The old building footage

So I was a little bit worried about the building footage as the lighting was AWFUL! but I have given it a go at restoring the footage and here are the results.

To restore them I played around with the contrast and brightness, colour balance (which in the end I made the building footage black and white as it looked better), Noise and grain remover,sharpen and the saturation.


Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Green screen editing- keying out and the problems I had

Ok So yesterday I was trying to correct the old building footage, now was the turn of the green screening and keying out the colours.

I had saved the tutorial sheets that I was given on the channel 4 day so I hunted them out, It was great help!

It told me how to do it step by step and I wasn't wasting my time looking for a youtube tutorial.

Here is my first green screen test:

I think it worked really well! I was happy with the results from this test and so I am now starting to put this music video together and I'm hoping to have the first edit done tonight!


Then as the night progresses, I start having REALLLL problems with some other green screen footage. Then dont work as well and the boys still have a haze of green to them, I couldn't figure it out, I even started writing down all the numbers so I could copy them to the other video.. still didn't work.

Here are screenshots of places that the green screen didn't work out so well

Parts of fingers are missing at the sides.

 green haze around daniels back and lewis's hand is not refined enough and green shade under armpit

 green hand and haze around head

 green haze around side, green shadow and unrefined arms

 green shadow all over face

 even thought I believe this to be my most successful green screen, there is still a small hint of green in the shadow

 huge green shadow on face

 I was really annoyed that the old build shots didn't work out so I tried to put daniel in the picture, this worked quite well, I made him the same shade and tones as the background but it is not fully conceivable

 unrefined hand

 slight green haze around the body

Light reflected off the size of Lewis's eyebrow and ear



BUT

Baring in mind these errors only occur for a small part, this is just me trying to pick at my faults. I have realized where I have went wrong:



LIGHTING

I never lit the green screen properly, if I had more lights, it would have removed the shadows off their faces and I would not of had the problems that I did. But I learned from the experience.

And the editing process has begun!

Ok so I got up bright and early ready to edit today and woke up with a stinking cold...typical! But I have been playing around with the footage that was shot in the building to see if I can save it or not.. Here a video of the original footage to see what I was up against.

I took about 5 different takes in this possition but in the end, after my attempts, this shot was just not salvageable. I have other shots though that only have one of the boys in and this meant that I could get the other boy to hold a light.

FILM DAY!

What a day! Everything that I was worried about all went well! After nervously waiting for a lecturer to give me the thumbs up for the green screen and worried that we wouldn't be able to shoot at our location, everything worked out surprisingly well! The only problem was the rain, BUT its Scotland, and there is nothing that can be done about that! I will start the editing process tomorrow and were going for a Friday 6pm release. But I plan to have a first edit finished by the end of Wednesday and then however edits may follow to give time for iterations and polishing. here are some photos of the day!

The only problem that occurred was the lack of light in the old building. Not to mention it was very over cast so I am a little bit worried about the quality of the footage shot there but hopefully some touch up in the editing process should fix things, fingers crossed!

Tomorrow is the big day!

Well, tomorrow is the big day..shooting Daniel and Lewis music video. My brain is going mental with so much things to organize so I thought I would right a blog post A. to clear my mind and B. so you lovely people can see what I'm doing! OK

First of all tomorrow could go really well or well, bad. Because we couldn't find a suitable day before the Christmas break, I didn't know if we were going to get the video completed before hand in. But we managed to get a date for tomorrow but by that point uni had closed for Christmas, and the lecturers aren't back until the 7th.. tomorrow so I couldn't email them and expect a reply. BUT Robin emailed me back saying that although he wouldn't have time to properly timetable me a slot, he may be able to get me the room informally. So we still have a good chance of getting the room. Which is why I will be at uni at 9 on the dot to try and find Robin or another lecturer. FINGERS CROSSED.

List for Daniel and Lewis:

3x sets of clothes- No green
Any jewelry they need/want
Portable speakers
Copy of the final edited song
Props, eg Microphone, headphones- if they want
Umbrella
Waterproof jacket

List for myself:

Camcorder- Fully charged
Camcorder charger (for green screen shooting)
Camera- to take behind the scenes pictures
Tripod
Umbrella
Waterproof jacket
Storyboards for reference
SD card
Extra SD card
Black bags (to sit on if shoot location is wet)
Paper
Pen
Route map to get to location
Bus times for the 22


Order for the day:

7:00- Amy Get up and get ready for day
9:00- Amy go into uni and find lecturers for green screen
11:00- Pick up Lewis and Daniel from the train station
Depending on the rain situation, if it is dry when they arrive at 11, then we will go straight to the shoot location, but if it is raining we will go shoot the green screen scenes and hope the rain will stop.
6:00- 7 shoot night time footage


Link to weather for Dundee on Monday the 7th : http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2650752



Potential problems for tomorrow:

1. We cant get the green screen room ( option 2, go buy a very big bit of green material)
2. We cant get into the location (Resort to back up locations)
3. It rains all day- which may cause bad lighting for the camera (result of shooting in Scotland)
4. Boys miss their train-haha!


I think that is it from now but I will probably be on here in a mad panic about something else for tomorrow!

How to make my videos look more professional

Seeing as I am doing the music video for Daniel and Lewis, I want to make sure it looks as professional and as polished as possible so here is a great tutorial that shows how simple adjustments can improve the look of your footage.

Storyboards for music video

I started to try and storyboard for the music video that is not too far away but it was basically impossible. As I have never been to the location I can predict what shots I can take, So what I have done instead is mocked up shots that I plan to take and know I can.