WWDC2004 Session 732

Transcript

Kind: captions
Language: en
well welcome everybody thanks for coming
I am pleased to welcome you to session
7:30 to New Directions of branded
entertainment American Express case
study I am very pleased to announce that
well let me explain Who I am aiming
product line manager at Apple for cord
media technologies and I'm very pleased
to introduce Evan Shechtman about 1998
he started out post digital in his
apartment and consequently was acquired
by radical media which he currently is a
CTO and he's been very involved with the
American Express Superman webisodes
which you might have seen this is very
interesting project branded blended
entertainment and advertizing together
and Evan is going to talk us through
some of the challenges of that project
how we implemented it on the Mac
platform and hopefully inspire you guys
and help walk through some of the issues
you might find and end up with a great
project so again please welcome evan
Schekman thanks okay well one of the
first challenges that we have in this
project was actually nothing technical
its kind of in our business and post
production over the past few years
there's been someone of a changing of
the guard
you know the business that I got into I
got into write about when when After
Effects was coming out and Adobe
Premiere and those kinds of things and
everyone labeled it desktop
post-production which at the time it was
against a lot of big the big
million-dollar rooms that we were
competing against we don't call desktop
post-production anymore it's
post-production because every one in
every in every part of our industry is
using a desktop computer so most people
thought that these things were toys and
as we say now that if you don't see
ahead of the curve you get hit by the
car which is what's been happening the
kind of professionals that are in my
business now it was a very rigid
business for a long time we had our
offline at there as we do online editors
we had colorist we had graphics people
and compositors and really what's very
little spillover between the different
disciplines
the kind of people that were able to
hire now have that access to all the
tools all the time for one price people
who get Final Cut Pro or get a copy of
flash and these with tools they have
access to and so we're able to turn
drastically different results and in a
fraction of the time and these are call
them consolidated media professionals
because what happens is we have the same
person who does the offline edit through
their own conform to their own online in
color correction in most cases because
unlike the traditional business when
people only had access to one portion of
the tools we get access to everything
all the time so we have really in our
business now there's a mix of seasoned
professionals and young talented stars
and there's an information exchange that
goes back and forth people are still
telling us that we can't do it this way
as we opened our fourth office which is
kind of funny I would think at this
point it's more of it's the revolution
is over now it's an evolution in in our
business but that's totally fine we're
going to do it this way so a couple of
challenges that we had the first one is
that we were the first company outside
of Warner Brothers to ever be able to
animate Superman and we weren't going to
do it in traditional style animation
because it takes forever and it's really
costly you do the drawings here you edit
them in you send it overseas for inking
you may change a cut you have to send it
back so we had a couple things budget
it's always shrinking on commercial work
that's why we did webisodes to begin
with I'll explain that the other thing
is at time they want it done very very
quickly because everyone bows how fast
we can do things and that comes back to
bite us so we said we'll animate
Superman in flash which I don't think it
ever been done before
now everyone how many people use flash
from talking to content people or mostly
people how many people edit in Final Cut
and how many people do compositing or
other okay so it's a mix of everybody
thanks so we wanted animated flash there
we were sitting there's a bunch of
really kind of felt like we were in
detention or something this is a bunch
of young people one silent table and a
bunch of industry leaders kind of from
Warner Brothers and from DC and from the
agency sitting on the other then we said
okay we'll all find a Final Cut Pro will
online a Final Cut Pro will do our color
correction there we're going to shoot it
in DV we shot it on an Excel
with a lens package called an ENSO lens
package this is a 35 moment lens adapter
that goes on this DV camera take the
birthday-party look off of DV everyone
loves to shoot DV for a few reasons
generally inexpensive high quality and
conspicuous acquisition but it looks
like you shot a birthday party so the
other part of what we do is trying to
make video look less like video so this
Enzo lens package helped that so we said
we're going to shoot it on DV we're
going to do animation in flash and we do
compositing and shake now the
advertising people only knew terms like
flame and inferno and shake is equally
is a weird name for a product but they
didn't understand what any of this stuff
was and of course Final Cut Pro is a toy
according to a lot of people in our
business still although they're coming
around so we had a couple of different
arguments with them like they just
didn't understand how we were going to
do it
thankfully the company that I worked for
radical media is able to hold people's
hands and help them take a leap so what
I'll do first to show it instead of
talking about it I'll show one of the
webisodes I'll do a little talking and
show you how we did some of the stuff oh
make sure this volume is there volume
from this computer the middle one
