Getting the best picture out of Vegas...

[Guest]

Hey there,

I recently rented a DVX and shot a film in 24pA mode, which was excellent, by the way.

Now, I'm editing in Vegas, which I'm kind of a newbie at. I was just wondering what everyone's processes are within Vegas in order to get the best quality picture. I realize that everyone has different styles and tastes, but basically I want to know the process.

When movies are shot on 16mm stock, they look pretty shitty, but then after the editors are done and pump out that master copy, it looks MAGNIFICENT! What happens to make it look that great? I was hoping someone could really cover how to get the highest quality look out of the DVX's 24pA footage.

Obviously one of the most important aspects would be color correction and contrast correction, along with white balance/black balance. But what else is done to raw footage to pump out that high quality, crystal clear smooth, crisp, sharp, unbelievably high resolute image? And how do I do it in Vegas?

Thanks to anyone who will help me tackle this wide open question.

[joshreluctant]

Well this may be a novel, haha, but I'll try to help.

When I edit footage that our production shoots on Joe's DVX (that's right, i'm just the editor, no dvx of my own ::tears::), first i make a preset for that movie in the new file dialog. You can also get to this by going to File\Properties. I have it set for the widescreen, 24p, and all the options that go along with that. Then when i edit, I first put the entire film together, doing all the music, sound effects, foley, and everything getting done first. Then I go back and do the post production image quality work.

I usually start with the brightness\contrast adjustment, and i would suggest raising the contrast at least 2 point, i've noticed the dvx has a lower than normal contrast. (we never set any of the master settings, so it may just be that.) then i use the first color corrector to do a proper image adjustment (if i go into how i color correct, it'd be for the projects i do, and wouldn't serve you much purpose), mainly, just fuck around with the settings. and when you see something you like (and then think if others would agree it's a good image), keep it that way. if you want to use it for a scene that's similarly lit, right click the file in the video track that you just CC'ed, then go to copy, then go to the other file in the video track and go to "paste even attributes" on the right click menu.

Hope it helps.
Josh