3D technology

A 3-D ("three-dimensional") film or S3D ("stereoscopic 3D") film[1] is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. Derived from stereoscopic photography, a special motion picture camera is used to record the images as seen from two perspectives (or computer-generated imagery generates the two perspectives), and special projection hardware and/or eyewear are used to provide the illusion of depth when viewing the film. 3-D films are not limited to feature film theatrical releases; television broadcasts and direct-to-video films have also incorporated similar methods, primarily for marketing purposes.

3-D films have existed in some form since 1890, but until 2010 had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3-D film, and the lack of a standardized format for all segments of the entertainment business. Nonetheless, 3-D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and 90s driven by IMAX high-end theaters and Disney themed-venues. 3-D films became more and more successful throughout 2000-09, culminating in the unprecedented success of 3-D presentations of Avatar in December 2009.

READING A FILM

READING FILM15.10Reading film-film is a language, has to be learnt-communicative, there is a grammar, structure-words/sentances/paragraphs-lighting/shots/etc etc-visual medium; every element is visually present-you get the directors' vision, not so much your own-perception can be different-DENOTATIVE VS CONNOTATIVE OBSERVATION-(direct)vs(associative)-two levels in which our mind works-connotative viewing requires the observer to draw upon his culture educational & psychological background in order to interpret that image-the more film literate you are the more you will lend yourself to the connotative level-a filmmakers greatest challenge is to create a perfect combination..........[trilogy:fire earth water]-cultural background has large effect on opinion"CONNOTATIVE"-METONYMY VS SYNECDOCHE-These two terms are drawn form literature& are closely related; they compliment each other as the two main ways to use connotative meaning in film.-met...[from Greek, means "substitute -film is not just a linear medium, but also spatial-it draws our attention to the frame, and how objects are placed in the scene-This was named by Bazin in the 50s as "mis-en-scene"-the time based story is called "mantage" which means "putting together"MIS-EN-SCENE-because we work within a confined frame the first factor we need to mention is our aspect ratio. various AR's work better for various scenes (eg, cinescope & landscapes)Closed vs Open Form:does the shot remain static, leading is to believe there is nothing outside the fame, or are we panning & tracking around the room, giving it a more open feel.-does the camera move at all? are we getting closer or further from the action? Or are we staying at the same place throughout-brain can only digest 2.5 images in a frame-there is always one element in a shot which draws our attention first"dominent element"-the element can be a key clue for the plot, it can be bright light that contrasts a dark scene, an action-size does matter..the bigger an object in the frame the greater its importance/focus-rule of thirds-position of camera;from below empowers charactor-by using spatial framing, we can create dominance in relationships \-vertical alignment-the higher an object/person in the frame, the more dominant it is-space head of charactor fills up-focus:soft/harsh........../lolita, stanley coubrickclocky org -lines, symetry
Evon Productions

storytelling via lighting

Storytelling Through Lighting


• Light is basic concept through which films are made. The whole principal of film is the registering of light on film or tape.
• It is thus absolutely crucial to pay careful attention to how we construct our sets and setup the lights
• Indeed one of the greatest responsibilities of the DoP is to select the proper lights for the relevant scene.
• However, set aside the technical aspects of lighting, there is a much bigger role for them to play, and that is ‘Storytelling’

CHROMA KEYING

Ten Tips for a better Chromakey
One - Buy a darker background When buying your material for your Chromakey Background, whether it's paint or cloth, buy one or two shades darker than a "True Blue" or "True Green". Since you are usually putting lights on your background, you will find out that the lights wash out your background and you find it suddenly too light for a good Chromkey.
Two - Try Shooting Outdoors The Sun (especially on an overcast day) is the world's biggest Soft Light. If you want a nice even and evenly lit background for keying, try to put your ChromaKey background outside.
Three - Try some Backlighting In most cases, Chromakeying is done inside. If you are able to place a light source behind your Chromakey Background (sorry, this will only work with a pretty evely transparent cloth material), you will find a nice even background with no shadows.
Four - Light Background and Source Independently Light your background and your subject individually to avoid shadows
Five - Soften your lights That doesn't mean turn them down but rather try to use wax paper in front of your lights or bouce your lights off an umbrella (the special photo kind) or white sheet. A softer light means less shadows.
Six - Use RGB Key Instead Most Non-Linear edit systems expect an absolutley perfectly even background for good results when using the "Green Screen" or "Blue Screen" Chromakey option. Try RGB Key or Color Key where you can select the color you want to key on with a color picker.
Seven - Blue Better than Green? The ancient question is, which key color is better, Blue or Green. In most cases, you will find Blue working better since there is much more green content in skin color than blue content
Eight - Buy an old real time keyer. These days, you can find old chromakey units for very cheap. TV Stations are discarding their old Composite keyers and you can pick them up at auctions or from equipment brokers. These units are Composite only so you may not like the quality for your final product but they can be a great tool to monitor your keying efforts while you are recording, allowing you to make adjustments whithout having to render and check back footage.
Nine - Take Notes If you are doing a lot of keying, you'll want to carefully record the settings you use, the lighting position and everything else that you may need to know to quickly re-create that perfect key you had during the last taping.
Ten - Buy Some Virtual SetsOf course....Now that you have that whole chromakey thing down, you can save tons of money by keying your subjects over one of 3DVideoBackgrounds.com 's Virtual Studio Sets. You can find them on the web at http://www.3dvideobackgrounds.com With these inexpensive Virtual Sets, a bare wall, some decent lighting and your trusty keying function is all you need to create a production that looks like a million bucks.