don't touch anything I swear no sound oh
it's real funny
so just go okay it's running off a
Windows box
let me switch the built-in on you this
I memorized it so I can I can speak over
it although it's much funnier to hear I
won't try again okay
okay well I can talk in the meantime
while he does it so why webisodes the
advertising budgets are shrinking and
the company I work for radical media
about four years ago started to say to
some of their clients the average budget
for 30-second commercials insulting it's
$300,000 depends on what side you're on
you'll be insulted it's a lot of money
for a 30-second spot so what we started
to do because of the onslaught of DV and
Final Cut Pro truncated workflow we said
to our clients for the price of a
30-second spot will sell you a 30 minute
TV show so we're the first company to
shoot this show for ESPN called the life
on TV and do it in Final Cut Pro and get
out to air that way and just as a just
to buy some time one of the arguments we
had which we're fighting less and less
these days was an executive from ESPN
came in said listen son V V will never
do what bethe SP can do and like a
hot-headed person I said of course it
won't won't cost twice as much to work
with the great overtime be harder to
enter the system you know all these
different things that analog systems do
and we did a demonstration of DV versus
beta SP
[Music]
let me try to include despair there we
go thank you okay so we kind of stopped
fighting that fight the interesting
thing about this was that when they came
to us to keep the cost down they were
already ready to shoot DV so over three
years the argument of DVS inferior it's
not broadcast quality it has no timecode
was kind of out the window and it proved
itself over time as a more than
lucrative medium so webisodes Seinfeld
has a deal with American Express and
everyone knows the Seinfeld is right ok
we all don't live in a bubble and he's
not funny in five minutes he's not funny
I mean he's not he's not funny in 30
seconds on TV although I think he is he
needs five minutes at 30 minutes so we
said well do these short episodes of
these webisodes and so we did two
five-minute pieces for American
Express's website I want to be his
famous I have Jerry American Express
calm and we did three lifts from those
two episodes he's three 15-second
teasers that were on tv2 driving towards
the web then we did a Today Show
appearance where we composited in
Superman and Jerry Seinfeld sitting with
Matt Lauer well we learned the less than
a few years ago when doing some work for
advertising we did a bunch of Absolut
Vodka spots that were supposed to be
emailed to people so with the entire
time works quick and dirty because of
compression and we're going to email
them to people and as soon as we were
done the agency liked them enough to say
okay blow them up the film and that's
what happened that's what I learned my
first lesson with the fact that we
should always work for a broadcast we
should always work at top quality
because you never know how someone's
going to want to repurpose this so learn
that lesson and on the Seinfeld stuff
even though was going to end up as a
webisode and compressions come a long
way too so we really couldn't hide too
much we did it for broadcast quality
I'll show you one of the pieces now and
show you how we did some of the more
difficult stuff kind of people have seen
these by the way cool
to give a reservation Superman
I'd be under anesthesia
right here looks like why do you what is
why the kitchen
now help me now they put this much
manages a tuna fish expecting please why
are you here at all alarm
it's not hard to predict agreed and the
fact that yellow boy superb you
sustained me sue me that's one of you
remember me Mary Caskey same with my
folks to a symmetry vessel that floors
for help
terrific Brady who want to reveal I just
want to say thanks to yourself not a
problem
good thank you no I need so you want to
help me hook up this DVD how it was like
a clean with you is no fun not any
wonder this finished up surrounded I
always wanted that that's a very
examines nuts grounds like some rounds
halibut like it's like you there what
are you talking about so you go bowling
with those people last night now I stay
home I watch that rebound would stop
with the reality television I can I
don't eat you but this was pretty good
we shall first guys just got divorced
I don't know happen please stop I wanted
reality as take the screen out of my TV
look through the foot box
all whoa we're gonna produce
unbelievable oh yes why only see now
this is what we should have saved what's
wrong with you
of course the only place the good one
every place of that no that's Joel
Siegel
custom oh yes we once saw my DVD player
what am I not political this would you
get over yourself
he's getting away operating
[Music]
Oh
hello
[Music]
give me a month
the big point is like good the time when
a uniformed men suspect so what happened
here guys threw it at me it bounced off
at the ground why don't you just catch
it do this now if you want the gravel
rollin super speaks for every rotation
in the earth will go back in time
importantly ground click on I don't know
don't you think better idea actually I
do
just duck into this phone phone message
that's right short short you may be
invulnerable to physical harm but I'm
vulnerable the damage that what things
bouncing off with heroes within 90 days
of purchase I don't like that whole
going back in time thinking why not
what's the point of anything if you
could just go back in time and fix any
problem when you get a job you do what
you do I'll do it you're this around so
not back down it's different than the
back of time way the instructions
[Music]
this was torture this was really torture
to shoot okay cool
so hey thanks so soup-to-nuts two of
these in 12 weeks Warner Brothers said
