Lazzhar : a talented animation maker

[lazzhar]

Originally Posted by Amazigh Man

I use Ulead video editor 7.. it's just for amateurs

but professional and high quality software by which you can produce DVD quality like in Hollywood movies, is for example:

Pinnacle Avid Liquid 7 ($ 500)
Pinnacle Avid Liquid Pro 7 ($ 1000)


those two applications are used by many filmmakers, game developpers and broadcasters..


but they require damn strong computers with:

- processor 3.2 Ghz or better
- memory 1024 MB or better
- graphics card 1024 MB

Hi, I'm glad to read you are interested
Ulead Video Editor is becoming a seirous competitor of the other editing solutions. Maybe you had the chance to use a limited versio, but what I have the chance to see was impressive. The program is pretty fast and can do all stuff the so called "professional programs" are claiming high end features. I edited 10 episodes of 15 minutes TV PAL format on a Pentium III 750 Mz with only 256 MB of RAM.
It's true that you need a good machine, but usually it will only speed up your work. But if you buy a graphics card devoted to accelerate the editinh process, you would feel the difference no doubt. These kind cards used to be very expensive, but now prices are dropping down everyday.

High end professionals use very expensive realtime softwares($1 M) that don't run even on our machines. Usually you will need computers called SGI to run editing solutions such as Flame,Flint and Inferno. but I've heard they are running now on PCs under Linux systems.
I use their small little brother called Combustion mazal mach3alch mlih.

[Amazigh Man]

thanks for the info ...

the best thing of course is speed ... it's fantastic to edit your high resolution video in rap tempo!

I sometimes get extremely angry and depressed when the PC slows down while editing video ...

My experience with Ulead Video 7 is not such a good one ... I find this software not pleasant... !!

now .. what is the software that is used by Hollywood film makers .. to create the effects and ... also making the image feel cold and "blue" (Minority Report) or "green" (The Matrix) or hot (the mummy's return)...

[Amazigh Man]

there is of course the CGI (computer generated imagery) ...

[lazzhar]

Originally Posted by Amazigh Man

thanks for the info ...

the best thing of course is speed ... it's fantastic to edit your high resolution video in rap tempo!

I sometimes get extremely angry and depressed when the PC slows down while editing video ...

My experience with Ulead Video 7 is not such a good one ... I find this software not pleasant... !!

now .. what is the software that is used by Hollywood film makers .. to create the effects and ... also making the image feel cold and "blue" (Minority Report) or "green" (The Matrix) or hot (the mummy's return)...

Saha Amazigh.
The look in movies you movies could be done in any Color Correcting software. Most of editing softwares could do it nowadays but there is some that are devoted only to this tasks. I can recall Discreet Lustre for now as it's widely used on most feature films these days.
The look of Minority Report and AI wasn't a simple color correction as far as I know. The lighting was very stylised where you can almways see backlightings behind actors with a glowing around them. The design of props and envirements was very stylised and futiristic as well hence the strange attrative look, while the matrix and the mumy had more realistic look.
One of the best color corrected movies I've seen was Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain.


What you think about?

[Amazigh Man]

in unusual color corrections there is of course the example of Sin City (Bruce Willis) .. where the picture became black and white except for women's red lips and men's blue eyes .. or yellow for blood ...etc .. it was very funny ...

.... I am talking of course about highly professional color changing and correction.. the average corrections are everywhere of course.. we see it a lot in TV commercials.
take for example a dark or nearly-dark scene in a good movie ... they are not shooting in darkness or semi-darkness ... however, in the final movie you can't see the actor's face in the scene .. it's very dark!!!! .. what they do is shoot the scene in enough light .. and then "erase" most of the light with the software... that's why they have at the end those beautiful thriller dark movies.. "smartly" lighted ... in addition to that, some objects of the scene stay somewhat lighted.. that makes the scene convincing...

all this trouble and suffer is because the camera is not like the human eye..

..

you can compare all that with those opposite poor Moroccan or egyptian or Indian movies.. where the makers don't fully understand the light rules... and what's the result? :depressing and dark movies .. light flashes in a horrible way on the green-painted walls ... actors faces are not convincing ..etc



one more thing.. i once watched a very funny episode of X-Files .. the director filmed the streets of LA like any amateur .. he didn't add a single lamp to support the poor camera.. he only filmed under the usual street lights at night!!! .. he did it of course deliberately to change the routine of the famous serie.. but what we got at the end? : technically, a very poor image in details and beauty...

but with David Duchovny and Gillian anderson in it .. it was beautiful....

[lazzhar]

You're right, lighting is playing a crucual role in defining the character of films. Just bear in mind that feature films and most of highend TV series and commericlas are shot using the old 35 mm film to get that good quality of image and to capture a wide range of lighting. Video cameras -even digial ones are still less sensisive to light so you will lose details in over and underexposed areas likewise.
It's always a challenging task to balance lightings in photography. I don't do photography myself but the process is almost the same in 3D lighting and rendering as it's basicly what I'm interested in.
Do you have any experence shoting with digital cameras Amazigh?

[Amazigh Man]

yeah.. just amateur digital camera .. nothing professional...