HDV FORMAT

There's no doubt that HDV has made an impact on our industry. However, HDV is not DV. In fact, there are significant differences to working with HDV, especially when compared to the video we've traditionally worked with.
The big issue is that HDV uses a compression system called Long-GOP MPEG-2. What this means in English is that a group of images, generally 15 for NTSC video, are all grouped together and treated as a single frame (a GOP, or Group-of-Pictures). So, instead of one picture per frame, which we are used to in DV and film, we have 15 pictures to one frame. This makes for really great compression, but it's almost impossible to edit. The reason is that MPEG was designed to only allow edits at the start of one of these Groups of Pictures. This boundary is called an "I-frame."
DVD's use a similar compression structure, which is why it is often difficult to edit video which has been compressed into MPEG-2 for DVD use.
However, Apple has figured out a way to edit HDV natively, without converting it into a different file format. However, this native editing is not without trade-offs. So, here is a list of the ways HDV is not the same as DV:
HDV needs serious CPU power. You need a minimum 1 GHz processor and 1 GB RAM.You can’t monitor HDV thru FireWire while editing, you can only watch HDV on your computer screen.You can only output to tape using Print to Video. You can't Edit to Tape.You can't up-rez HDV to HDCAM using FireWire, though you can do so using a capture card, such as an AJA Kona card.The native resolution of HDV is 1440 x 1080. However, HDV only outputs at 1920 x 1080 interlaced using line-doubling, or 1280 x 720 progressive using down-sampling.HDV takes significantly longer to render than DV, because the image size is four times larger.FCP only renders HDV frames that changed during editing. A frame is changed if an edit occurs anywhere within the GOP, except on the I-frame boundary, or if you've applied an effect or transition.There are timecode accuracy and frame-rate issues in capturing and outputting HDV.When capturing HDV, you can't control the deck or camera as precisely as you can with DV. So, in general, capture with larger handles than you would normally use.HDV only supports 2 channels of audio in or out.If you want to export an HDV sequence to include on a DVD, be sure to export it using File > Export > QuickTime Movie and make it SELF-contained. Reconform all I-frames to match the HDV compression structure. Remember, exporting puts it into an MPEG format.To help with some of these problems, Apple has created an Intermediate codec which converts HDV from it's long-GOP MPEG-2 structure into a frame-based video format. There are several benefits to using the Intermediate codec and one disadvantage:You can monitor the results of your editing using the intermediate codec thru FireWire.The intermediate codec is less resource intensive and better for editing on slower computers.The intermediate codec creates files that are four-times larger than native HDV.There are reported quality issues with the intermediate codec.Converting between HDV and the intermediate codec is not loss-less, however, Apple says it's testing shows that the conversion quality is better than competitive products. Look at the results and judge for yourself.

joke

If ladies were banks: The tall slim ones are called --Skye bank;The robust and spacious ones--Oceanic bank;The ones that move from one relationship to another--Intercontinent al bank;The silent but dangerous ones are--Firstinland bank; Those who are not cute yet they love being heard-- Bank PHB;Those who stick to one man--Fidelity bank;Those who seems caring yet debit you massively for every affection--UBA;Those that go to any extend to make you sad--Zenith bank;Those who are old yet they don't realize they are no more in vogue--Union bank;The brief and summarized ones--Micro Finance;The huge ones that ''stand gidigba for ground'--Firstbank;The beautiful, reserved and homely ones--Diamond Bank;The ones that must spend their annual vacation abroad even when the husband is broke -- GTB

evon cares to know which one u belong

Non linear Editing system tips

It's here. It's affordable. It's reliable. It's high-quality nonlinear digital editing. Finally, the frustrations of linear editing are gone, right? Well, sort of. Whether you just bought a digital nonlinear editing system or have had one for some time, chances are you've discovered that digital nonlinear editing has some frustrations of its own.

