Stu “ProLost”, wrote a nice article about dynamic range and color correction last month. He posted a picture as captured from the RED ONE camera, and also posted his graded version, using a LUT that emulates the Kodak 3383 print film (that’s what you would usually use if you shot digitally but you want to transfer to film for a theatrical release). Naturally, I tried to reproduce the look by using only Vegas’ own tools (no Magic Bullet), but failed miserably. So I asked JBQ for a hand, and he spent almost an hour today working on it.

JBQ was able to get very close to the Kodak film look by using Vegas’ Curves, Color Corrector and the histogram as a guide (note: Vegas Platinum does not have a histogram, only Vegas Pro does). Please note though that Stu had the original 4k RAW frame to work with, while we only have a 720p rescaled JPEG. This means that the picture we had to work with had JPEG artifacts and far less visual information than the version Stu worked on, which is why we could recover far less information in the overexposed window. And yet, JBQ came very close to that look.

If you want the same film look on your films with a Canon consumer camera like the HV20 (you will have to slightly tweak the plugin values per scene, of course), you have to do the following:
1. Shoot in 24p with Cinemode. Cinemode’s look is dull for a reason.
2. Select “Neutral” on your camera’s color options. Remember, the more dull a picture is shot, the better it behaves when color graded. Over-saturated, sharpened, constrasty pictures (which is how consumer cameras shoot as by default) don’t color grade at all.
3. Get a good contrast filter. I would go for the Tiffen HDTV FX 52mm one, costs $200.
4. Lights, lights, lights and a light reflector. Buy some.
5. Use a gray card to set the custom white balance (never let the camera guess), and help the camera expose correctly.

That setup should give you a dull enough, bright enough, low-contrast enough, image to be able to work properly afterwards during color grading and get closer to the film look.

Update: And here’s the “Live Free or Die Hard” blue-green look:

ProLost, the author of the DV Rebel Guide, wrote After Effects and FCS tutorials on how to preserve natural skin tones when the rest of the scene has an extreme blue color grading. This blue tint color is what’s in fashion lately for movies. Yes, there is color fashion for films too, which is one of the reasons movies from 10 years ago look different than today’s films.

So, I am providing below a way to get the same look, using Sony Vegas. Because I like my tutorials to be accessible also to users that don’t have the Pro version of Vegas, I will not use the “Color Corrector Secondary” plugin, which is the normal way of doing these kinds of things. Another thing to remember is that each scene is different and it requires changes on the values of the plugins. You can’t just copy/paste the values throughout a film and expect to have a constantly good-looking image.

1. Download, install and load Aav6cc to your timeline clip (free download. On Vista you might have to install it as “Run as Administrator”).
On it put the saturations of Red, Blue, Cyan to 80. All other colors’ saturation to -90. Cyan’s Hue to -16. Lightness of Blue and Cyan on -64.

2. Load the “Color Corrector” plugin on your clip (not “Secondary”, comes with Vegas).
All three Angles to 315. All three Magnitudes to 0.330. Saturation 1.000, Gamma 0.900.

The above settings had the following results, but as I said, you need the right moody footage and the right modified settings each time to get this working for all your clips.

Picture by chaparral, licensed under the CC-BY.

Picture by romainguy, licensed under the CC-BY-SA.

Update: Wow, what a small world this is! So I made a search on FlickR for CC-BY pictures of “rainy days” for the purpose of this tutorial, and I decided to use the above one from “romainguy”. Ten minutes later my husband said “Romain takes nice pictures, I will have to talk to him about photography”. And I replied sarcastically “why, you know him? :P”. And he said “yes, he sits three cubes down from my desk at Google!”. Holy crap.

Update 2: If you have Magic Bullet installed, load the Aav6cc plugin and modify the saturation of Red to 90, Yellow to 50. And then use the Magic Bullet template “Berlin”, but change its “Do post: contrast” to 20.

