How to Prepare Your Footage for Best Results

SHOOTING

There is a wealth of information - and just as much misinformation - on the web and in print about how to shoot DV for the best results on film. Here, straight from The Orphanage's archives of accumulated knowledge, (and the Magic Bullet offical documentation) is the short version of how you can shoot the best, most processable footage.

Shoot PAL

PAL video runs at 25fps, which is much closer to 24 than NTSC's 30fps. When we Bullet PAL video we use every frame 1:1, meaning that motion artifacts are eliminated completely. On top of that, PAL has a higher spatial resolution than NTSC, so you get more pixels in your image. If you can gain access to a PAL camera, the results will in most cases be worth the trouble. Of course Magic Bullet works great on NTSC video too, but you already knew that. Note that there is a 4% slow down when PAL is converted to NTSC or FILM. This is generally not noticable.

Turn Down the Sharpening

If your camera has the option, reduce the internal sharpening control to almost none. The harsh, over-sharpened edges that appear on high-contrast images are a signature giveaway of video. It's worth experimenting with your camera's settings to find the best sharpening amount, but it will almost certainly be less than the default setting.

Use 1/60th or 1/50th of a Second Shutter Speeds

1/60th for NTSC, 1/50th for PAL. Film's standard shutter speed is 1/48th of a second, so yours should be as close to that as possible. The rule of thumb is to use a shutter speed that is double your shooting frame rate. If the "fast shutter" look is something you desire from a creative standpoint, Magic Bullet will be able to process the footage just fine, but you may be surprised by how stroboscopic the effect can be at 24p.

Don't ever shoot with shutter speeds slower than double the frame rate. This is the same as shooting in a faux progressive-scan mode - you reduce your image resolution and will create a look that will not resemble film. Of course, if you are using the slow shutter speeds for creative effect, that is just fine, but you should remember to shut off the Deinterlacing component of Magic Bullet for such shots.

Shoot in 16:9 Mode

Especially if you plan on going out to film, but also if a nice, letterboxed video output is your desire. Electronic 16:9 is not as good as shooting with a native 16:9 chip, but it's better than not shooting with it. Be careful though: if a full-frame version of your project is ever needed it could be a lot of extra work to create it. 16:9 mode is for projects which are primarily intended for widescreen presentation.

Don't Shoot in "Frame Mode" or other faux Progressive Scan Modes

We do our work by looking at the different fields of interlaced video. If you shoot in these modes you won't be able to use the deinterlacing function. But if you have some footage that you've already shot this way, we can still help with deartifacting tools, which work whether or not you use the deinterlacing function, and remove the color artifacts of DV video.

A special note on non-interlaced NTSC footage: If you have shot some NTSC footage in a Frame Mode or other similar mode, We will NOT be able to help you convert your footage to 24p. A 30p output will probably still look great on video, but an actual film version, which must be 24p, will be very difficult to create.

Don't Overexpose

Video does not react well to blown-out areas of the frame. If a hot or overexposed look is your desire, it's far better to shoot at a normal exposure and then create the blown out effect in post. Many cameras have an option to display a zebra pattern in the viewfinder over areas that are blown out to 100% white. This is a very helpful option when shooting for our processing.

An ND Grad filter can help keep sunny skies from blowing out, and putting one on the camera will even do a better job than our software Grad feature!

Don't Underexpose

Video doesn't react well to dark areas either! Brightening up a dark video shot will bring out all the compression and noise that you never knew was there.

Shoot it Plain

We are working with most powerful image adjustment tools in the world. Shoot your footage as "normal" looking as possible, and wait until you get it to us to create those crazy looks you have in mind. This gives you the power and control to change your mind about how you want it to look. This means avoiding color or diffusion filters on the camera (with the exception of the ND Grad mentioned above), and setting the white balance to the correct preset for the type of light you're using.

Shoot it Consistent

The best favor you can do for yourself is to ensure that shots in the same sequence look similar to one another. Watch not only the lighting on your foreground subject, but that of your backgrounds as well. Use presets for white balance, so that even if your battery goes dead and you lose your camera settings, you can still return to the same color balance you were using before. Use a color monitor on the set to compare playback of your last setup to the feed from the current one. Try to keep all of your similar skin tones in the same exposure range from one shot to the nextÑsome cameras have zebra patterns in their viewfinders that help you do this. Finally, create a pre-flight checklist for your camera that combines these guidelines with your own experiences, and run through it before beginning every new shot.

As with any advice, please take the above into consideration and make your own decisions. There could be any number of reasons that you may need to do something different. If you have questions, PLEASE call us! It's better to find out now about a potential problem than later when you're done shooting!

EDITING

Editing is the only thing that comes between your footage and After Effects, so let's make sure we do it right.

The basic rule of getting the best results out of Magic Bullet is to avoid recompressing your footage at any point in your post-production pipeline. This means that if you shoot DV, you are best off editing in a package that works at the native DV resolution, such as Apple's Final Cut Pro (or Adobe Premiere.) If you shoot Digital Betacam or some other high-bandwidth digital video format such as DVCPRO50 or Digital S, you will want to use a system that allows you to output an uncompressed version of your cut, such as Digital Voodoo, Pinnacle's CineWave, Avid Symphony, or the Media 100 uncompressed. These are only a few examples, but the key here is to maintain the highest quality throughout. (note that we do have minor surcharges for working with non-Final Cut Pro projects and media codes that do not run under OS X. If you are working with DV, Final Cut Pro is the preferred tool)

DV footage is fairly heavily compressed, but the nice thing about it is that it can live inside your computer at its native compression. If you have a project with nothing but straight cuts, i.e. no dissolves or titles, you can simply export a Final Cut Pro movie without recompressing frames.

But it's unlikely that your project won't have a few fades, or dissolves, or titles, or other effects that would require rendering, and therefore recompression, in your editing application. There are still ways to get this material in to After Effects without any loss in quality.

If you edit your project in Final Cut Pro, we can convert your Final Cut Pro project into an After Effects project and have full access to your camera original media. This is the ideal way for you to get hte best quality. We'll redo your fades and dissolves using Magic Bullet's excellent "opticals" function, that emulates the effect of real film fades and dissolves.

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