they couldn't do this on budget and they
would not be able to do with missus
amount of time with ten animators we
with ten animators and ten compositors I
think was the number they threw at us
this the compositing that you saw was
done by two people with one assistant on
shake out of our Santa Monica office the
New York office was responsible for
offline and online editing so let's
quickly go through the gear that was
used can Excel one with an Enzo package
two of them the reason why and I you
know in retrospect I'm really glad that
everyone came around to shoot on DV but
to be honest with you a job like this
does not belong on DV because of all the
keying and compositing that had to
happen so I'll discuss with you how with
some transcoding and some hardware we
got around a lot of the color space
issues to pull the keys so that was one
so the Excel one great the offline
systems were essentially DV the editor
Trisha Cooke who had cut the last two
Coen Brothers films never cut on on
Final Cut before here's where I give my
shameless plug for my training video
understanding Final Cut Pro 4 so we gave
her my training DVD in a book that was
written by this woman who Diana Wayne R
who has a book called finalists after
the avid editor so we gave her a little
bit of training which is something
that's typical a lot of these seasoned
professionals that that are big talent
that that can get this kind of work they
need to be educated on the way that we
work first before they feel comfortable
doing it there's a very simple job to
off-line the working resolution in our
facility regardless it's a film job or
digi beta or even DV the working
resolution is DV it's a relatively small
file size it's relatively high quality
and of course with decent Apple hardware
and she was on a dual
officer g5 you get a lot of real-time
effects without additional hardware but
you ready know that so offline was on DV
we wrote a simple FileMaker database to
move the effect shots back and forth
just a cow just to keep track of where
everything was running off of a next
serve in our office along with a bunch
of other things we're running off of it
and then of course for online in color
correction we use sinewave same old
Final Cut Pro except we put in a
third-party capture card another a few
on the market why do we choose sinewave
I hear all you ask it's because sinewave
has the most real-time you can get the
IO the Asia IO card the Asia IO box the
Kona card the deck link cards these are
great products that all have their place
but when we're dealing with advertising
customers who've come from an avid world
we have to make Final Cut Pro look as
beefy as possible and it can depending
on how much you want to spend so we
threw we threw a Pinnacle sinewave card
in with a pro da breakout box and the
real-time key so there's very little
rendering involved with doing a key or
color correction or crop for widescreen
map there's no rendering involved and
for several layers of color correction
so if they don't see rendering and they
see the full quality they don't really
care what system it is it's our job to
make technology transparent to the
customer let them just be as creative as
they want to be you know a blue hat a
green hat a purple hat let's try the
blue hat again that's that typical thing
with color correction so we use pinnacle
sinewave for color correction and for
for our on lining and for some
transcoding and then sound of course was
done in Pro Tools okay
let's go through some of the challenges
that we had well on the flash shot just
as a funny thing we were using two
cameras to Enso cameras and they're
pretty expensive lens packages one of
the cameras broke and so the reason why
this was so painful besides for the song
that got stuck in your head was that it
was seven hours of this because we had
to shoot everything twice from one
camera the cool thing about shooting
this on DV was that because the camera
broke the next morning we went to a
local reseller B&H photo and bought
another X on one and bought a 35mm in
London
they had on the shelf and finish the job
that way so it's kind of cool that you
can go to the corner store and buy some
of the stuff to do this kind of work I'm
a final cut guy I don't really know
flash of shape all that much but I have
some screen captures of some of the
hardest stuff that we did here we're
going to take a look at where is the DVD
player we're going to take a look at
this shot specifically this was a big
challenge
these were traditionally sell animated
hands and we had real cables that we had
to somehow animate into there and have
it look pretty convincing so the first
thing I'll show you see here
and I have screenshots that the flash
did flash and shape people did for us to
take a peek of what we did here flash
you know when I first started in
post-production during the dot-com boom
all I knew of flash is that you use it
to make fart cartoons for the internet
and part of my French but I soon
realized that it's actually more
powerful than that we did a few shows
for that was a joke everybody by the way
just checking with you okay you've been
staring at cinema displays all dianna we
started to do a lot of broadcast flash
animation for MTV and realize that it's
a fully viable means of doing all kinds
of things so here we brought in
basically your background plate with the
back of the DVD player a little bit
difficult because we were working with
Barry Levinson and I'm somewhat timid to
work with these kind of people before
and so I was the visual effects
supervisor on the set and if there was a
shot where there was a shadow or he
wanted to shoot everything handheld well
if you ever done compositing is a
nightmare on any format and he didn't
really want to listen because he's Barry
Levinson so when we were doing stuff
like this ago mr. Levinson is a there's
