatte and Colour Keyer 1.2)
Edit the dialogue shots in Vegas
Nest the dialogue project into a NEW Vegas project and then put the effects on those tracks (including audio - so much nicer to work with one track in Sound Forge)

The soft contrast and curves actually created a funky shadow outline around everyone, which I rather liked, so I just left it. It looks like sloppy keying, but it's actually just an effect of the stock Soft Contrast with "Soft Vignette" preset in Vegas. I liked that look so much that I decided to run B&W at 100% to just remove all the colour. The result was actually pretty cool. The white background is just a film grain effect (customized a preset).

YouTube does something to video that I really don't like because it looks much sharper (and isn't blown out) in NTSC DVD or HD (bluray). The background is actually one white BG with film grain (though I might play with it a little and upt just a tiny bit of film dust and scratches...just a touch though).

The in-house client originally wanted a white limbo look. But we didn't have a white wall (we have no actual studio space) or enough lights, to do that. So I shot green and keyed out instead. Primatte is actually really good, especially for the light wrap on the shoulders (but it's way slow).

rs170a...I actually did look at the Eric Franks piece before I started shooting (recommended by someone else on these forums). But again, no lights or white wall. I thought about white paper, but the department didn't want to spend the $200 for white cloth or paper.

Because I couldn't shoot full length (just enough green for shins to head - but I do want to get another green cloth so I can do stand-alones), the white limbo look was lame since I couldn't really play too much with distance/depth. The vignette just had a litlte something that made it work. With torso-up and close-ups.

This was shot last Thursday night, and finished on Saturday (such is my usual time line).