Winning the 2012 Brattle Theatre Trailer Smackdown

17 Jul

One of may favorite events is the Brattle Theatre’s annual Trailer Treats night.  It’s a night all about the best part of going to the movies, the trailers.  The highlight of the night is the Trailer Smackdown, a contest to see who can make the best fake trailer.

 

The rules were announced about a month before the Smackdown.  The event’s organizers give you a title as well as a list of actions, characters, genres and locations to pick from.  This year we had to make a 2 minute long trailer for a non-existent movie called ”Ten”.

My group’s trailer for “Ten”:

 

This was our third year entering the Smackdown.  Since last year’s contest, we have been toying with the idea of doing a musical.  After learning this year’s title, we thought that the story of the man on the ten dollar bill, Alexander Hamilton, would make a great musical.

 

Recording the vocals for “10″

Writing the script and the songs took about two and a half weekes.  Then we only had a week and a half to record the songs, shoot the video and edit it all together.  It’s was important to record the music first, so that the actors could lip synch to the music.  The vocals were all original but the music was Apple Garageband loops (had to take a shortcut).

We were lucky to have so many musically talented people on our team.  Our Alexander Hamilton, Rev, sings and plays bass in several bands including the Evil Streaks and Flowers in the Basement.  And yes “Rev” is the name he goes by.  The vocals for Aaron Burr were not recorded by Evan, who plays Aaron in the trailer, but by Matt Williams (who also plays Ben Franklin).   Matt’s an amazing singer who is the musical director of the Mass Whole Notes.

 

Evan’s parents sat on lawn chairs and watch us film this scene. True Story.

We lucked out by shooting the weekend before the fourth of July as that’s the prefect time to find cheap tri-corner hats and powdered wigs.  Although, after three days of shooting in 90 degree heat, the cheap wigs didn’t look or smell too good.

Walking around dressed like this is a great way to meet interesting people.

On our first day of shooting we got did our two “large” group musical numbers.  Everyone was excited for the shoot and didn’t mind dressing funny and dancing in public.  Despite the heat, it was a blast to shoot.  The next two days of shooting focused on Evan and Rev (our Aaron and Alex).  I was very impressed with both of their performances and I think they both have some serious acting chops.

This scene was very fun to shoot.

Our trailer was shot on a 5DmrkII.  I cut it in Final Cut Pro X.  I went with FCPX because of it’s audio synch feature made it easy to synch the pre-recorded music to the video.  However, after tring FCPX for almost a year, I’m really not happy with it.  Next time I try a project like this, I’m going to use Plural Eyes and either Avid or Premiere.  (What’s wrong with FCPX is a topic for another day).  I used Magic Bullet Looks for help with color grading.  I also pushed most of the close-up shoots through Magic Bullet’s beautifying filter – Cosmo.

The Smackdown

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of talented people, we managed to finish on time.  On July 12 our trailer was screened with the other sixteen trailers that were submitted to the Smackdown.    All the trailers were amazing.  What’s so fun about this contest is that everyone goes all out.  Links to some of my favorites are at the end of this post.  In the end, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, all that matters is that you have fun making your trailer.  And we had a lot of fun making our trailer.

… however, we did also win.

Can’t believe it.

I’m in shock that we won, as there where so many other good trailers.  However, I’m also very proud of the hard work everyone on my team put into this trailer.  I can’t wait for next year to do it all again.

 

A few of my favorite trailers by other teams:

I was happy to see Collective Fedora win second place for this true story about the Beatles:

 

This really sums up the nature of making trailers for fake movies and won third place.

 

Funny film about how tough it is to be a parent…

 

Creepy pigs…

 

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5 Time-lapse Video Tips

8 Jan

Hello! After falling in love with some of the excellent time-lapse videos find on Vimeo and YouTube, I decided that I was going to start making my own time-lapses. At first glance these videos aren’t hard to make, only time consuming.