On my walk yesterday I grabbed some random shots with the Kodak V1233 HD digicam. Because the camera is not really that worthwhile, I color graded the shots aggressively using four different commercial Vegas plugins: NewBlue Metallic MSP, Magic Bullet Look Suite, Pixelan CE BlurPro, Pixelan CE Posterwise, and Vegas’ own “Brightness & Contrast” and “Color Corrector”. Took 4 hours to render these 2 minutes of video. HD version here.

Stefan Sargent is a veteran cameraman/director/editor with untold years of experience. And in his latest article he takes on the legacy of 24p. As I too suggest: stay away from 24p. It’s overrated. The “film look” is not 24p, it’s a combination of at least 10 different things. Especially now that we have a TV at home that “smooths out” 24p movies to the point that you think that they are 30p or higher, it makes no longer sense to me seeing people shooting at 24fps, which is a frame rate that we are stuck since 1924 for technical reasons rather than aesthetical reasons. Anyways, read his article and take his advice on stop shooting 24p with your HV20 without understanding why you are doing so.

Update: Hollywood director James Cameron agrees.

I re-cut my old Stanford video today (different clip arrangement, a few new scenes, new color grading) and re-uploaded it. Unfortunately, the HD version is unusable on my 3Ghz hyperthreaded P4 now because Vimeo upgraded their Flash HD re-encoding to 30fps from their previous 24fps cap. The HD video plays very choppy. If they don’t fix this somehow, I will have to leave Vimeo and go with Blip.TV. I have no plans to buy a new PC. SD version below:

Additionally, Vimeo removed the ability to get high quality re-encoding out of 480p video, it’s now 720p, 1080p or nothing. As of right now, uploading 1440×1080 won’t give you the high quality re-encoding either (I filed a bug report with them).

Update: Not even my husband’s 2.4 Ghz Core2Duo Macbook Pro can’t playback the 30fps HD Vimeo version perfectly smoothly (every few seconds there are jumps). This is a feature that Vimeo should lay off for 2 more years and send a letter to Adobe to sit their asses down to optimize Flash more (the Flash player is single-threaded). Yes, the latest version of Flash is faster than the previous ones, but my husband is not allowed to install such software on his Google laptop so he still runs an older version. Basically, to be able to playback very smoothly the new Vimeo HD 30fps videos, you need Core2Duo 2 Ghz and above with the newest Flash version installed. These are very steep requirements. The old 24fps cap videos were playing back fine on 3.5 year old PCs, now you need a 1.5 year old PC or newer.

Update 2: Dalas from Vimeo re-encoded the video, I think it’s back at 24fps now, not sure, but it’s smoother now. Hopefully, users will be able to select if they want a 24fps or 30fps re-encoding so I don’t have to ask them each time…

As you may know, I am usually releasing my footage under the CC-BY 3.0 license. This license basically just asks for attribution if you reuse the work. There are some dangers though. What if some of your footage is used as an opening shot for a porn movie? Or what if a Neo-Nazi group uses some of your footage for their video propaganda? You see, if that’s not enough that controversial entities are using your footage, your NAME will be on their credits roll! Try to explain to CIA, NSA and FBI that you had nothing to do with it.

I had a long thought about this today, and I researched around a bit more. The CC-BY includes the following clause: “You must not distort, mutilate, modify or take other derogatory action in relation to the Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author’s honor or reputation“. At first, this clause sounds good. But then, you realize that the artist’s “moral rights” (as this thing is called), are not defendable in every country. For example, in USA this protection does not always work because the “moral artist rights” here have a very specific meaning in the copyright law that only applies to some bizarre cases about photography. In Canada, some European countries and Japan, this clause could protect you. But in any case, you wouldn’t know for sure until you sue. But do you really want to go that far for a bunch of cheap footage?