a shadow being cast do you think maybe
we can you know please maybe take it
again and you think about it for a
second and everyone's like okay we're
taking it again and all these people
would start to move and it felt kind of
powerful so a little while then over a
couple of times but mr. Levinson can we
maybe try it again he's like don't push
it go sit down
so on a shot like this we got our
background plate because it was
imperative and so we did a very simple
key and I'll show you those the plate
that we built to key out most of the
hand now there was a stand-in
this is how crazy some of the mentality
was we got a guy who was like big like a
football player and we put him in huge
shoes and had to wear this blue outfit
for two weeks the people from DC said
well he's that kind of a gut like ma'am
he's going to be composited over a suit
man I don't know he's just not like
Superman
this woman was put on the set to be the
keeper of Superman which I respect but
you know there was supposed to whistle
and bounces ninj
suit Mendel does not whistle okay sir
Mendelssohn whistle that's fine so here
we have the guy with the blue hands
actually doing it mostly for eyeline the
good news is that a lot of the takes
that
Levinson picked we had it wait very
often we did it without the blue guy
like the third time and thankfully those
are a lot of tapes that we picked
because we had to word aloud everything
so here we keyed out a majority of the
hands and there are the cables that it
was using this is just as a as a rough
guide okay so then we put in some of the
we've mapped the start and the end point
of where the cables actually needed to
be notices in flash as much as we could
have animated the cables and flash the
animators from what they tell me
now flash is excellent for creating
mattes because we're just working in
simple black and white and after we
build this matte file of where the
cables are going to have to live we're
able to export as a PNG sequence into
shake for the anak for animating
basically fill in the matted area with
black so here we're just doing a really
kind of a rough mapping of where the
cables are supposed to live regardless
of what else is in the frame does
everyone enjoying this because I could
just do a quake demo okay just making
sure I want to keep you engaged so we're
just mapping start and end point for
what the cables should be see what else
you did here and then brought in the
rough this is a lid animation but I'll
show you actually doing the lighting
brought in the animation
the animation was really done on top of
DV plates we just took the DV files
caption them send them over there's a
company that's part of our little
network of companies called unplugged in
Canada where they did all the animation
and the thing that I couldn't grasp is
how the people from DC you've been doing
animation for years didn't understand
they said well we don't understand you
usually take our our drawings and we lay
them over a picture and that's how we
animate like we're going to do the same
thing except it's video we don't
understand how you're going to do that
which I couldn't understand how they
couldn't grasp them it's so simple it's
very it is very simple you just take a
piece of video and you dray trace over
it that's traditional thinking they kind
of get their heads around this method of
working we taught them a thing or two on
this one I think so they were just doing
some rough rough tracking of where those
points are going to start and end I
think we all got that I'm going to scrub
through the magic here there we go
pretty good job too even just coming up
with you the way the cables are supposed
to move so that's one of them make sure
this is the right one yeah okay
I will not pretend to know shake that's
why I have screen captures today so
there already you can see that the the
white mat that we were building in shake
is just filled in with black they did a
little bit of an edge blur the hands are
already colored here for the most part
okay so there we take away the animation
for a second and there's the big blue
hands and they just did a very very
rough key to get out the maximum amount
of blue so that we can just place the
animation over it there was still a
bunch of blue area that needed to be
masked out and actually see that
happening here there we go so there's
there's a basic key and then we took a
portion of the plate and keyed it over
just like that everyone with me so far
yeah good let's keep this movement just
to show you a quick matte area that
we've built then we put the two together
we picked one track point the track
point we picked was on the top left the
DVD player because we have to track the
the matted out area with the rest of the
plate so it actually acts as a single
plate a little bit of blue leftover
that's going to get covered by the
animation in this case there are wires
and black you can barely see them show
you the math file and how it was all
going to move that is what the flash
file look when we got it and all the
lighting was done in shake by building
additional mass and lights there's a
track point for the animation cut a
little hole where the RCA cable was
going to go there that's the mass that
was built to cast the shadow on the hand
Shh unbelievable okay there we go
just put a little bit of blur on the
edge to kind of match and we also had to
add a green a defocused layer and a
grain layer to kind of match the ground
glass that was in the 35 millimeter
adapter for the DV it looks too
antiseptic the animation versus it and
when we did a lot of tests up front we
kind of overdid it was like film noir
Superman so we kind of backed off the
lighting a whole bit and backed off the
grain the one bad thing I think we did
was actually work too fast that people
really kind of took the end of taking
for granted how fast we were able to
