DOF Promised Land

[c.g._eads]

When do you think they're going to have a mainstream plug-in for NLE's that automatically does shallow DOF for you? I hear they have it on the DaVinci already? Guess it's just a matter of time. It will be funny, after all the effort put into making these video cameras have shallow DOF, when you can just do it in your computer.

[Kholi]

Huh. I dunno what DaVinci does but wouldn't it require actually rotoscoping for it to be any-kind-of accurate?

Less, you'll just have a wad of blur over actor's faces at times, ala the soft edges in THE THIN MAN.

Just as well... theorizing here: you'd have to actually look at every single frame, or at least in clusters (that word is nasty-sounding) to make sure it's accurate. Even if it were possible, I couldn't see it being applied from scratch for an entire feature; at best, for clean-up scenes when the field isn't acceptable to the content director. You'd might as well snap an adapter on the front and get it from the get-go.

[-zach-]

There's a really cool tutorial that kind of does what you're talking about. You can customize it for custom shapes and things. This is why I'll be spending my money on After Effects and not on an adapter.

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/dof/depthoffield.htm

[Kholi]

There's a really cool tutorial that kind of does what you're talking about. You can customize it for custom shapes and things. This is why I'll be spending my money on After Effects and not on an adapter.

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/dof/depthoffield.htm

As subjective as this "DOF" issue is, that example looks really bad. I couldn't see that being used for more than flashback scenes or a music video. I'd like to see a more practical, subtle use for such a thing.

Selective Focused shots generaly deal with subjects being seperated from the background without the viewer noticing that "Hey, they made me look right at their faces with all that blurry stuff around the actors.".

I'd love to see an entire short done with only After Effect's Lens Blur effect and mattes. I'd have an open mind about it and at the same time, would be willing to bet it'd look like a poorly constructed 35mm Adapter.