So, realistically speaking, I have three choices:
1. Drop the CC-BY and use a more restrictive Creative Commons license (that’d probably be CC-BY-NC-ND, as the CC-SA does not fully protect me either). Public Domain does not help me either, because by default the PD license can be dangerous for some other reasons, plus I won’t be able to find good music to accompany my videos — using a CC-BY song with a PD video asks for trouble.
2. Hire a lawyer and write a custom license, that has bits from the CC-BY and a modified “moral rights” clause that explicitly prohibits a (legally defined) immoral re-use of the work.
3. Stop worrying about it and let the federal agencies figure out that I was not part of any “scheme” out there that might have used my footage because of its liberal license and has subsequently credited me for it.

I choose #3. Let’s live a little, give something back to the world, and let the world decide what to do with that something. You can’t babysit everyone in this world. Although I wouldn’t be happy if my footage is misused in ways that put me in trouble or defame me.

Update: My JBQ, who can read legalese as comfortably as reading Harry Potter, believes that the quoted CC-BY wording above is legally strong enough to protect the licensor from immoral adaptations of his/her works, even in US. So, we are all good.

I linked to these tutorials 1.5 years ago, but back then most of my readers were not video-related, plus the link changed since then. So, if you are an aspiring filmmaker, make sure you read these 9 lessons. The initiative was Nokia’s and Discovery’s, trying to market Nokia’s cellphone video capabilities. But the lessons are good for everyone really.

I suggest you save down the pages+pictures/videos, because this site will eventually go just as the original did. The new URL is simply an old backup you see, a (forgotten) demo by the web design team that developed it. Save down as “complete webpage” the “Printer-Friendly version” of each lesson, and also download manually the video(s) associated with that page (you will need to snoop on the HTML code to get the video URLs).

CameraGrip.co.uk sent me over their new product “MMC Hague Mini Motion-cam Stabilizer“, an affordable steadycam for small, consumer, camcorders. The low price and ease of configuration has created a pretty enthusiastic following over at HV20’s forum.

The MMC Hague steadycam is very light and it consists of a modern design similar to this of the Merlin (a steadycam that sells for over $500). You mount the camera on top and then you adjust the weight on the bottom: There are 8 big weights and 2 small ones (and you can purchase more if you like). When you find a good balancing point for the camera, and you use the right amount of weights, you can adjust the position of the bottom weights left or right, in order to balance the whole thing. For example, because the HV20 is pretty heavy on its right side, you can slightly turn the bottom weights towards the left, in order to balance everything out. The MMC Hague can support up to 0.8kg of camera weight, however many users have “overclocked” their configuration by adding heavy wide-angle lenses and microphones, without much problem. In fact, in some cases adding all that weight helped achieving better balancing.

The product sounds too good to be true at this price, and in fact it is. The MMC Hague tends to swing left or right way too easily — a problem highlighted by many on the HV20 forums too. Some say that by either adding some weight on the left side of the camcorder (e.g. some heavy tape on the back of the open LCD screen), or by using different weights, it minimizes the problem. The left/right problem is pretty apparent though, and my (very good in physics) husband claims that the real problem is the friction in the ball-type gimble, just above the handle. He insists that if a plain metal cone was used instead - to have as small of a contact patch as possible– the left/right turning problem would be less apparent. Additionally, there is no “quick release” ability, so you will need to use a marker to mark the exact position you need to attach the camera each time.

Nevertheless, with enough time to configure the product correctly, and also by training your arm to not move while operating the steadycam, you can still achieve a pretty good result. I found that the steadycam, when operated carefully, can offer some pretty convincing short dolly-like shots, pans and walking. It’s very useful to have a steadycam especially when the terrain is not smooth, and a dolly is not possible. Check other people’s MMC Hague’s videos here for more examples and configurations.