work because only wanted to try a
thousand and one things so you know it's
not often you walk into a room full of
are that can you go slower because it's
really starting to cause a problem they
wanted to try this that and the other
all the time but that's typical of
non-linear editing in this whole world
you know when I cut on film once once
and when I got my sound tighter than not
which is when I decided to actually use
a computer as my main cutting tool you
used to sit and think about the cut you
were going to make because if you cut it
you didn't like it you were then on your
hands and knees on the floor looking for
the short end the scotch tape back into
your reel with not only your editing you
do one cut you save it and then you come
and do ten more versions usually in the
back at your original cut but everyone
wants to try it so many different ways
to how fast this stuff is I don't know
why I did a screen capture of rendering
it I have one other that I'll show you
in a minute but I'll come back to the
project file I'll show you the finished
it's pretty convincing a pretty
difficult shot but done with some pretty
simple technology so that's in this job
there were two non-traditional uses of
flash most people who use flash will say
that animate Superman's not
non-traditional but using it as a tool
for creating mass and all of our
composites we do all the time these days
because it's quick and dirty even some
of the people in the office one of the
titles in it whereas we like to go to
After Effects or different packages
they're very comfortable these tools so
I want them to be comfortable they're
faster
that way okay let's go back and I have
some other stuff to show you here some
of the color correction which we did
which was pretty intense
to give you an idea that's what we were
dealing with so there's our stand in
blue galley the good news is that in
most cases and you can see some of the
and this the next webisode that I'll
show you has a lot more drastic color
correction but the color correction was
done using the three way color corrector
in sinewave one of the major issues for
a shot like this the over-the-shoulder
shot is that in this case we had the
blue guy in as a stand-in because we had
to composite out the guy in the bottom
who ends up getting eaten by the
letterbox we had a mat his head out and
so a lot of times we have the blue guy
there just to find a mat line but when
you're actually going to pull the key D
V is five to one compressed inherently
in as 4/1 one color space looks great
when you're playing it but when you're
actually going to look at it to pull the
key there's not enough information there
and color data to really pull a clean
key so what we do is not add any
information to these DV files but we put
them in a different color space so out
of Final Cut Pro this is a feature if
you have third-party hardware especially
this intimate well primarily the
sinewave card we're able to take DV
footage drop it into a sinewave timeline
and it plays out as 10 bit uncompressed
for 2 to the transcode happens in real
time as you play it in a case like this
we would take the file before it gets
sent over a point to point t1 networks
of the LA office for compositing thank
you is we basically take it out of fire
Matt the profile
export and we export a sin wave 10 bit
files that way when the composite
artists get it there's not any more
information there but they can then work
in four to two space it's a little bit
easy to pull a key many color
information we then add to the file at
that point is added in four to two in
sinewaves case 16-bit why using color
space we're always working for broadcast
even though this would predominantly end
up on the web but we knew that if they
liked it which they did it ended up on
NBC and then again on TBS so I'm pretty
glad in this case that we worked for for
broadcast the entire time the sad part
is we work digital we stay as clean as
possible
it was broadcast off of beta SP because
that's where that NBC and PBS want
which is a drag because it then looks
kind of money when you broadcasted we
spent all this time and money on this
which is typical of most broadcast
there's most MTV work that we do ends up
on D - does anyone remember D - is it's
a deck that has wheels I swear to god we
literally wrote it around the office
when we brought it in its composite
digital so we spent a company can spend
a million dollars doing something at the
end we Jam all the signals together and
throw it on the tape that was sold I
felt my dinosaur and broke my newspaper
okay so in this case it was really
important when we're doing color
correction that we over sample it we
take DV out of four one one we put it
into four two two that's the way that we
do all of our work that's acquired on DV
that goes out to broadcast DV excels at
offline DV excels at acquisition but a
does not excel in its native state at on
lining and color correction so in Final
Cut Pro with a sinewave hardware you can
work in four to two to circumvent all
deficiencies of the DV codec some people
unfortunately think that's a deficiency
of Final Cut Pro that's the DV codec
inside so I'll bring up the other
webisode I'm going to see there's
anything very interesting they don't
have any questions over swear didn't do
it
okay okay I'll bring up the other
webisode
do you want if I play this Amy okay I
get bored you talking tech numbers a
rather show the stuff it speaks for
itself I hope this is the second one
that we did and they're meant to be
shown in order it's like a true Seinfeld
episode you know kind of pulls on jokes
that they create that's an animated
suitcase on top of the car somebody for
some whore you know do you say so make
it look like look at this one it
completely filled out there's no sleep
at all I have a most ridiculous
[Music]
look at that is really something in