Not to worry, though, because with practice, patience, and creativity, nonlinear editing will not only be faster and better than tape-based editing; it'll be a whole lot more fun. And for all of the lost frames, system crashes and searches for more hard drive space, there will be times when you'll wonder how you ever got along editing the old-fashioned way. For most short video projects, digital nonlinear editing is just the thing to help you create a fast, fun, flexible and creative editing experience.

If you're new to nonlinear editing, or if you're thinking about involving yourself in this exciting new technology, chances are you could use a little help from someone who has worked with nonlinear editing systems before. Not to worry; we're just about to begin an editing project, so take a seat and we'll walk you through it, step by step.

The Same (But Different) 

Although the technology has changed and you now use a keyboard and a mouse instead of an edit controller and a jog/shuttle, the fundamentals of editing remain the same.

Organization is the key to efficient editing. Your pre-production organization will determine how fast you can edit. So before you shoot, write a script and make a shot list to help you take advantage of your nonlinear system without getting bogged down in disorder.

When you begin editing, your shot list will remind you exactly which takes to transfer to the hard drive. Since hard drive space is at such a premium, you'll want to capture only the scenes you are going to use. You can preview your footage on your VCR or camcorder beforehand to help you decide.

Don't Waste Space 

It's best to capture all of your scenes as individual clips. It may seem like a good idea to just capture one long clip and break it up later, but it's usually much easier--and certainly less space-consuming--to capture clips one by one. One of the great advantages that nonlinear editing has over linear editing is the random-access capability of the hard drive (see Edit Suite Linear or Nonlinear, in the May 1998 Videomaker). This means that the order in which you shoot or capture your scenes doesn't matter. Once digitized and on the hard drive, you can change the sequence any way you want.

When it's time to capture video, you'll notice that there are usually a large number of settings available to choose from. Some settings refer to the pixel resolution of the video (such as 320x240, 640x480, 720x492, etc.), while others refer to the amount of compression applied to the video (5:1, 7:1, etc.). The choices you will make for these settings depend on three crucial factors: the quality of your hard drive, the quality of your source video and the medium of distribution you plan to use.

Generally, as the video resolution goes up and the compression ratio goes down, the required data transfer rate of your hard drive increase. For example, capturing 320x240 video at 12:1 compression requires considerably less than one megabyte per second sustained data transfer rate from a hard drive. Up the ante to 640x480 at 6:1 compression, however, and you're looking at the four to five megabyte per second range.

Before you begin making such demands on your hard drive, however, you'll need to consider the quality of your source footage. If you're working with poorly-lit VHS, chances are that 640x480 (or perhaps even 320x240) at 10:1 will be sufficient. If you demand DV quality from your DV capture card, however, your choice has already been made (720x480 at 5:1 compression).

The quality you'll need also depends on how you're going to distribute your video. If you're going to output your video onto a CD-ROM or on the Internet, you can digitize at a fraction of the size and frame speed (240x180 and 15 frames per second).

Get Organized 

If you're running out of room on your hard drive, you can split your project into small segments, edit each segment one at a time and output them back to video. Then dump the footage from your drive, capture your next batch of footage and repeat. It takes a little more time, and once you've finished editing that sequence, you can't go back, but it does help make the most of hard drive space.

If you are using a system like Adobe Premiere, you can experiment by capturing a very small image (160x120, for example) at 15 fps. This will save you space and valuable rendering time while you are trying out the 75 different transitions or the 50 or so different filters you can apply to your clips. Then, when you're doing more serious work, this initial trial-and-error period will provide you with the experience you need to choose just the transitions and edits that are best for your production. If you are working with a Casablanca or Video Toaster/Flyer you can only capture images at full screen. But not to worry, the Casablanca renders effects very quickly, and the Flyer performs effects without the need for rendering.

Depending on the system you are working with, your computer will create a picture icon or a graphical icon to represent each video clip that you digitize. These clips are then stored in a work bin, directory or project folder. Regardless of which method your computer uses, it's important to name each shot with a short, recognizable name so that when you have fifty video clip icons you'll know immediately which shot is which. Identifying each shot with a little description saves time. Suppose, for example, you're editing your daughter's birthday party. Shot 1 might be a closeup of the birthday cake, Shot 7 could be a wide shot of the family singing happy birthday and Shot 30 might be a tracking shot of the birthday girl riding her brand new bicycle. Wouldn't it be much easier to rename those shots Cake, Family and Bicycle?

Editing on a Timeline 

Now for the part that we've all been waiting for: actual digital editing. First, whip out your handy edit decision list and script and drag the clips in the order that you want them to appear onto the timeline. What's a timeline? Well, you can think of it as a yardstick measured in frames and seconds (or minutes or hours). You lay a series of clips out on the timeline in the order you want them to appear. If you want to change the order of the clips, at anytime, you simply click and drag or cut and paste the shot to the place you want it. Most nonlinear systems use a timeline as the main editing interface, but a few do not. The Casablanca and Video Toaster/Flyer systems, for example, use storyboard interfaces instead.