Among HV20 users there is this magical method to lock+set exposure: the cellphone trick. You place a brightly lit white/gray cellphone screen in front of the HV20 and you follow a convoluted set of actions afterwards. And this is a “trick” that many people use, doing it because they think it works. They think that the HV20 has a “magical point” of f2.8 where no gain is introduced. Well, what they actually end-up doing is under-exposing. A sensor of a camera is what it is, it can’t be “overclocked” to perform better magically.

This trick doesn’t work. It’s a fucking myth. Stop using this stupid method. This is how this guy’s video ended up looking by using this method. Here’s another test video doing the same trick. Yes, the grainy artifacts are gone on the second half of the video using the “magical method”, but this is not because the method is magical, but because the camera UNDER-exposes. You can do the same thing without going to all of these weird steps, just under-expose. Here’s another test, again, it has no grain simply because the scene is under-exposed and it’s only saved because the candles are bright enough. But you don’t need this “trick” to get there.

Instead, do either of the following as long as your camera supports setting a custom white balance (all Canons do):
1. Buy a gray card (check the link on how to use it). As long as you can get close to your shooting subject, there is no substitute for the gray card, sans a light metering device. It costs $4 and you have no excuse of not owning one.

2. If you really want to use a similar method, at least use a method that works more precisely. For example, zoom all the way in to the same level as your shooting subject and fill the frame with a white or brightly lit point (e.g. a white shirt of a person, or a wall). Then, set the custom white balance at that point, and then zoom out. Lock exposure after zooming in, and compensate based on the brightness of what you zoomed on. As a plus, you will have an “ok” white balance too.

That’s the same method used by many photographers, and it’s one that works best without extra equipment. No cellphones, no extra steps. That’s it. Amusingly, the common wisdom in still photography (which is called “expose to the right”) says exactly the opposite: never underexpose, even if you have to increase the sensitivity/gain to get a proper exposure.

Update: The cellphone trick only makes sense if the exposure compensation doesn’t follow the same program curve as the exposure. Now, if indeed the exposure compensation follows a different program, *and* if that program doesn’t change the gain, *and* if the regular program changes the gain before going wide-open, it makes some sense, but none of those assumptions are documented anywhere.

The vast majority of the emails I get the last few months are video-related. Many people are asking me how to create travel videos like my own. Well, there is not a single way of putting a video together, but I will share my procedure of how I edit. This procedure can help you out put together good-enough cuts, but don’t expect artistic videos like those from Charlie or Remyyy on Vimeo. I ain’t no artist, I am just methodical.

To follow the procedure, we will use as an example one of my videos, so please open it on a separate browser window.

1. Decide what you want to shoot. When you do, shoot your subject according to the suggestions here, and transfer your footage to your computer and video editor. Finally, secure your time. It usually takes me 3-5 hours to finish a small 3-5 minute video.

2. Bring the first clip from the list in the timeline. Trim it to 9-10 seconds long. If that scene is, let’s say, 40 seconds long, find the best 9-10 seconds in it, and use only that. If your video editor is not very precise in trimming, you can trim ~15 seconds of each scene, and do a second pass later. Pannings might need a bit over 10 seconds to look complete, but more static shots don’t need more than 8 seconds. The Internet crowd is an impatient one.

3. After trimming, discard the rest of the clip (as long as it’s all very similar). Discard the whole scene if the footage is too shaky, don’t feel bad for it. Discard the scene if it’s badly exposed, if it doesn’t look too interesting, if the scene is too static with no moving subjects, or if it doesn’t have anything to do with your main subject of the video (e.g. if you are shooting a bridge, discard all bird footage you shot the same day but doesn’t show the bridge in some way or another). Trim and discard in the same way all the other clips in the list, one by one. Be ruthless. Usually, only 1/10th of footage is good enough. It’s 1/5th only if you are really good and really careful when shooting.