terms of a winner believe you can give
me could you take a picture okay
you don't want uncle was saved by Green
Lantern one returning from a young
Russell attract oh no isn't it amazing
the way that green ray comes out of the
crime did you have a think that just
take a picture
Green Lantern Midori open the door
what's the matter the keys leave you on
the car
don't education let's start with that if
I rush back to get the camera you take a
second one second sighs 20 20
thanks for the test what are we going to
do that relax I can rip the door off
mental off your movement I just finished
restoring I can go back and tie Oh going
back in time how many times do I have to
tell you have any people you annoy back
in time place in the final third
echelons don't lie
there's no flying that was our agreement
road trip on the ground no funny wait a
second wait hold on dear ratings I don't
have to get help
no superpowers no Super Stretch hello
yes
well thank you very much I can't wait
till they get here so I can explain to
them that it was Superman who lost the
keys is a talk that we good will say but
if they should inquire
perhaps I will drop a subtle hand and
say it the two of us
it was the fellow who wears his
underwear outside his clothes who is
responsible
[Music]
it's just that everything is super
that's DV car models for mark and I the
other day oh come on you're in a
completely different category just kind
of takes away a little want to try to do
where did you come up with that name
Superman anyway market yourself Superman
where do they come from somebody seen
with a car like over your head call you
Superman and you cut out a net load it
up on your saying there was this money
thing or any other man's you were
kicking around like unbelievable person
like it's just a name I got a job to do
it works well end of story
or surprise I god what's wrong with you
how about remarkable chat now you are a
penny
well thanks a lot
we were stranded and we didn't need to
be you need any more help to slimming it
up banks have anymore those do you have
have another back went your own bag now
I don't want they okay I think I have
enough to get sent away by rationing
properly well thank you Rick Nana would
you mind that second window this little
well thank you Superman where are we
anyway boy over
[Music]
[Applause]
alright number two
thanks we actually caught a lot of flack
content-wise on this one because the DC
Comics people said we made Superman team
effeminate and and we undermined his
super nest or something because he
locked the keys in the car and there was
a big you know the political debate he
was opposed to be bouncing his knee and
whistling in the car and they wouldn't
allow any of that kind of stuff this one
I want to show you because of color
correction is there internet on this
computer do you think worth a shot right
get a shot the internet spilling in
every corner of this facility I hope
there is let's see if my something
interesting hope it's still up it is
whenever we have I'll jump back to the
color question in a second but whenever
we have a job that's big with brands
this big Seinfeld and Superman the
parent company and this is definitely a
lesson I learned from them is you kiss
the butt of the brand it makes total
sense this is what it's all about it's
subtle product placement in this case so
when anyone from the agency or Jerry or
from DC want to login let's see if this
is some surprises still active cool even
down to branding the approval site with
the American Express logo making it look
like an American Express card so you can
see on the bottom here viewers agency
viewers Jerry view is DC Comics viewers
clients clients to the least of course
the agency has pretty much access to
everything and then for internal
purposes we have all of it we post the
making of this is all driven off the
next serve running from our New York
office I'll hide that for the time being
sues any good nuggets on there some of
the color correction was absolutely
outstanding let's see if we can find
some of it and that was all done in
Final Cut Pro by guy named Pete McCool
Bri and Pete McCrory was two years at a
film school got really good at this the
end of color correcting Soderbergh
full-frontal on Final Cut Pro know if
anyone ever read
that and did all of our mastering kind
of work on Final Cut Pro he's just good
he's just really good at what he does
and so after much screaming and yelling
that he might be wearing sneakers at the
shoes on Todd he's really good at doing
your work they gave him a shot at doing
this coloring which would normally been
done in a film transfer Bay like a
DaVinci or a Pogo the other interesting
I don't mean to talk too politically
about this but that's also part of the
challenge is that people didn't really
want to take a lot of gear that we had
seriously until we put in a film
transfer Bay which we use for film
mastering work but as soon as we put in
a polo Bay with the data cine these two
big machines and we tore people around
oh you have one of these in one of those
yeah but I'm telling you this it all
sudden added all kinds of validity to
what we were doing on the other side you
know you have to have a good cinema
display or Herman Miller chair and a
nice place for your clients to sit and
you're all set you're in business it's
all about the chair really is though in
many cases alright so there's the
original DV file it's not even bad
looking to begin with for DV is shot by
professionals well then we did a nice we
did a nice color package on place some
of it so you can see
another stand-in poor PA the guy in blue
I think was was on a coffee break this
was Death Valley you know I know why
they call it Death Valley now being from
New York so a really nice before and
after color correct that was done anyone
here in Final Cut know how to use the
