Archive for category Misc
Rotoscoping Continued
Here’s a great example of the look/technique I’m going for. From Spek Studios in Williamsburg. Brooklyn:
For lack of better tools and time, I’m trying a method (that won’t look so scribbley, unfortunately) of tracing with paths in Illustrator, and then key frame animating the paths every third frame (and then tripling each frame in the final animation). Basically I’m hoping to NOT have to start from scratch on each frame of the clip by using previously drawn paths. I’ve only just finished the paths and color for the first frame. I should be able to test out the animating this week sometime.
Rotoscoping? Or Rotoscoping
Lately I’ve been talking about and researching about how to transfer my knowledge of rotoscoping with film to the digital world for an upcoming part in the project I’m working on.
Now before I continue, this is where it gets complicated. Over the weekend I tried to talk to the Director and Animator of a film that is probably 70% “rotoscoped”. That is, backgrounds and objects are drawn cartoony with the real people living within that space. I wanted to know how he was doing it in After Effects.
Basically I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him… but I would find out later it was because we were not on the same page of what we were talking about.
Later in the week I talked to a friend who is also an After Effects animator and asked HER how she would do rotoscoping in AFX or on the computer in general and got the same “use masks” answer the other guy gave me. I kept trying to explain my scenario where I wanted to replace a background with a drawn version of it. The way I wanted to replace it was not to mask out the subject and composite in a separate animation, but to draw OVER the background, because I wanted it to both match the background exactly, and have moving lines that changed so one could tell it was drawn on. And she would say “Just track a mask around the subject in the foreground…”
She showed me this video as an example:
(Though the Rihanna video may have some drawn in elements like the crayon looking stars… she mainly was showing me for the green screen keying and replacing backgrounds.)
And then I would say, no, what I mean is like this:
And finally she said “Oh, like Waking Life.” Yeah!
Though Waking Life might be Faux-toscoping.
It wasn’t until I talked it over with David later that night and then decided to look it up that we figured out why all the people I talked to seem to call what I would call “compositing” rotoscoping, and that it was not anything like what I was meaning by rotoscoping…
But wikipedia cleared it up:
Rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over live-action film movement, frame by frame, for use in animated films. Originally, pre-recorded live-action film images were projected onto a frosted glass panel and re-drawn by an animator. This projection equipment is called a rotoscope, although this device has been replaced by computers in recent years. In the visual effects industry, the term rotoscoping refers to the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.
Ugh! Why would one term be used now for two completely different things? What I was talking about was adding to the frame. What they were talking about was cutting out and taking away.
To me, rotoscope is both a technique and a look. Hand-drawn, simplistic realism; either partially tracing, completely tracing a shot, or adding hand-drawn elements to a real shot so that they look like they exist within the shot. You’re limited by what you can accomplish with a rotoscoping machine, and then only transferring those techniques and that look to computers.
In college we rotoscoped a film about bear cubs by projecting the film onto glass, frame by frame, and we traced over it onto paper. From what I’ve read, the best way to do it digitally seems to be to send the shot to Photoshop. Unless there’s any other way people know of!
Push the Button!!
For our LOST finale party (On the Black Rock! Aka the Frying Pan boat), I had our friend, Alan MacDougall, write me a program that was an interactive Swan Station computer replica. We had the computer set up in a room on the boat for people to type in the numbers…. or not…. as part of the Tour de Black Rock.
Check it out! Push the button!! (type in the box) Or if you let it run out, something fun will happen too. Play around, try it a few times. It says different stuff now and again. There are some Easter eggs and fun Lost stuff goin’ on.
And if anyone is interested, here are some photos taken from the party taken by The NYC Photographer, Brad Jackson.
Lost Photo Set
Don’t Drop the Slate
Posted by Kim in Misc, Production on May 3rd, 2010
If you drop the clapper arm instead of pushing it down, it will bounce up slightly and make another smaller clap sound that really makes it more difficult than it needs to be to sync!
… Just sayin’.
Animated gif brought to you by the 90s.
Shepard Fairey Sighting!
Saw one of the new Shepard Fairey murals on Wythe and North 11th today.
Cartoon Mona Lisa
Kim painted this! It hangs in our living room this very moment.
Kim's Rendition of the Mona Lisa - Note the sly look!
Say Something!
We are accepting Guest Blog Posts for ANY aspect of filmmaking. Like what you see on Boiling Sky? Email me at boilingsky / gmail and tell me what you have in mind. I’d love to share my audience and sweet sweet PageRank with your site!
Shout Out: Escape Pod Films Latest ‘The Stryker Files’
Escape Pod Films: The Stryker Files 4: Fistful of Strykers
Last month our buddies at Escape Pod made the final episode of their Channel101 comedy epic “The Stryker Files” – this is it! I stood around and play both a dead body and a robot, so there’s also that to look forward to. Enjoy!
Also, dudes from Waverly and Decoy Squad are in it. So that’s three web comedy powerhouses. And me.
Avid Trips – Filename Recovery
Posted by Kim in Avid Trips, Misc, Post on April 2nd, 2010
I’ve decided to post some tips/tricks (Trips!) I’ve found to be really useful in working with Avid and as an Assistant Editor that will both remind me later down the road and hopefully help out someone desperately searching for answers late at night online.
Two Ways to Recover Your Original Source Clip Filenames:
If you’ve changed your clip names in Avid, and didn’t copy the column over into another column like “Take” or “Comments” for reference later, you may have already noticed the problems that arise from this seemingly innocent act.
For my current project, there are hundreds of archive clips that all need to retain their original archive clip ID in order to find the clip again and order masters from the archive companies. Having not always kept the original name somewhere in a column of the bin, I’m wondering “How the hell do I know what clip is what without having to open each up and visually reference based on the backed up media?”
1. Reveal File
Though you have changed the clip name in the bin, the MXF file Avid created on the import retains the original clip name in the first part of the MXF file name. Reveal File shows you the exact file on whichever hard drive you loaded it to.
Copy and paste just the obvious clip name part of the file (and not the other Avid generated numbers and letters) back into the Avid in a column like “Comment”, in order to export an EDL with that info in it.
But just so you know, the Avid does cut off the character count of your filename after what appears to be around 18 characters and then just ignores the rest. So I would still cross reference it with the backed up media if your filenames are longer than that.
2. Use FilmScribe and show column “UNC Path”
If you backed up your media, and imported it from where you backed it up from, FilmScribe (another option above EDL in the output menu) will tell you the file path from the imported file, which ultimately ends with the filename.
ex.: G:\Loaded\GettyImages\8jd9fle9.jpg
Copy and paste that last part into the Avid somewhere useful. And/or just give the archive person the FilmScribe printout/file/link. (Though I’d recommend keeping that information that you’ve just worked on relocating somewhere in the bin as well)
If the original location from where the file was imported was changed or deleted or moved somewhere else, I’m not sure if it still retains that information. You could always use the reveal file method instead.
However, both methods are a pain in the ass, so now that you’ve learned it’s a bad idea to get rid of the original clip names all together, don’t do it again! I’m making a habit of putting that info into the “Take” column, which wasn’t being used in our project. Maybe make your own column called “Clip Name” so that there isn’t much of a chance someone accidentally changes the column’s info on you. Then make sure to remind everyone on the project who may load something without you knowing, to keep up the same protocol.
