Week 4

Day 1 (10/11/2014)
Today our job was the post production for a Thanksgiving dinner video. Matt had edited a rough cut of the video and our job was to complete it. I was to composite 2 of the shots. One was a greenscreen background and the other was to track and composite in the screens of a computer monitor and Ipad. 

I used keylight in after effects to key out the green, but it was difficult to achieve a perfect key as the greenscreen was not evenly lit and there was green spill everywhere. I tried to use keylight to dispill the green, but was unable to do so. Hence, I had to roto the green spill to remove it. I added in the background and color corrected it to match the scene. 

The next shot to composite required tracking. I used after effects 3D camera tracker to track the camera in 3D space and pasted in the screens.

Day 3 (12/11/2014)

Today, I started out by trying to convert some avi video files into a more user friendly codec for DVD. I tried using different programs including Adobe Media Encoder, MPEG Streamclip and Final Cut Pro to try in convert the video but none of them worked at all. They were able to read the audio codec, but not the video codec. VLC player was able to play the video, but the mac version for some reason could not show the codec information, nor could it transcode the video. I had to use my own laptop's VLC player to determine that the codec was divx and to convert it to a more familiar format like MP4, H.264. VLC player is unable to do a batch convert without the complicated use of the command line and therefore I had to manually convert each file. Other than MP4, I also converted to a .ts file format as the .mp4 files that I converted had problems when tested it in Premiere. Unfortunately, both file formats were unable to be imported into DVD Studio Pro, and we decided that there was something fundamentally wrong with the video itself and any more attempts and conversion would probably be futile. Phil decided instead to ask the person who created the video to reexport as another format.

After that, we went down to the workshop to help Phil built some props. The 2 frames that he created was too large to fit through the doorway of the workshop and Phil cut both frames into half and stitched them back together using a cloth hinge which is basically a strong thick piece of cloth stapled to both parts of the wood to act as a hinge. After that, we stretched a piece of cloth over the frame and stapled it.

Day 4 (13/11/2014) 

We started out the day by shooting a video message for the upcoming Thanksgiving event. It was a greenscreen shoot and we had to key the footage and put in the background. We edited in Premiere pro then brought in into After Effects for compositing. Once the composite was done, I exported it and brought it back into Premiere for the sound editing.

Day 5 (14/11/2014)

Today's a long and busy day. We started out in studio asking several people to look at the Thanksgiving short film and tell us what changes to make to improve the film. We then carried some equipment to the small cafetorium and set it up. We also brought down equipment to the main cafetorium for the Thanksgiving event the next day. We set up 2 cameras and ran cables from it to the video switcher. We clamped several stage lights to a truss and raised it to the ceiling. I also learnt from Alex how the DMX lighting console works and the general overview of how stage lighting is set up.

Day 6 (15/11/2014)

Today is the Mandarin Thanksgiving event. We started out by dismantling the scaffold that we used the previous day and storing it. We then continued the set up. For the event, I was on one of the 2 cameras. Our purpose was to shoot for image magnification. The video switcher's output was sent to the projectors for the audience to see the close ups of the people on stage. After the event ended, we teared down all of the equipment and brought them back to where they belong, except for the lighting and some of the cables which we rolled up and hid it under the stage for next week's event.