limit effect in the three way color
corrector all right and a few a few of
you other than I would like to show you
one thing that we did it's pretty
ominous coming from back there the truck
going by is a perfect example of not
leaving well enough alone
the truck was purple I think and they
said oh well could she can could you
make it green and I'll show you how we
did no I'm not really not joking around
I'm really not joking around
she just had to touch every set the
original truck was purple I think was
absolutely a beautiful shot they wanted
a green truck and we did it kind of
quick and dirty but I'll show you how we
did this they don't care as here we did
this alright cool thank you
alright so I'll shut this off let's go
down to our base layer here I'm just
going to make a little easier in myself
by adding an edit point
and one of g5 the more processes you
have obviously the faster they are the
more real time they're going to get the
cool thing is that in that sinewave
system I was talking about this is
completely real-time not a DV resolution
at uncompressed resolution 10 bit
uncompressed no rendering whatsoever in
DV we can do this we need to do a final
render to get it to full quality and DV
of course is not best suited for doing
this kind of work you'll see why in one
second we'll be actually in black and
white will be painfully obvious we're
using the color correction of course
anything in bold is real-time the color
corrector 3-way going to just tear this
off so we can look at it and hidden now
in the latest version of course is the
limit effect all down here we're going
to grab the eyedropper we're going to
grab some purple I'll just put this back
where it belongs and now I can show you
what I mean by being a deficient codec
when it comes to compositing they're in
black and white is trying to show us
what our selected area is for affecting
it with color it's pretty blocky if you
look at it because 4 1 1 is basically in
layman's terms that's saying that for
every sample of contrast day you have
because the eye is not so good at so the
eye is good at seeing major differences
in contrast there's 1/4 as much color
information whereas in 4 to 2 obviously
it's a lot better
it's a Vista to to one relationship and
in film with for 4/4 all all attributes
of color and contracts are basically
equal which is why it's such a great way
to work in this case I'm going to open
up the selected range for purple sees
gets a little smoother open up the
bottom a little bit I'm just shooting in
the dark here no pun intended to to get
as much of that truck in in one shot as
possible obviously if I open to selects
the area really big it's going to start
to not so much in the case of a purple
but it starts to pick up sky in other
parts that we don't want to pick up if
this was shot in digital and brought in
and it's full full range I'd probably be
getting a lot more of this information
on the first try we're just looking at
it on like on a sample basis here and
it's not
that much I can pull out we're going to
come out of this key mode show you a
couple things we can do now just the
truck is selected there I just kind of
small but I pulled it down so you can
see it in black and white and of course
you can go in Reverse a selected area so
in case of this shot now everything is
black and white except for the truck
these are things you can this is no
rendering involved which is pretty it's
pretty bad since no matter what system
you're on but in this case they just
went and they pulled the mids towards
the green area and if I wanted to I can
sit and finesse this all day long until
I catch the rest of the truck there we
go hey actually did come back out of
that key mode and there's your there's a
green truck not bad no tracking involved
most people would run immediately to a
flame to do this we're trying to tell
people with the right hardware and Final
Cut Pro and a little bit tiny bit of
patience the proper operator we first
started doing final cut work at this
level you can see actually I think a
little green in my sky I would just do a
quick math to get that out of there but
the Matt's also real time on a sinewave
card
still no rendering at full quality we
first started doing this there were a
lot of people who picked up a copy of
final except probably all I can do final
cut work we'd put in front of the
clients and they very often would turn
around and say the client oh I can't do
what you want me to do because a final
touch never there never operator error
always the software's fault because it
was new and that was kind of the Arab
data that it couldn't do with these
things we're lucky enough to be able to
cultivate talent that's never going to
turn around and say the client oh I
can't do what you're asked me to do
because the software it becomes a talent
and talent issue in a training issue so
there's a purple truck turn green not
bad okay let's see what else can I show
you from here without all my media on
hand oh yes
the other thing I thought was was
completely neat was the camera it just
built Photoshop and shake pretty a
pretty effective I think very very
simple even the blur area and the part
of the focal area and these the coloring
is even a little bit of a halo here and
we did shoot with a grad filter one
thing we did learn about color
correction is that it's not completely a
computer side thing a lot of times you
actually have to shoot for your own
color correction which is something that
these new consolidated media
professionals are very good at a lot of
our colorist now actually go out and
shoot because they're the people
receiving all the footage and grading it
to look like something else we're in a
case like this they know how they need
it to look when they get it into the bay
so they might as well be on set
helping the DP or even shooting for