4. Now that you have all the scenes you need in the timeline, and are all trimmed down correctly, re-arrange them in a logical order. For example, view the video I link above. I start with a scene that shows my subject in full. Then, I go bit by bit closer and I scrutinize its details. The second scene gets me to the foot of the bridge. The third scene shows the floor. The fourth scene shows the floor and the balusters. The fifth one goes to scrutinize the balusters. Somewhere along the baluster scenes, there is a scene that shows the cables. And so the next few scenes are dealing with the cables. After the cable scenes are done, I am including a scene that “ties together” the cables and the other side of the bridge, by showing its foot again, and so the last scenes deal with the foot again. So basically, the idea is this: you start with a subject, and then you make sure your next scene includes both the current subject and the next subject (e.g. both the balusters and the cables). This way, the viewer “hops” from one subject to another but has a frame of reference of what is what and where it exists in the overall environment you are shooting at. By not including random shots, in random order, you don’t surprise your viewer negatively (except if you are doing artistic videos, in which case anything goes).

5. Start your videos with a fade-in and finish with a fade-out. Between subject jumps includes fade-in and fade-outs too. For example, moving from the balusters to the the cables, I use fade ins/outs. But between shots of the same subject, I use cross-fades. This technique is like creating “micro-chapters” in your video. One chapter for the foot, one chapter for the balusters, one chapter for the cables etc. It just keeps everything organized in the mind of the viewer. Unless your video is about cool stuff (e.g. scating, night clubs etc), you want to avoid crazy transitions: stay with cuts, fades and cross-fades.

6. Always add a title to your video in the first scene. It makes it look more professional. At the end, it’s good to add credits, license information and copyright info to avoid potential problems in the event you want to upload it online. Unless you are too possessive, why not license your videos under the Creative Commons “Attribution” 3.0 license? Most people give their footage for free and they don’t mind it if others download it or re-use it (in fact, they feel honored by it). But without adding license information, by default, the law does not allow us to re-use your video. So, it’s good to clear this up in your credit roll.

7. Now play your video in its entirety. You will find that some scenes might need a bit more trimming or fixing, or simply might need removal. Think of this step as the “clean up”, re-affirmation, step that the video ties well together.

8. The music is as important as the rest of the video. Strapping together on the video your favorite pop song won’t cut it. The music/song must fit the subject of your video. For example, look at my video at 00:13 seconds. I made sure the “change” in the music happened when the new scene started. This way I signal a change in the viewer’s mind, that the sound follows the video flow because there’s something important in that scene (even if there isn’t). That’s how you make videos look interesting, by “audio suggestion”. Then go to the 1:25 minute of the video. Look how the music is kinda normal, but when the new scene starts out on 1:30, the music fits 100% that new scene. Look how that cable bounces like it’s a guitar string, while at the same time the music itself features a guitar string loop! It’s details like this that can make a video a pleasure to watch! Of course, you can not always have together A/V changes exactly at the right spot, so sometimes you have to split the music and re-arrange it as you do with video. In my video above I have actually re-arranged the music track a fair bit to suit my needs. Because I have to re-arrange the music track sometimes, I only use Creative Commons “Attribution” music, and I suggest you do so too if your videos are going to hit the net. Finally, also fade-in/out the start and finish of the music track too.

9. Play again one last time the whole thing, with music added, to find any discrepancies, and fix them if you do.

10. Last step: color grade, color grade, color grade. Most footage looks dull without modifying the gamma, or the saturation, or the contrast. I personally use Magic Bullet extensively, but even the basic tools that come with your video editor by default should be able to do a good job. Color grade each scene separately. I also take it into good faith that your footage has the right white balance, otherwise you need to color-correct too (note: color correction and color grading are not the same in video editing terminology). When everything is done, export in progressive mode (de-interlaced)! An internet video should not be over 3-5 minutes long.

That’s it, you now know everything I know. I have no more tips regarding the editing methodology of a normal travel video. Of course, for interviews, short movies, parties etc, other rules can apply. But for the kind of videos I do, where I try to keep it one kind of subject per video, this method works very well. I hope it works for you too.