OT Special effects quote of the day part 2...

DJPadre wrote on 2/16/2006, 3:40 AM
OK.. well i thought this was funny...

I was tutoring a client in the new PremPro2 features... and i asked him what he thought about Vegas.. now this guy is a pure bred adobe head with a matrox RTx 100... i told him i could render HDV faster than realtime with v6 and he didnt believe me..
i showed him... he blew his stack...

then the conversation went into the "whats got what and which one has more effects" (wedding production mentality)

and heres the doozy..
him- "Wheres the soft focus effect?"
me - "it doesnt have one"
him- "but soft focus is a "standard" effect for wedding"
me- "since when? if you cant find focus? "
him <nervous> - "but u need soft focus.. i call it airbrushing to the clients... "
me <laughing> - "Airbrushing? If you want soft focus, go use edius pro 3 for 500 bux and ditch ur RTx...save money and time and hassle... "
him,< upset> "ive been using matrox for 3 years and... "
me- "How many crashes have u had?? How many times have i had to come in and reinstall and rebuild your system coz u keep messing with it and u break it?? "
him- .... <silence>
me <whipping out laptop> - "you want airbrush?? check this <padre pulls out his 600 odd presets which he's built over the years... then he pulls out Magic Bullet... >
him- But theres still no soft focus......

I showed him some of my presets and "looks" which make soft focus look like unfocussed unsaturated poo... Anyone seen The Island with that Scarlet sexy ass??? THATS airbrushing...well close to it.. took 3 months for me to perfect that bastard but it sure as hell poos on soft focus..

so whats the craziest thing youve heard when dealing with "effect" driven people??



t went on from there. but i dont think he understood what Magic Bullet was all about..

Comments

Coursedesign wrote on 2/16/2006, 3:47 AM
By "soft focus", do you think he meant "smart blur"?

Any reason why you couldn't do that in Vegas with a CC-derived mask and a simple regular blur?
Grazie wrote on 2/16/2006, 3:53 AM
Plus a twist of glow! and maybe a smidgen of Light rays ? Ahhh . . aint she just bootiful? - g
farss wrote on 2/16/2006, 3:55 AM
It's easy enough to do in Vegas. Grab the bride's stocking and put it over the lens. Well there's plenty of brides in Vegas :)

But seriously, you should have shown him the sample .veg that simulated a focus pull. Then again I've seen some very well done wedding videos from serious production companies that charge a kings ransom for their work and not a soft focus to be seen.
Cheap FXs = cheap prodction values.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 2/16/2006, 3:58 AM
Love it! Love it!

"Cheap FXs = cheap prodction values."

C'mon you Aussies!

Grazie
farss wrote on 2/16/2006, 4:40 AM
I've never been the subject of wedding video but when we were married we had the obligatory wedding photoes done. This process took a full day, two makeup artists, a tailer and a hairdresser for me and the wife.
The photographer had a large format camera and he knew his stuff, man did he know his stuff.
Not a single retouch was done to those shots, just brilliant use of light, setting, composition, costume, makeup and getting us to stand the right way.
To say I'm still blown away by the result would be an understatement.
I know this kind of magic is much harder to do with a moving image but one thing I know, it starts well before the light even gets to the lens.
Oh, and this work which was done in Taiwan, cost $1,200, inc prints and negs. Down here, might get change out of $10K
Bob.
DJPadre wrote on 2/16/2006, 4:58 AM
Yeha i remember the rack focus sim veg.. lol damni was impressed.. i havent realy needed to use it, but now that its in my head, i think i might try it.. lol

I guess its not just about soft focus .. its more th mentality.. or lack of..

I totally agree with you bob about the cheap effects... but as u know here in aus, the wedding game is a tough nut to crack and theres ALOT of cheese out there to contend with..
Wth what i do, im tryin to change the way "wedding videos" are percieved. More cinematic with professional production values as opposed to the hard sell of the wow factor.. for me it works, coz im a loudmouth talkative nerd...
But i end up with a higher end client as their tastes suit my style and vice versa..

I found that the clients who skimp on video and go "cheap" are the ones that cause more problems than their worth.. hell i ever reject potential clients if i find their attitudes annoy me.. if theyre like this now, i can imagine what theyd be like if i was to service them in full..

as for the soft focus, from the SMPTE and DMF trade shows ive done wth NewMagic here, almost every potential ship jumper has asked about the lack of soft focus effect.. there are numerous workarounds, but to them, its all quick money... I personally HATE that filter.. as with the colour change and colour pass filter as theyve all been overused... but hey thats me.. there are uses for colour pass sometimes.. but i still dont like it..

Id still like to hear about tragic wedding video stories!!

Oh hows this..

Theres a companiy here in Syd which will remain nameless.. now theyre cdemo runs for abotu 7 monutes, and their idea of "colour grading" was a misaligned white balance (no sh!t). Their idea of natural shooting was shaky and unfocused camera work.. now to me that is rubbish but smart marketing gets them work.. oh then theres the guy who uses slow motion on EVERY shot (yes every shot...) oh and you gotta love the... "look longingly into the camera... " uurrghh... i think the cheese is starting to go off...