Giving footage a 'webcam' look

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David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
Okay, I've got an entire feature film that is supposedly seen from the POV of webcams -- the suspense/drama 'Tangled Web'. Of course, we didn't shoot on webcams -- we shot on the DVX100a at 30p.

I'm probably going to drop the frame rate down a little bit in post, but I don't want to go too heavy on that -- it could get annoying in a 75 minute film.

My question is, what're some other tricks I can apply to add some edginess to the footage?

In other movies, I've seen these static-y, jumpy cuts in 'webcam' footage -- even though in the real world, webcams don't really do that. But I'm forgetting the real world and concentrating on how things are portrayed in the world of movies and TV. Any ideas on creating those static-y cuts?

The 'webcams' in the movie aren't the kind that are motorized and can be zoomed, panned, tilted and focused -- they are fixed focus, static cams. So I'm a bit limited in what I can do from an effects standpoint.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
What program are you using? If you have After Effects just adding an effect like 'equalize' will give a web-cam like looks since it brings out the grain and makes the colors (how do you say it? unblend?).

Of course adding static, shaking, and distortion of the image is pretty easy. Fractal noise, scaled down looks just like static and if you change the evolution settings it moves like static. This can be blended into the image easily.
 
Thanks Loney. Unfortunately, I don't have AE. I edit on Premiere 6.0 -- not even 'Pro'. I do have an app called EffectsLab Pro from FXHome, but I've never even tried it, so I have no idea what it will do.

Any other ideas???
 
fxhome.com has tons of effects for effectls-lab. I have a friend that uses that (ok, I've never met him, just online) and swears by it, but I've never used it. I'm an After Effects-head myself.

The Equalize effect is at least on Pemeire CS3, take a look, it may be there on Premeire 6 as well (the earliest I've used was 6.5 and I don't remember if it was there or not).
 
Just checked. The only 'Equalize' effect found in Premiere 6.0 has to do with the audio, not the video. Drat!

Guess I'll have to play with EffectsLab Pro and see what I can do. Unless anyone else has an idea?

Thanks Loney!
 
Maybe you could

Maybe you could

Maybe you could export a small clip as web quality, then re import and test the effect. For a cheap jump effect you could get one of those $30 analog bang boxes used to switch multiple analog sources to 1 output. The connect the output to capture device and play 2 sources in. When you switch between sources there will be a jump because of no TBC. The quick jump would work great as a transition.

Just my $0.02.
 
Too late to use webcams -- the movie is already shot, using the DVX100a.

Besides, webcams would probably look TOO crappy, especially on some of these HUGE plasma TV's that people have in their living rooms these days.
 
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