1. Get an intervalometer for your DSLR.
2. Setup the intervalometer so your camera takes a still at a regular interval (once every 5 seconds for example).
3. Wait.
4.  Convert the series of stills into a video.

If you follow those steps, you will make a time-lapse video.  However, you may also spend a lot of time creating a video that doesn’t look the way you want it.  No mater how familiar you are without video making, time-lapse has some unique aspects to it.  Last month I made my first time-lapse montage.  It’s by no means perfect, but I think learned some key things about making these videos.

1. Start short.

You know what those really impressive time lapse videos where the sun rises and sets several times in the span of a few seconds? Don’t start by trying to make one of those for your first video. Or your second. Or your third. Start with something short. I recommend your first dozen or so time lapse shots should only compressing 15-20 minutes worth of real-time into 10 or 20 seconds of video time. That way instead of spending almost a whole day making one shot, you can get more experience and shot a dozen of shots in a day.

2.  Think about movement.

Time-lapse is at its best when it shows us events that are too slow for us to observe.  That might be traffic patterns, a flower blooming, or clouds moving across the sky.  We know what these things look like, but we can’t normally watch them happen.  This is a challenge to framing time-lapse shots.  It’s not a matter of framing an interesting picture, but framing what you think will be interesting movement.  Think about what is moving (people, cars, clouds).  How fast are they moving?  Are you capturing enough movement to make the shot compelling?

3.  Use a Slow Shutter Speed.

A friend asked me, “why not just shoot video and then speed it up in post to make a time-lapse?”.  One of the main reasons we don’t do that and we use intervalmeters on DSLRs is to control the shutter speed.  A general rule of thumb with video, if you want to capture realistic motion, is that your shutter speed should be roughly twice as fast as one frame.  (If shooting at 24fps, you want your shutter speed to be 1/48 of a second).

Use a long shutter speed to capture movement within your frame.

This rule very much applies to time-lapse.  Consider a time-lapse where you take a picture every two seconds.  Let’s say a car takes four seconds to cross your frame.  If you shoot with a fast shutter speed, the motion of the car will be frozen in the two frames you take of it.  In the first frame it’ll be on one side of the frame and on the second it will have jumped to other side.  You’ll get a jarring flicker for anything that moves.  However, if you use a longer shutter speed of say one-second, you’ll capture the car in motion in each frame.  While the still pictures will look blurry, when you play the video back the motion will look smooth.

4. Add a miniature effect in post.

Tilt-shift lens can make what you are photographing looking like miniatures.  This technique works very well for making time-lapses.  However, you don’t need to go out and buy a new lens to do this.  There are plenty of ways to do this in a computer.  I used a setting in the Magic Bullet’s Looks that worked very well.

You don't have to buy a tilt-shift lens to create the miniature effect. It can be done in post.

5.  Pan and Zoom your video.

An easy way to add some energy to your video is to add pans and zooms.  Don’t try to do this while taking the pictures.  It’s simple enough to do in a program like After Effects.  Since your original stills are larger than standard video 1920×1080, you can digitally pan and zoom and still have excellent looking results.  No need to over do this, a little bit goes a long way.

 

My Time-Lapse:

This Side of the River – HD Timelapse from Kevin McGowan on Vimeo.

 

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How to Record DPL Projectors without Flicker

28 May

Shooting a projection screen to record a PowerPoint presentation is something you maybe required to do. While there are numerous alternatives to shooting the screen, many of us doing video production in Education are forced to shoot the screen on a regular bases. This posses a number of challenges (white balance, exposure, etc). However, I’ve noticed that one problem that can sometimes stump videographers: what to do when the projection is flickering.

Flickering projection is a common problem you’ll encounter whenever you point a camcorder at an image from a DLP projector. You won’t get the same kind of flickering from LCD projectors, as these two types of video projectors have some key differences. LCD projectors continuously projects an image, while DLP projectors use a spinning color wheel to project one color at a time. The color wheel spins so fast that to your eyes it looks like one image. The camera however is not as easily fooled as your eyes.

