Matte Painting

I attempted to create my very own matte painting today.  However, before I show it to you, I should explain what a matte painting is!

A matte painting is a background that is either 2D or 3D that is used for chroma key replacement.
What?  It is a bunch of pictures all edited into a single photo using a photo editor.  Such as Photoshop or Gimp.

What is chrome key?  Chroma key is the proper way of saying, green screen or blue screen.

Let me give an example.  Lets say that there is a scene in a movie that is being shot by the mountains. You have two options to shoot the scene.

1. Go find some mountains that suit you needs, or
2. Green screen the background out so you can insert a matte painting of your own mountains.

Here is two pictures that demonstrates what I mean...

That is the power of a matte painting!  OK, so now you want to see mine, right.

Here it is!

In this picture I had about 75 layers of items.  I was able to do this matte out of only 9 pictures.  It is still far from perfect!  My green on the vines is still to bright and the proportion of the pillars is not quite fitting to the buildings.  But that is how you learn, right!

Have you ever attempted a matte painting?

The Two Lords Of Ashington Trailer

Finally, after many weeks of thought, and trail and error, we are proud to present to you:

THE TWO LORDS OF ASHINGTON TRAILER

Photo extension

In the video world, you would call this set extension.  However, in the photographers world it has a different name and you can probably guess what it is called.  Yup, you guessed it, photo extension.

The original:

The final:

The hardest part was getting the grass to line up.  It still isn't perfect, you can see a line if you look close enough.  That was the real reason why I did the final in black and white.  It was to hard to get the grass colors to line up.

Here is the mountain picture, for those of you who are interested.

Fireworks Tutorial

For those of you who requested a tutorial on how to do fireworks in a photo editor, here you are!

Sorry for the overly annoying, treble S's.  I should of added more bass to my voice.

Fireworks

I learned how to do fireworks in Photoshop the other day...

Believe it or not, it is actually very easy!

More Pictures

My sister and I decided that we were going to burn off that Thanksgiving turkey and go take some photos...

Pictures

I had my camera out today and decided to take some pictures...

Not My Car!

Do I need to say much?

Just For Fun!

Amazing what you can do in 20 minutes!

Memories Of Banjo

Today, my sisters Seeing Eye Dog in training returned the the Seeing Eye facility for further training. He was a part of our family for 1 year & 153 days.

Here is a few of our memories...

We will all miss him!

Computer Generated Visual Effects

In the last couple of years, visual effects and computer generated imagery has come a long way. A few years ago, some of these videos would never have been possible. Such as Narnia, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Transformers ect...

Here is a video that I thought was neat in the regards to visual effects.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did!

Photoshop

I recently learned how to do fog in Photoshop and wanted to practice it on something. I decided to make my own picture up from two pictures.

Believe it or not, these are the original pictures!

OK, if you are like me you are wondering how I did it! Here are the basic steps that I took.

First I chose a gray color for the background.  Then, I placed the mountain picture on top of the gray background and used my Quick Selection tool to select the sky. Once I had the sky selected I deleted it. 

Next I drag the castle on top of the mountain picture. Again I used the Quick Selection tool to select the castle and the little tree on the right side of the castle. I contracted the selection by 2 pixels and feathered it by 1. Next, I inverted and deleted.

I then took my Selection Brush tool and selected the retaining wall on the left side of the castle and deleted. Now for the little tree. I used my Spot Healing Brush and went over the part of the tree that is covering the castle thus replacing the side of the castle. I then selected what was left of the tree with the Selection Brush and deleted.

Next, I moved the castle where I wanted in the picture and scaled it down. As you can see in the original castle picture, the castle is at a perspective that doesn't match the picture. To fix this, I used the distort option and pushed the bottom two corners together more until it was in the correct perspective. 

Once all of the picture sizing and re-positioning was done, it was time to add fog. I used a paint brush that doesn't have a very hard falloff. Meaning a brush that is not so hard around the outside. Here is an example...

This one has too hard of an edge.

This is the kind of brush that you want too use for fog. Notice how the edges seem too fade away.

When I painted the fog, I don't just use one layer. You get more realistic looking fog if you use multiple layers. For this picture I used 9 layers of fog. After I painted a spot of fog I then Gaussian blur it by 2 pixels and change the opacity of that layer so that it somewhat transparent just like fog. 

