Anyone interested in learning more about Green Screen and Chroma keying ought to give this link a look.  It is very in depth and helpful for getting that perfect key without any green edges.

One thing that I would have to add to this tutorial would be to pay special consideration to the lighting in your green screen shot.  If you can get a nice, even lit shot for your green screen, you will in turn dodge many hardships down the road when it comes time to key out the green screen in Final Cut Pro.  Here’s what I take into careful consideration when lighting and setting up a green screen shot.

1.  Light the green screen separately from your subject.  You want to create a noticeable difference between the subject and background in order to make keying out in Final Cut easier.

-  What I do is place two lights (we use Lowel Omni’s) on either side of the green screen, and focus them both towards the middle of the green screen, creating a flat, bright look.

2.  Make sure your subject is standing AT LEAST ten feet away from the screen.  Again, it creates a more noticeable difference between the subject and the background.  Also, you can light the subject however you want to without much extra light splashing back on to the green screen.

3.  Make sure the green screen is void of any creases or cracks.  Creases and cracks create dark spots on the green screen, making it a little awkward to key out in final cut.

-Practice these techniques and use my tips above to create that awesome green screen effect you’ve been trying to achieve.  Remember to effectively light the green screen first in order to avoid a whole bunch of problems in final cut later.

How to create a certain “look” or theme for your movie.

Just as a side note, you are really going to want to refer to the PDF version of this tutorial, it features pictures and sure makes the process a lot easier to digest.

- This might be one of the most important aspects of both your pre and post production process of your movie. Without a theme or look to your movie, you may leave your audience confused.
- Let’s take an example… A movie that takes place in medieval times, yet features cars driving around will leave your audience questioning this the entire time. A change is needed obviously. What I will demonstrate follows the same concept, though less obvious, but important nonetheless.

-So find your theme or look through a little genre analysis.  Watch movies, TV, the internet, youtube, anything really to start getting your brain going with ideas.  It’s easiest to find a certain look from somwhere else first, then try to emulate it yourself.  What we do next is called color correction, and this is where the magic truly happens.

Let’s begin with the Color Correction Process!
Yes, it literally means what it sounds like, we are going to correct the color of our video, and in this case, make my shot look like it was filmed in the 70’s.

1. As a general rule of thumb, before you even begin to shoot, make sure you light the set appropriately. There’s no telling how many problems you might face with this color correction process if your scenes are not properly lit. The shots I am working with are both outdoor, and the bright lighting is perfect for crafting this 70’s look.
2. Create your rough cut first!! I should have mentioned this first. Color correction will be a lot less painful if you have your cuts in place already. Get that situated, and then worry about the color. Otherwise you will be adding lots more time to your post production, and WHO WANTS THAT??
3. Once your rough cut is in place, find one clip that you will base all your other clips off of. Meaning, this every other clip in your sequence is going to look like this one. But we’re not there yet! Let’s start matching your selected clip with the look you are going for.

4. Once you have your two clips in place, add the effect “color corrector 3-way” to the clip you are editing.

-Effects>Video Filters>Color Correction>Color Corrector 3 Way

Go back to your clip in the viewer, and under the color corrector tab you should find three circles, labeled blacks, whites, and mids.

- The rest is really up to you, pretty much trial and error. For my piece, I turned the black levels down on the slider bar, while turning the white levels up. I also turned the saturation levels up, leaving me with a brighter, more vivid look.
- Then came the colors, where I dragged the dot towards the green spectrum for my blacks. I dragged the dot towards the yellow for my mids. And then I dragged the dot towards the blues for my whites. I know it may sound confusing, but after some tinkering, you will understand what I mean.

NOT QUITE DONE YET!

Other Effects
-This is where your creativity can really shine. I added a little shakiness to the shot, using the earthquake effect, but turned down very low, to get a more subtle look.  Also for my piece, I added some noise below the clip on the timeline, but turned down the opacity, so it gives the shot a nice grainy texture.  (perfect for that 70′s look I was going for)

What it all comes down to is a clear genre analysis, that way you have a look to strive for during the whole production process.  Trial and error is huge in video editing as well, especially for the less experienced.  Messing around with different levels of effects and understanding the function of these effects is the key for separating yourself from the rest of the editors and videographers out there.

Take a look at the PDF, it helps a lot more, trust me…

And as always, GODSPEED…

-Travis

Batch Capturing Basics (PDF version with pictures)

-The process of batch capturing can be one of the easiest or most frustrating things your will encounter in post production, depending on how you approach it.
-Let’s first start by defining what capturing is. Capturing in the video world is the process of converting your video on tape into a digital copy onto the computer. It’s also known as digitizing or even transferring. It’s a critical step in any movie process, and also a good way to organize your clips before the editing process begins in order to cut down on editing time.  Editing takes a long time, but simple things can be done in order to speed up the process, and to make it a little less painful.