How do I know when I am shooting a DLP Projector?

While you could try to Google the projector’s model number, the easiest way to know is to look at the projected image through your camera. If you see a flicker through the camera, but not with your naked eye, then it’s a DLP projector. If you see a flicker with your naked eye, then it’s a problem with the projector.

How can I record a DLP Projector without recording the flicker?

All you need to do is to adjust your shutter speed. In my tests, there is no flicker at 1/60. Remember your shutter speed isn’t related to frame rate. If you are filming at 24 frames a second, a 1/60 shutter speed means that each of those frames is exposed to light for 1/60 of a second. If you exposed a frame to light for longer the camera records multiple cycles of the color wheel. And if you exposed a frame to light for less than 1/60 of a second, it would record only part of the color wheel.

What does this look like?

The video below shows the image from a DLP projector at a variety of frame rates. WARNING: the second half of the video features some very intense flickering. Watch at your own risk.

DLP Projectors Shutter Speed Test from Kevin McGowan on Vimeo.

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Stabilization Test: SmoothCam vs. Warp Stabilizer

11 May

Screen shot 2011-05-10 at 5.42.43 PM

Adobe After Effect CS5.5, released just a few days ago, has a new video stabilization tool call “Warp Stabilizer”.  After watching some impressive looking demos, I wanted to try out the new tool myself.  What makes this tool more interesting than some other options out there is that Warp Stabilizer can correct some of the rolling shutter and “jello” issues that occur with DSLR video.  When I’ve used stabilizing software on DSLR footage in the past, I gotten images that were steady, but had major distortion.

For testing I found some very shaky outtakes from a music video shoot on my GH1 last year.  I’ll say right off the back that there is a simple fix for all of these shots:  use a tripod.  Stabilization software is not a replacement for a tripod.  That being said, what I wanted to test is if warp stabilization could save any of these unusable clips.  The video below plays four clips, each three times.  The first time the clip is played it is the original footage. The second it’s the same clip with Final Cut Pro 7′s SmoothCam filter applied.  And the third time it’s the clip with After Effect’s Warp Stabilizer.

 

 

SmoothCam vs. Warp Stabilizer from Kevin McGowan on Vimeo.

The Results:

Clip 1
Smoothcam levels out the shot, but adds jitters near the end.  WarpStabilizer makes the shot completely level, without any jitters.  However, the resulting image is a little softer.  I believe this was caused by turn WS’s  ”Rolling Shutter Ripple” to enhanced reduction.  Changing this setting removed some warping effects I was seeing, but had the side effect of changing the image.

Clip 2
Both Smoothcam and WarpStabilizer fail to make this shot usable.  The shot is very shaky and the camera moves at near the same time as the subject moves, which further confuses both stabilizers.  When I attempted to use WarpStabilizer to remove the “jello” the results were awful.  For WS to fix jello it needs to be able to detect the fore-ground and back-ground of a shot.  Since the actor in this shot is right up against the door, WS can’t tell which is which.

Clip 3
WarpStabilizer makes the camera movement a litte smoother than Smoothcam in this shot.  In general, stabilization software crops your shot.  WS has a feature called “Synthesize Edges” which will re-draw the edges of your frame so you can avoid cropping. It did work well on this shot, because one of the musician’s faces is right at the edge of the frame.  The lesson here, if you are going to be doing any stabilization, don’t have anything important happening on the edge of your frame.

Clip 4
I was very impressed with how WarpStabilizer saves this shot.  In this shot, WS can easily tell the difference between the foreground and background (even with the rack focus).

 

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6 Best Lessons from Post Production World at NAB

23 Apr

PPW sched

This year I made my first trip to NAB.  In future posts I’ll talk about the show floor and my last post was about the sneak peak of the new Final Cut.  While all that stuff is flashy, new and fun, the part of my trip that I know I will benefit from for years is the classes I took at Post Production World.  The classes are taught by working professional and the top of the line professional instructors.  Many of the  instructors  you’ll recognize from Lynda.com, Focal Press books, or the websites like Creative Cow.  In other words, people who know their craft and know how to teach it.