themselves in certain cases this was
supposed to be a low-budget project then
Seinfeld got involved of course in DC
comics got involved and the agency got
involved and then truck started pulling
up no joke and then big crews and people
with walkie-talkies and it turned into a
full-blown a full-blown almost like
feature type set closing off the streets
and the funny thing to me was having
started the company 98 and fighting an
uphill battle of doing DV and all these
things there I am sitting on the set and
everyone's running around they're 2xl
ones on these on these little dollies
where's a couple years ago not even even
a year ago is that you can't do it it's
garbage it's amateur time and there was
everyone hustling and bustling and
checking the gate which was blew my mind
I'm like there is no gate it's video
just a little dust off and check it on
your monitor and you're ready to go but
they were treating it like this regular
production which I thought was pretty
phenomenal and I'll see if there's
anything else here I can pull up for you
let's see here
let's see if the video still lives this
is pretty far into it I want to show you
with shading tests here we go
here is the raw this is how we were
delivered files not bad basic motions in
and he didn't pretty easily then we did
the mid shading which is what we ended
up going with and I'll showed the film
noir version all right so that's mid and
here's the full lighting package that
was projected there's a little too harsh
they said
one last piece that I didn't show before
but let that cache in the background was
one there is one more thing I'd like to
show you and this is something that I
got I was blown away by what our artist
did was it was it is the details I don't
know if anyone caught this and you
really kind of have to watch almost a
frame at a time to see this but this is
the part of it that I definitely think
compositing is that the own art lighting
is its own art if you look at the I'm
going frame by frame you'll see the
light kind of go across Superman's face
can anyone see can you see that there
and then the perfect timing that perfect
beat before the light actually goes over
Seinfeld's face it's more in the reverse
shot it's really it is really subtle and
it's all over this piece but this was
shot in a diner at night while it was
raining and it looks like datanodes no
joke and it looks like daytime and
that's the one I was looking for it
plays like daytime so you can see to
like crawl across his face and then wait
the proper breath and then hit it
Seinfeld in the face I just think it was
absolutely awesome I was just buying
time was the thing loaded here just
takes
and we'll be right back after these
messages with Jerry Seinfeld and
Superman they say that opposites attract
while our next two guests may kiss me
the next successful Odd Couple get
people talking
although Superman usually works alone
teaming up with Jerry Seinfeld for
projecting American Express first of all
we're going to thank them both coming
back we were scheduled to do this last
week we had a little scare someone who
cleaned out kryptonite on the plaza
luckily it just turned out to have been
a piece of moldy y'all anyway we they
made the cheese joke I just couldn't
believe it subtle things though to make
it convincing the shadow or the
reflection in a table when he got
actually caught by the by the cops not
to jump around on you beach ball talk
amongst yourselves we'll give you a
topic okay I don't know if anyone caught
it the first time that's right in front
of our office there we go right in the
reflection of the window and if anyone
caught that getting the right curvature
getting the right reflection the right
density all those little things they
insisted on which we did too for for
realism even though he's animated what
was your emphasis on
well what would a good project in the
first place
well a little project with mr. Esmond
myself that appeared on that the
internet on Jerry
American Express cob is one running on
there now and there's another one coming
up way Steven it's a little different
for you Jerry told me that it's got good
instincts what I like you're really up
London and it's a fairly lengthy
interview that got cut down there couple
of the people that I wish I had him a
review site that did voiceovers it was
fun to say no to Alec Baldwin no thank
you
we ended up going with and then there
was a couple of the people who tried
Theo's the person we went with was
someone who had Jerry had chemistry with
but if he didn't tell already
Superman the voice is played by the guy
Kutty from Seinfeld and the funny thing
is a bunch of they have chemistry they
actually do not get along it was fun to
sit there with him and watch Jerry make
fun of this guy party to his face and he
didn't get it which was really kind of
funny
the whole whole mechanics of the
political side of the business was
really interesting to see on this job
the good thing was after all was said
and done because we did turn results it
raised a lot of eyebrows at the at this
place cold will be which was the agency
they were brave enough to let us try
this and of course now that it's a
success everyone loves Final Cut Pro and
shake in the office because of what I
was able to do for them but it was just
about having them take a chance it's
kind of a dangerous waters to be in
because we've almost shot ourselves in
the foot several times doing this but as
long as you're the right talent and
you're trained properly on this I don't
I really don't think there's anything
the idea can't do my good on time is it
no good at fifty more minutes let's do
that usually I'm like showing off
functions of Final Cut Pro and not
really anything that we did per se so I
can talk for ages and ages but this is
project specific so I'm out of steam
thank you very much thank you for coming
thank you