When I use layers, I place some fog layers behind the castle and some in front. Some behind the mountain so that it looks as if the fog is coming off the mountain. 

After the fog is all painted in I then started to change the color levels and Hue & Saturation of the pictures so that they look like it is actually foggy. 

That is the basic idea of how I did things. How do you do fog?

The Two Lords Of Ashington

There will be a trailer soon!

What Is PAL & NTSC?

What do these words mean and do you, as a film maker, need to be concerned about them?


The easiest explanation is that if you make a movie in any of these places, than you use the NTSC format:

                     Antigua                           El Salvador                        Philippians

                            Bahamas                         Ecuador                            Puerto Rico

                            Barbados                        Guam                                 Saipan

                            Barbuda                          Guatemala                        Samoa

                            Belize                              Haiti                                   South Korea

                            Bermuda                         Honduras                          Saint Kitts

                            Bolivia                             Jamaica                             Saint Lucia

                            Burma                             Japan                                 Saint Vincent

                            Cambodia                       Mexico                               Surinam

                            Canada                           Midway Islands                Taiwan

                            Cayman Islands            Netherland Antilles         Tobago

                            Chile                                Nicaragua                          Trinidad

                            Colombia                         North Mariana Island      United States

                            Costa Rica                       Panama                             Venezuela

                            Cuba                                 Peru                                    Virgin Islands

However, if you make a video in any of these places, then you use the PAL format. 


                           Afghanistan                    Holland                            Portugal

                           Albania                            Hong Kong                       Qutar

                           Algeria                             Iceland                             Romania

                           Angola                              India                                Singapore

                           Argentina                        Indonesia                        Somalia

                           Australia                          Ireland                             South Africa

                           Austria                             Israel                                S.W. Africa

                           Azores                              Italy                                  Spain

                           Baharain                          Jordan                              Sri Lanks

                           Bangladesh                     Kenya                               Sudan

                           Belgium                           Kuwait                              Swaziland

                           Botswana                        Laos                                  Sweden

                           Brazil                                Liberia                              Switzerland

                           Brunei                               Madeire                           Tanzania

                           Cameroon                        Malaysia                          Thailand

                           Canary Islands               Malta                                 Turkey

                           Cyprus                              Mozambique                   Uganda

                           Denmark                          Nepal                                 United Arab

                           Dubai                                New Guinea                      Emirates

                           England                            New Zealand                    United Kingdom

                           Ethiopia                            Nigeria                              Uruguay

                           Faeroe Islands                North Korea                     West Germany

                           Finland                              Norway                             Yemen

                           Ghana                                Oman                                Yugoslavia

                           Gibraltar                            Pakistan                           Zambia

                           Guinea                               Paraguay                          Zimbabwe

                           Greenland                         Poland

Now for a little more technical explanation. 

The main difference between the two formats is the lines. Video is made up of little squares or dots. There are millions of these dots that make up your picture. All of these dots are in lines. This is called video resolution. 

NTSC has 480 horizontal lines, whereas PAL has 576. This makes PAL the better one for video resolution. But wait ... that may sound great, but keep reading!


Since PAL has a better resolution, that makes the file size bigger then NTSC. We are talking 20% bigger! Most PAL DVDs are duel layer discs for this reason. Generally, you can get away with burning a NTSC DVD on just a single layered disc.


That is the biggest difference between the two formats. Since I live in North America, I have to use NTSC if I want my videos to play correctly on a home DVD player.


The last thing that I would like to say is this...


BURN YOUR DVD IN THE SAME FORMAT YOU FILMED IT IN!!


If you try to convert the footage, you may get some very unwanted problems! When converting, two major things have to be accomplished. The first is the lines. PAL having 576 and NTSC having 480. That is a very big gap! You are going to lose quality or try and put quality in your video that was nonexistent since filming!  The second is frame rate. Even though Cinema NTSC is said to be filmed in 24 FPS (Frames Per Second), that is really not true. NTSC FPS is actually 30. PAL FPS is 25. Again, that has to be either given more frames or you are going to lose frames.


If you would like to know more of the technical info, go to this website PAL vs NTSC.