At first, I wasn’t sure how much I could learn from these classes.  After all, I went to college for media production and since then I’ve kept on top of new technologies.  I  shot and edited a great deal of video.  What could I learn?  Turns out there was a lot out there to learn.  But that’s true for EVERYONE.  Everyone, from someone picking up a camera for the first time, to someone who has been editing for twenty years, there’s always a great deal of new things to learn.

You need to spend 20% of your working time learning new skills or you will become obsolete. -Phil Hodgett

I’m paraphrasing the above quote form Phil Hodgett who was one of the instructors at PPW (in fact I wasn’t there when he said it, but my friend Mike Tomei was and he told me all about it).  Of all the things said at PPW this really hit me.  If you want to be a media production professional, you need to put a serious amount of time into improving your skills. I took 15 classes at PPW and I certainly have a few new skills and tricks that I want to try out.  Out of the 40+ hours of instruction here are the six lesson I think will be most useful.

  1. Optical Flow, from Power Workflows in FCP taught by Steve Martin.
    Ever had to slow down footage in Final Cut and not been too happy with how it looked? Footage slowed down in FCP looks choppy. The quick fix is to send that clip to motion and slow it down there. Under “timing” in the properties tab in Motion, adjust the speed of your clip.  Then change the frame blending option to “Optical Flow”.  The resulting footage will take a little while to render, but it will look much smoother than the footage FCP would produce.
  2. Soundtrack Frequency View, from Master Audio in Soundtrack taught by Steve Martin
    In Soundtrack you can switch from viewing the waveform to viewing the frequency spectrum.  To do this, click on the box in the upper right hand corner that I’ve circled in the image above.  You can then use the frequency selection tool (circled in the upper left hand side) to select part a range of frequencies in your file.  This is a very handy way to delete certain frequencies when your audio has electrical hums.
  3. Music Video Slates, from Music Video Workflow taught by Tim Dashwood
    When making music videos, I’ve been reling on PluralEyes to synch up my footage.  (You play the song back on set and then PluralEyes will use the scratch audio from your camera to synch the shots to the studio audio recording).  There is a cheap, easy and more professional way of doing this.  In your editing software make a video that features the audio track of the song and a video display of the timecode.  You’ll then load this video onto a iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc and use it both as a slate and a the playback source while on set.  You will get more accurate results than you would with just PluralEyes and you’ll seem more professional.
  4. How to Read Video Scopes, from Color Correction taught by Abba Shapiro
    I’m going to cover color grading in-depth in a future post.   Understand what all these crazy lines and graphs mean might just be the most useful skill I picked up, it would be this one.
  5. Keyboard short cuts to adjust Kerning/Tracking, from Typography for Video Editors taught by Ian Robinson
    In many program (like PhotoShop and Motion) you can adjust the tracking and kerning with a very simple keyboard shortcut.  Please your curser where you want to adjust the spacing.  Press opt (on Macs) + the right arrow key to increase the spacing and opt + left arrow key to decrease the spacing.  It also works if you select multiple characters.
  6. Photovision Calibration Targets, from HDSLR classes taught by Raymond Schlogel

    I’m guilty of something I expect many people are, I know I should shoot gray cards, but almost never do. The main reason I don’t is they are a pain to carry around as they can be bulky and fragile.  Enter these flex-fill-like gray cards from PhotoVision.  Easy to carry, relatively inexpensive, and gives you an accurate way to white balance when shooting and color correct when in post.