Capture Now
- Let’s begin with this capturing process. This is the easiest way to log and capture your clips, but it also takes the most time.
-Once your camera or tape deck is connected to your computer through a firewire cable, you must first decide what format you want your clips to become.    If capturing a standard definition, digital 8 or mini DV tape either with a camera or tape deck, you want to make sure your clip settings are where you want them to be.

Final cut pro>Audio/Video Settings>Capture Preset>DV NTSC 48Khz

The DV NTSC setting is usually the default setting, and for me it’s the one I use when capturing SD footage. For HD footage, I usually use the HDV setting. It really comes down to personal preference, and what you want your video to look like on a TV screen, so a little trial and error comes a long way.

Now that you have your ideal clip settings, let’s Capture Now!

File>Log and Capture.

This should take you to the capture screen, and if you look towards the bottom right, you are left with three capture options. Clip, now, and batch. Capture now is simple, you just have to play your video back and select that button as needed to capture your clips.

Once you have captured all of your clips, disconnect your device and you are ready to edit those clips in your timeline!

NOTE:
Here’s the issue with the capture now setting. You have to sit at your computer and rifle through all of your footage to select the clips you need. This can be time consuming. Batch capturing is another way of capturing your footage without spending hours at your computer.

That’s why a lot of people instead use…

Batch Capturing
The beginning process is the same as the capture now process. Get to your ideal audio/video capture presets, and go to the log and capture page.
Instead of capturing everything at once, we are going to log all of the clips you want to use. Timecodes come in handy, and are an essential part of this process. As you look through your footage, you want to set in points and out points for each clip you want to use.

After an in point and out point is set, you can name it and put any details you want in order to help your editing process.

After the in and out points are marked, and your information is set, simply hit the log clip button on the bottom.

The clip will appear in your browser bin, with a red line slashed through it. This means that the clip is logged, but not yet captured.

Continue the process of setting in and out points for each clip you want to use. It helps in the filming process to write down timecodes for clips you know you want to use, since they can just be entered in the in and out points, instead of you trying to find it on the tape.

One important note about timecodes.
- They stop and start as you record and pause during filming. However, most camera presets have it so when you turn off your camera, the timecode begins at 00:00:00:00 once again. This will cause problems in logging and capturing, unless you take the right steps.
- When a camera is turned off, the timecode resets. The computer does not know this, and unless you tell it, you will get errors. This is where the reel comes into place.
- Every time you know your camera has been shut off, start logging the next set of clips in a new reel. The default reel is 001, so when the time comes, change it to 002. Now the computer knows there has been a timecode break, and will reset the timecode on the computer back to 00:00:00:00 as well.

- Once you have all your clips logged, you are now ready to capture. Select batch under the capture option, and it will ask you which clips you want to log. I typically select all the clips in my logging bin, but you have the option of only selecting a certain amount.

Once the clips are selected, Final Cut will start capturing all of the logged clips by itself, and you can go elsewhere and do your thing while Final cut does the dirty work for you. Make a sandwich, get some coffee, do whatever you want because Final Cut is working for you now! That’s the beauty of batch capturing.

Batch Capturing Advantages
1. It is an efficient way to organize your clips for editing.

2. It is time efficient as well, since you don’t have to sit at your computer all day rifling through clips to log.

Batch Capturing important Tips
1. When filming, if you can, do not turn the camera off! This will make batch capturing so much easier for you when you get there. The timecode will be continuous.

2. You need some Pre-Roll space! This is super important. Allow the camera to record for 10 seconds by itself before you start actually shooting your scene. Final cut, when capturing your clips, needs sufficient amount of Pre-Roll when capturing from the beginning of the time code, or else you will run into problems. Every time the camera is turned off, and the timecode is reset, allow another 10 seconds of recording for more PreRoll. This doesn’t need to be done every shot, but rather every time you turn on your camera and begin to film.

3. Name and describe your clips. Organization is the ultimate key to cutting down editing time.

4. While filming, write down the timecodes for clips you know you want to keep. They can just be entered in while logging. Also, take note of any timecode breaks where the camera is turned off, since you will need to make note of that while logging.

Now get out there and start your capturing process! Try not to get too frustrated if you are a first time user, it took me a long time to finally figure out the capturing process. If you follow my steps though, you shouldn’t run into major issues… hopefully.

GODSPEED!

-Travis

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