Editing Software

Filming your video on the most professional camera out there is not going to do you alot of good unless you have a good editing program. The deciding factor comes mostly down to what do you need your software to do and how much is it going to cost you. After all, you can spend several thousand dollars very quickly when it comes to your computer software.

When I started getting interested in video production I really didn't know what programs were out there and what they do or anything. So, I thought that I would list some that I either used or heard good things about.

I will start at the free level. Everyone loves free things, right? Before I list some though, I would like to say that CNET Downloads is a great place to find software. The best part is that it is safe and not a pirating site! Every one that I list can be found on that website. Anyway, back to the topic on hand.

For your basic editing, I recommend Windows Movie Maker or IMovie for the Mac user.  These programs normally come with your computer.

If you would like to do visual effects and animation, WAX Debug Mode is a great 2D & 3D program. This program is on the older side of things and has some faults, but it is great for an introduction. Another, that I'm sure you have all heard of, is Blender. This is a professional grade program that you can do amazing 3D modelling and animation in. I will admit that I have used Blender and it blew my mind!! I still have not really mastered the art of modeling.

For DVD menu making there is some free program out there as well. The first may be on your computer. For Windows users, Windows DVD Maker is the one and for Mac users it is called Idvd. Other than that, Sothink dvd maker is great and DvdStyler is another.

Some options for photo editing include: Paint, Picasa, Microsoft Picture Manager, IPhoto and the best is Gimp.

For audio editing, the only one that I know of free is Audacity. I have and still am using this program. It has proved very reliable for my video audio.

That is all that I personally know of that are free. There are many more out there!

Now what about the user that has outgrown these programs and wants something a little more professional but still not the top.

Well, I would say for about $150.00 you can buy Adobe Photoshop & Premiere Elements 9. There are other programs that are cheaper, but I would personally go with Adobe Elements software because they also make professional software.

The next step up would be $300.00 - $450.00. These would include Sony Vegas Pro, Final Cut Pro and HitFilm. I just found out about HitFilm from a friend and I went to check it out. This actually looks like Premiere Pro and After Effects combined. Not as good, but for the price it looks promising.

Up from there would be the Adobe Pro Production Premium Suite. This includes Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition and Encore DVD for about $1,700.00. The good news is that if you're a student you can get this Suite for $450.00!

One place that you might like to check out for video production equipment in general in B&H Photo/Video/Pro Audio.

Do you know of any software that you would like to add? Please, leave a comment below!

How To Get The Most From Your Tripod

Alright, be honest. Who really dislikes it when your really awesome video footage is lost to camera shake? That action that ruins great footage and makes it look unprofessional. Obviously the best way to correct the shake is to get a shoulder mount for your camera, a crane for those awesome aerial shots or the ever popular dolly shot.

If you're like me, you don't have the money to go buy a $1000.00 crane. So instead I have found a way to use my tripod to take the camera shake down to a smaller level.

The first one that I would like to go over is using the tripod as a Rod stabilizer as shown in the picture below.

I normally hold the tripod vertical or at an angle depending on what I am filming. This is great for if you are moving alot and if you have a small camera. Since the camera is still able to move with the hand adjustment you can catch very fast objects while still having two hands on the camera.One thing that you might have trouble with is getting the camera level. I personally have a level bar across my screen to help with that.
I don't really use this method unless the subject(s) are moving too much for a regular tripod shot.

The next one that I use the most is more like a dolly shot. As show in the below picture.

They both look very similar, but this one gives better stabilization when you are walking. Because it is held away from your body, it tends to minimize the shake when you are walking. However, since I have a lighter camera, it is not too heavy to hold out like that but is just enough weight to keep my arms steady. For this one you don't have to deal with the leveling problem as much since you lock the head down.

These are the two that I use the most for non-stationary shooting. If you are an After Effects CS5.5 user, you can use the stabilizer on it for a really great result. Since my camera has a dynamic image stabilizer in it, I don't have to do a whole lot of correcting.

How about the panning shots? The best trick that I have found to help with minimizing the shake is pulling a rubber band hooked on to the handle as shown in the below video.

                            

One last thing that I would like to put up is a really great tripod trick that I have used and gotten a great result!

                             

PLEASE comment below and tell me some of your tripod tricks that you use. I will look forward to hearing some of your tricks!