All of the classes I took:

  • Power Workflows in FCP, Steve Martin
  • Expert to Master: Advance Techniques for FCP, Abba Shapiro & Jeff Greenberg
  • Color Correction, Abba Shapiro
  • Live Streaming, Alex Lindsay
  • Indie Film Audio, Jeff Fisher
  • Master Audio in Soundtrack, Steve Martin
  • Cutting Edge Compression, Jeff Greenberg
  • Documentary Production Techniques – Hicks/Balog
  • Lightweight Lighting Strategies, James Ball
  • Getting Started with After Effects, Luisa Winters
  • HDSLR Tips and Tricks, Raymond Schlogel & Douglas Spotted Eagle
  • Titling with Motion, Mark Spencer
  • Typography for Video Editors, Ian Robinson
  • Music Video Workflow, Tim Dashwood
  • HDSLR – Run & Gun, Raymond Schlogel & Douglas Spotted Eagle

In conclusion, I couldn’t recommend PPW more.

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4 Most Exciting Things from the FCPX Sneak Peak at NAB

20 Apr

Supermeet Title

The Final Cut Pro User Group gathering, SuperMeet, was the most exciting event at NAB this year.  FCPUG always has a big event during NAB, featuring presentations from profesional editors, software companies, and a huge raffle.  This year, Apple bumped all the planned speakers (such as Kevin Smith) to show a sneak of the new Final Cut Pro.  As someone who retinely watches live blogging of Apple press conferences, it was it pleased the Apple nerd in me to no end to be in the room the first time the new Final Cut was demoed to the public.

The event began with a powerpoint keynote presentation about Final Cut and then had a demo both by Apple engineers who worked on designing the software.  While there is still a lot of unanswered questions about the new software, there’s plenty to be excited about.

The most exciting things we learned about FCPX:

  1. Magnetic Clips/Non-destructive Editing
    Anyone who has spent time using the current Final Cut (or any NLE, or even flatbed editing for that matter) knows that you need to put a great deal of effort and care in making sure that any edit you make don’t affect clips in the “future”.   You may just want to make one shot a second shorter, but suddenly every shot after that shot is now a second off.  In the current FCP, only synched audio clips will move, but any other tracks that you have manually synched to a clip (click sound effects, music, titles) will be off. 

    Enter FCPX where you can “magnetically” link multiple audio and video clips together.  Once you link the clips, it’s imposible for you to unlink them by making changes elsewhere on your timeline.  If you want to cut your audio form one shot overlap the next shot, don’t worry about a clip collision, simply drag the audio over and the other track will automatically get out of the way.  It’s something I never exactly thought of as a problem with Final Cut, but once I  saw it in action I was wowed by how powerful and simple it was.  Why hasn’t it aways been this way.

  2. Tons of Nesting
    True, there is nesting in the current FCP, but now nesting has become a lot more useful.  If you bring in a video with synched audio that are linked together in a “nested” shot.  On your timeline they are one item (unlike the three items they would be in the current FCP).  You can also nest together groups of shots (or entire scenes).  That way, if you had a feature film, you could have could have only one item on your timeline for each scene.  At any time you could than clip into that scene to make edits, all the while care free from the worries that your edits will affect clips later in the timeline.  Trust me, this is very very cool.
  3. Native Editing
    Instead of having to convert everything to ProRes, in FCPX you can edit H.264 and AVCHD natively (as a AVCHD shooter, I cheered when they announced this part).
  4. Price
    It’s $300.  Everyone can afford that.  It makes the $500 price tag for the Adobe half-update look even more ridiculous.

I conclusion, FCPX is going to be a must have program.  Also, I didn’t win anything in the raffle.

 

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Looks like I started a blog

18 Apr

P1100415-3

Hello and welcome! I started this blog to share some of my knowledge and perspectives on a range of topics relating video production. All the video work I do, I do wearing one of two hats. By day, I work at in one of Harvard University’s media departments where I specialize in work-flow, event and course recording, and post production for one of the world’s wealthiest institutions. By night (and weekends), I’m an independent filmmaker working. I’m an editor, DSLR shooter, and director on music videos, documentaries and narratives who is always trying to get the best footage possible with little to no budget.

This blog will be a collection of things I’m learning and projects I’m working on. I hope you find it interesting and please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or complaints.

-Kevin

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