In nonlinear systems that use timelines, you'll have at least two tracks for video, each of which has its own audio track. In between the video tracks, you'll have a transition track that allows for special effect dissolves, wipes or fades. Below these, there is usually a track where you can superimpose images or create backdrops, the same way the weather person appears to be in front of the satellite screen. The number of tracks may at first seem limiting, but you can layer tracks (in some systems up to 100 or more) together so that you virtually have an unlimited number of images and sounds to work with.

While we're looking at the timeline, note that there is usually a way to change the scale of the timeline. You can change the value of each unit of measurement on the line from a single frame to one or several minutes. This is very helpful, because you can zoom in to a particular spot for fine detail work or zoom out to view the project in its entirety.

Transition Tips 

When it comes to creating effective transitions, the best methods of discovering the exact kind of effect you want is to experiment, play, be creative and have fun. In most digital nonlinear editing systems, you'll have more transitions and special effect options than you'll know what to do with. So go through all of them, try them out and then when your head stops spinning, pick your transitions and special effects with care. Have a reason for each effect that you use. If you're working on a video version of a children's story, then the page peel as transition may work fine. Resist the urge to use an effect over and over, no matter how impressive it may look. Remember, these effects are there to help you tell your story; they are not the story.

Rendering Right 

Rendering is the process of allowing the computer to implement all of the audio, video and effects changes you've made on a frame-by-frame basis. With an ordinary computer, a large project, and/or a high-resolution clip in real time, this can certainly be the most time-consuming part of nonlinear editing. If you've captured your video in high resolution and at a fast frame rate, you can save rendering and hard drive accessing time by using smaller-sized copies of your full-size captured clips while you edit. Using this method, the clips are really only thumbnail representations of the digitized footage. Then when you're ready to output your project, you can re-access the full-sized clips and implement the decisions you made at a lower resolution.

Making Titles 

Most nonlinear systems have titling capabilities. In most cases, the process involves creating a title first, then importing it into the nonlinear timeline on one of the superimpose tracks, just as you would do with any other digital still image.

However, some of the titling features found in nonlinear editing packages lack the sophistication and power that high-end graphic programs like Adobe Photoshop offer. The good news is that you can use a program like Photoshop to create fantastic titles and then import those files into your nonlinear editing program. One good method for creating an overlay with a video background is to create a title with a white background, then use the Alpha Channel settings in your graphics program to create a invisible background to overlay onto your video. Failing that, you can use a colored background (like chroma-key blue) and adjust your nonlinear software's overlay settings to match. There are many ways to achieve the same goal--which one you use will depend on which kind of graphics program you're working with.

3D animation programs are excellent for creating titles as well. If you want to incorporate computer animation in your video, you can do so with most nonlinear editing software packages. Simply create an animation (in either Video for Windows or QuickTime format) then import the animation into your timeline like any other video clip.

Editing Audio 

On most nonlinear timelines, audio tracks are represented as integrated elements of the video clips. In other words, when you digitize a clip and import it to the timeline, you also import the audio portion of that clip onto the timeline. Like video, new audio clips can be overlaid onto existing audio clips in multiple layers to incorporate sound effects, background music, narration, etc.

When working with audio on a nonlinear system, remember to take advantage of the software's ability to adjust the volume of an audio clip up or down anywhere along the timeline. This is a truly great feature, because it allows you to control the audio level with great precision (much more so than with a linear system).

Be creative and explore your audio options. Get music and sound effects from CDs, or use some of the sounds that came with your computer. If you feel inspired, you can become your own foley artist and make up your own sound effects. Record them directly into your computer or use your camcorder's mike and then digitize the tape. 

It's also a good idea to keep your ears open for sounds you might be able to use. If you're looking to recreate the sounds of the wilderness, for example, go on a hike and record some of the wildlife sounds you hear.

There are also many stand-alone audio editing programs like Cool Edit or Sound Forge that you can use to edit your audio tracks and then import them onto your timeline. You can perform some simple audio edits in your nonlinear video editing system, but these audio editing programs have a lot more power and flexibility.

The End 

Actually, this is only the beginning. Digital nonlinear editing can open up a world of possibilities for you. Space and cost limitations will continue to be less of a factor. Soon, you'll be able to create a feature-length video with film-like quality, distribute it over the Web and become your own Cecil B. Demille. Just keep in mind that it all comes back to the same techniques that film editors have used throughout this century: good footage, revealing transitions, pacing and intuitive creativity.

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