07-24-08
core / life master / 2008 / july / july 24 still (07-24-08)
plans, post, strategy, AE, FCP, order of operations, rebel DV
– last night i got a line on free FCP to AE translation software, and while in the process of testing it found a glitch in one of the final cut sequences, the “intermission”. A funky (too long?) file name had mildly corrupted this sequence. yikes. After repair it translated but without the audio which is pretty crucial. I’ve got to check this to see if audio works for any sequence. even so, this free utility would move things forward and save me $500. the next step is to brek up the clips used for this sequence to be sure I didn’t burn color correction into them. i might have which would mean recompression. perhaps the next step is to rebuild the entire movie in AE and then continue with roto, or rebuild entire scenes and get started, alternating between rebuilding and effects work.
– now it’s probably a good idea to formulate a plan for today, based on stu’s order of operations… so after this email launches, we go.
– so stu’s order of operation is
— remove DV artifacts (remove image flaws)
— add any visual elements (rotoscoping may be required to isolate foreground or background)
— optimize the shot
— relight and change object colors
— add gradients, diffusion and other on-lens effects
— vignetting and other in-lens effects
— color correction
— simulate film stock
— dissolves, fades, transitions and titles
— perform color conversions resizing and sharpening for specific output formats
– so based on the first two operations, rotoscoping is the best way to proceed. preceeded by translating scenes over to AE, using the original QT files. there. that wasn’t so hard now, was it?
so today i tried a couple of free scripts for translating FCP to AE and brought in a workable version of act 1, so we’re back to full on rotoscoping tomorrow for that act. wee-hoo. tonight before bed, i’m gonna read up on after effects studio techniques which seems to go into a lot of detail for masks and such.