Shoot Day 2

Here are just a few more stills from another day of shooting clean plates to use later for compositing and matchmoving. I have been using the slider much more frequently than originally planned as I feel it truly gives a cinematic look and feel to the footage I am shooting. Here are several more pictures from production.

With regards to gear and settings, here is a list of the camera, glass, and other equipment used:

Gear:
Canon Rebel T4i
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 Lens
Manfrotto 502AH fluid tripod head
Kessler pocket dolly (Philip Bloom edition)

Camera Settings:
Technicolor Picture Style (cinestyle)
24 fps
f/9-f/13
11mm

Quick reveal shot outside the Library

More bikes, reveal shot outside Travers.

Another angle of the Travers shot.

Path behind the Tennis courts.

Library test shot.

Clean Plate Shoot Session

This week I spent some time shooting clean plate video clips. When shooting, I tried to shoot footage that fit into certain movement criteria. The 3D camera tracker in After Effects often needs some short of movement in order to establish and gain tracking information; if you starve the tracker of movement and depth data, there will be no tracking information for the system to solve. Yet, if the movement is too complex or shaky, the tracker cannot compute the depth and movement information. Therefore, I attempted to shoot footage that fit the following instance criterium:

• handheld pans or tilts
• handheld static shots
• supported slides or dolly shots
• steadicam tracking/moving shots

Next I will plan out more shots and attempt to track my first 3D elements into the live action footage. I have attached some photos of the shoot and the slider I used to achieve the dolly shots.

Tracking shot of bikes, camera mounted on slider.

Another view of the camera and slider.

Still image from the clip.

First Post

So over the pst few weeks I have been busy researching and planning for my first 3D camera track. The internet has a plethora of information, and I have been reading up on everything related to match moving. I have decided to focus on the match moving end of my project before diving into the advanced compositing end. It seems to me the best process is: shoot it, track it, and drop in my object; then I can composite away and refine the final video.

My sources for my exploration have mainly been youtube, Adobe's website, and miscellaneous blogs. I will link some of my favorite below. Coming up I plan to shoot more video clean plates for test tracking and then complete my first track.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-after-effects-cc/using-cinema-4d-lite-with-ae-cameras-lights/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjyKD877aIY

https://mattrunks.com/en/tutorials/after-effects/3d-tracking-3d-text-cs6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s16qBpcOiYE#t=31

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2012/06/25/tutorial-after-effects-cs6-3d-camera-tracker/

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-after-effects-cc/cinema-4d-techniques-tracking-example/