Power Windows in After Effects

I find the final very grainy compared to the raw version.
I find this one bad feature of the dvx when keying or rotoscopring.

I think it has to do with the 4:2:0

Otherwise great acting
 
you can do this in after effects with masks and combined masks. It is called rotoscoping or specifially i this case rotosplining. There are a bunch of tutorials on rotoscoping masks with splines in after effects at www.creativecow.net.

Its not difficult, its just time consuming and tedious.
 
It's hard for me to see what the Power Windows were actually used for. Were you trying to only correct the faces and skin tones, but not the rest of the car?



I kind of have a problem with the lighting in general. Within most of the car the lighting makes it look like night. The color of the interior light and the way the back of the shots, the rear window, etc are dark, clearly evoke a feeling of night.

But the light coming from outside the driver side window is very bright and very white, which reminds me of daylight.

Unless the car were parked right next to a very bright strip mall or store or something the lighting doesn't make sense to me for nighttime. Maybe if it were a little cooler color it would work better, but really I think it's much too bright.
 
I don't think judging the actual lighting as opposed the technique used and why could be applicable without knowing the context of the scene. Best thing to do would be ask what kind of look he was aiming for...

which hasn't been stated yet, now that I think about it. Was this a nighttime scene or daytime?
 
Kholi said:
I don't think judging the actual lighting as opposed the technique used and why could be applicable without knowing the context of the scene. Best thing to do would be ask what kind of look he was aiming for...

which hasn't been stated yet, now that I think about it. Was this a nighttime scene or daytime?
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He said that the lights outside the driver side window are supposed to act as "moonlight." It's on the first page in his big post responding to peoples' questions. I don't know if he made any other mention of time or setting, such as if the car is parked or driving, but I'm pretty sure that it is a night scene.
 
agcohn said:
He said that the lights outside the driver side window are supposed to act as "moonlight." It's on the first page in his big post responding to peoples' questions. I don't know if he made any other mention of time or setting, such as if the car is parked or driving, but I'm pretty sure that it is a night scene.
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I missed that part! Thanks. If it was supposed to be moonlight then yes, wouldn't a blue cast be the choice?
 
agcohn said:
It's hard for me to see what the Power Windows were actually used for. Were you trying to only correct the faces and skin tones, but not the rest of the car?



I kind of have a problem with the lighting in general. Within most of the car the lighting makes it look like night. The color of the interior light and the way the back of the shots, the rear window, etc are dark, clearly evoke a feeling of night.

But the light coming from outside the driver side window is very bright and very white, which reminds me of daylight.

Unless the car were parked right next to a very bright strip mall or store or something the lighting doesn't make sense to me for nighttime. Maybe if it were a little cooler color it would work better, but really I think it's much too bright.
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Yes, its supposed to be a night shot, and the car is NOT supposed to be moving, they are simply having a conversation in a parked car with the dome light on. As for the moonlight being bright, the film is supposed to have a kind of idelic reality feel. Lots of night time shots in cinema are WAY too bright to be realistic, and you know, thats not the point, its supposed to evoke a feeling of evening. Now here is the kicker, if you don't like the moonlight highlights, just use another mask to bring them down a notch! By the way, its worth mentioning, this scene happens right after a fight at a night club, and you don't see the outside of the car, so I guess when cut with the previous scene of the night club, you could interpret the highlights as being light from the club! LOL never really thought about that. Originally the car was dark, except moonlight, and they got in which turned the dome light on, but that got cut out, so the interpretation could very well change, when viewed in the context of the current cut.

I originally used these masks to help with shot to shot continuity, and to help keep all my skin tones within a reasonable range. I originally graded the shot to favor the driver, but I found the girl in the back a bit too bright, and the girl in the passenger a bit too dark, when the passenger shot was lightened enough for the girl, her backseat was way too bright to match the other shot....now given my gears limitations, mainly size, I couldn't do a whole lot. It felt like trying to fill a small cup with a gallon of water...Thus all but one light is outside the car. So thats why I did the whole power window, err, power masking thing. I don't normally do this, as its quite exotic, time consuming, and sometimes downright tough, but I ultimatly like the shot, and so does the director.
 
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At first I didn't get why you did this in the first place. But now I see that the shots would have been horribly color matched to each other. Was there any other, less time consuming, method you could think of or was this it?
 
churchie04 said:
At first I didn't get why you did this in the first place. But now I see that the shots would have been horribly color matched to each other. Was there any other, less time consuming, method you could think of or was this it?
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LOL, this had nothing to do with color matching. It was all about latitude. Some of the skin tones were too far down on the gray scale, and I didn't have the right gear to get into the car and selectivly fill in the darker areas (ie, passenger seat ladies face). As a result, I esposed to keep my highlights from blowing, and I used the masking to "resurect" the darker areas of the frame. Same method used by Ansel Adams more or less (he shot film and overexposed) but modified for DV's exposure/signal processing characteristics, and its on steroids because it moves too! I recently used this technique on an HD project to help sqeeze more latitude out of the shot. It's all there, but sometimes when you apply a certain type of curve to the footage, you can loose info in the toe and shoulder, so sometimes you need a few tricks up your sleeve to get those nice deep blacks, but at the same time, not loose things you want to keep visible :)

Oh, and the HD shots I used it on involved a window. I had detail in there (plainly visible in the raw footage). But after applyin g a curve to the shot, I lost most of what was there. So I made a power mask for the window and brought back that detail I loved so much, and the over shot appears to have more dynamic range as a result. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
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