CGI / Film shot process

Dear All,

I have a question that i really cannot find a good answer to, i probably guesstimate their are many different ways to approach this, but when we shoot the live action footage against a green/blue screen etc...

whats the next step?

does the footage get cut and THEN sent to the timeline?, or does the footage go to the timeline, editied and then go to CGI.

I just wonder because if you have a long segment of footage, divided up into various smaller clips, this can lead to alot of work for the CGI artist, whereas a long clip is easier, but you can be wasting time.

If anyone can shed some light to this in the professional world, it would be much appropriated.

Kind Regards,

J

 

I'm about to finish a fan film that I've been working on for about two years now. In it, there was some green screen footage. What I personally did is edit everything to the final picture (aka a 'locked' edit) WITHOUT visual effects. Once you do this, then start doing the VFX work on the shots. This will save you time from working on parts of the footage you do not intend on using in the final cut.

 

Indeed. It was largely covered above but yes, you'll want to cut everything and ideally get your edit locked. Each individual cut should be treated as its own shot, though obviously for continuity, special care should be taken to ensure you're seeing the same thing each time you cut to the same angle. This usually involves reusing camera and comp setups, with tweaking where necessary, as each shot usually presents its own set of problems to solve, regardless of its similarity to others in the sequence.

The only real "extra" work that should be done would be handles, or extra frames at the beginning and end of the shot. In most industry pipelines, the first frame of a shot is 1001, but you might have, say, 8-frame handles on each end, so the shot would begin at 993. The purpose of these handles is to have extra room for animation to lead in and run out so motion blur and such can be calculated properly. Often times the roto artists and compositors will only use a couple frames of the handles, and largely ignore the rest due to the amount of work they're doing, unless it's specified that they should be working through the handles in order to give editorial a little extra freedom when they get the shots back (Note: these cases are no fun ).

Anywho, hope that helps and doesn't add to any confusion