Is Cheap Widescreen Necessary?

So I'm editing the footage for Luminara's Saber, and as I import it from the camcorder (analog), I see that the bottom of the film is distorted, as you'd see if you were watching a movie with the tracking slighty off. I tried stopping the camcorder, removing the tape, blowing in it, and putting it back in, but to no avail. So it looks like I'll have to have the distortion in the film--next question--how can I make it "widescreen" by cropping the edges in Premiere? I have only photoshop, premiere, and Pinnacle Studio 7. (No more cash for AE or Ulead...) What should I do?

 

Since you have Photoshop, the easiest way would be to make a new image with a transparent background that has the same dimensions as your movie (720x480 if you're in the good ol' USA). Then just fill a layer with black, and cut out as much of the center portion as you want/need, so that the transparent background is showing. Then just pop that bad boy into Premiere above your video track(s). Maybe someone will be nice enough to post the exact dimensions for the different aspect ratios (2.35:1, for example).

Regards,
Kai

 

The aspect ratio 2.35:1 translates to 720x306 and for 1.85:1 it is 720x405. Your best bet would be to use 720x405, since it is just the bottom of the screen that is distorted, if you use 2.35:1 it will most likley be noticed that you croped it.

 

just because you add bars doesn't make it cheep- Air Force One was actully shot full screen and bars where added in post...

just fyi...

 

If it's destined for a TV you shouldn't need to wory about it. TVs lose about 5% of the picture on an edge.
-Lokmer

 

yeah i was just going to say that is out of your action safe area. you'd only see it on your computer.


Good to see you postin Zayn!

 

>just because you add bars doesn't make it
>cheep- Air Force One was actully shot full screen
>and bars where added in post...

Of course one coulld argue that Air Force One WAS "cheap" in one sense of the word - but then I'm an Ausi, so i don't buy all that patriotic rubbish

john

 

Most if not all of James Cameron's films are shot that way. And because of the DV aspect ratio, make your bars either 720x272 (2.35:1), 720x346 (1.85:1), or 720x360 (1.77:1 or 16:9).

 

The thing is, it's only during about a minute or two of necessary footage. The rest of the film looks fine. However, it hasn't been rotoscoped yet, so I'm wondering how that would look with a rotoscoped lightsaber in it. (Everything would be fuzzy and distorted except for the saber, which would be unhindered since it would be layered on top.)

I didn't know Air Force One was done like that. Cool.

I hate to crop anything...because the top is perfect, and the film wasn't designed to be widescreen, so I'm wondering what I might accidently chop off. Maybe I should just let it be? But that distortion is going to make some of the fans who are seriously in to film making cringe.

 

Why not reshoot it then?

 

I knew we could count on you DG!

that technique is called super .....something

 

If you had Media Cleaner Pro or knew someone with access to it, you could recompress and draw in a custom crop area just inside the distortion. We do this all the time for footage that was aired on TV and needs to be trimmed up for internet delivery. If TV is your destination medium, then you shouldn't need to worry about it.

 

I can't reshoot it...the location is 700 miles away.

I'll keep that in mind...I'll probably either end up just keeping it, or croping just that scene. People will notice the difference, but oh well.

 

have you got any other footage you could composite the bottom off onto the real footage, i.e. another take of the same camera angle you can cut and paste over the top?

John

(did that make any sense at all???)

 

Leigh-

after thinking on this some more, you could just zoom in on the clip at a factor of 103 percent, or something very small. this should push the distortion out of frame and not really affect the overall picture quality. this can be done right in premiere with the video motion effect. just center the footage and freeze the motion by applying a 100 percent hold, then apply a 103 percent zoom on the starting frame and that should do it.

 

You could also move the image down a few lines. The black area along the top that would create would still be outside the safe area, and it would further push the offending information off the bottom.

"Fake" letterboxing is done all the time and is not without merit; however, doing that for just this one shot would be jarring.

 

Unless it is like the first shot of your movie.. You know in the first shot of Indiana Jones (on VHS) is widescreen and then the rest aren't. They just use an all black window to do the transition (ex. zooming in on indies hat) you might want to try it, it produces a really neat effect...

 

Be creative. Do what you want. I don't think there are any rules, just as long as it doesn't look jarring.

 

Why don't you just use Premiere to REALLY crop??? Just go to special processing when you export your movie...

Cya
Mike

 

the "clip" effect works well too.

All you do is apply it to the video in your timeline and it will be there on export.

 

Actually, a good number of special effects-laden films are often filmed full-frame on the film and then just cropped/matted to the desired aspect ratio. Gives more room to play.

M. Scott

 

I could be wrong, but when I saw a behind the scenes, american pie 2, it looked like they were watching it full screen in the monitor but there were green lines showing what would show up in widescreen and what would show up in green screen... it was pretty cool.

Does this mean it was filmed in full screen, but filmed FOR widescreen?

Maybe this is how cameron does it???

Cya
Mike

 

I like Unclepain's method the best. Since my film will not be produced at full resolution, I believe this solution could work quite well. Only, I am unsure of how to do it. Can I do this in Premiere? And if so, how?

 

You can zoom it in using motion, just set the start and end points to be the same. Zooming works quite well, even at full resolution.

 

Does this mean it was filmed in full screen, but filmed FOR widescreen?

EDIT: I lied.

With the exception of Episode II, you couldn't actually watch what was being filmed. What was on those screens was a video feed connected to the film camera. Video captures at the full frame; the little lines/box in widescreen help to position the camera to capture what you want on the actual film itself. You were never sure until you developed dailies the next day, though.

But generally it is true, that film is done "fullscreen" and cropped for widescreen.

I know that, for Terminator 2 at least, Cameron filmed the full film frame, cropping the frame for anamorphic 2.35 AND using the same master full-frame for the pan and scan version of the film -- so occasionally the pan & scan will acutally show more image from the scene (above and below) than was actually presented on widescreen.

All this meant was you'd see Sarah's elbow in a Pan & Scan shot that you didn't see in the theatrical release, or something relatively meaningless like that, but it was an interesting opposition to the usual process of cropping the 4:3 box from the already-cropped 2.35 window, instead using the first-generation footage.

M. Scott