Post-Production

I can't remember what show I got this from but my #1 tip is simply this "Trust but verify". I can remember so many occasions where I thought something was done that would make post so easy, and it wasn't, so editing it out or working around it was terribly difficult.

So my advice is that if you're going to be editing, or doing audio or any other post task. Keep close to the director, be on set if you can and make sure your getting what you need to deliver the final vision.

Trust that the director knows what they are doing, but verify that everything lines up for the next phase.

Yeah - I have not yet used personally but studios have been using global render farms for years so I imagine in the right structure it's a great resource.

They have a lot of built in plugins that connect directly into render farms, so its more convenient than ever.

Great question Michael Olderr I started with adobe at school and used it at my studio for a number of years, I learned Blender from tutorials going back to the 2.49 days (it was rough), later we moved away from subscription based software and started using Davinci Resolve. In school I learnt Final Cut Pro and Logic and used them side by side. I would say most of my current toolset is self taught and tutorial based, but the foundation of where to use those skills was built in university.

Premiere Pro for me and their in-software tutorials have been really helpful.

Sam Sokolow - I remember seeing Premiere on an iMac 27 in Mac Lab at EKU; it's pretty user friendly; Looked like it has great Video and Audio components.

Kerry Kennard - it does. I'm a true novice editor and I am amazed at what I can accomplish on Premiere.

Sam Sokolow - I’ve used iMovie for my drum videos; it’s good … but think Premiere is better handling the Video and Audio together. !!

I second what Maurice Vaughan said, Kenneth Lui - this was awesome. Glad you had fun!

You're welcome, Kenneth Lui. Hope you have an incredible and incredibly successful year!

https://www.stage32.com/profile/1096554/about Can we expand ideas n collaborate here on stage 32? Because I’m down to share asap

Kenneth Lui break a leg on the new project, it sounds like a lot of fun. Thanks again for this AMA.

crazy ideas for an alien movie coming up.. race cars to theme park .. avenge

Incredible BTS video, Daniel Husbands! Definitely the VFX in the "Transformers" movies. The VFX is one of the reasons I watch the films.

Star Wars and the Matrix series are pretty awesome in Detail.

All those moving “jets” and sky fighting had a lot of detail. I think I did see some mistakes and the behind the scenes even said / showed where they were. Though for the Average audience no one would see them, esp from all the fast action and how close some of the ships were (moving / flying).

I found a way to use an AI-powered vocal remover to extract foley from a production audio recording. It works fine and saves my time.

Vladislav, what’s it called?

I use this one https://vocalremover.org

At a Film meeting, a guy showed the difference from before and after w some software last year.

It was interesting and … a little disturbing… as it was for scary type of scene. Also it was more thinner looking than the original. Granted, it’s an effect done in post production, I’m not sure how much AI should be used to create these types of designs. IMHOpinion

Hope this comment covers what you’re asking Amanda Toney. I can delete if needed.

It’s all new to me, so my first reactions and lack of knowledge from the new AI tools may blur my vision what is possible with AI tools.

Great ask Amanda Toney, for creators with big ideas, limited funds, and no patrons; only these tools can get our projects finished and available to our intended (niche?) audience.

Wow! That's some of the best VFX I've seen, Daniel Husbands!

Thanks Maurice Vaughan I was watching this again, and I realized how often then animate the characters as well, along with the live action. Seems like overkill but I'm sure they have their technical reasons. Most likely interactions with the FXs and shadows.

You're welcome, Daniel Husbands. I'm not sure if I've recently seen any shows that use VFX. I finished watching "Shōgun" the other day, but I'm not sure if it has VFX.

I love this breakdown, thank you for sharing! I am curious though - why did they want a live-action anything when so much of the final product is VFX? Actually, I think we need a price comparison. How much is animation versus VFX?

You're welcome, Maia Buljeta. I made a sizzle reel with PowerDirector on my phone a while back, but it was for an unscripted show. I'm not sure how much it costs now, but I think it was like $4.99 a month when I used it. Thanks for the resources. I probably check out CapCut first.

Maurice Vaughan Cool! PowerDirector has some cool features. CapCut is a good one to check out first, what makes Haiper amazing is that you write a sentence into a text box, and you get back an animated video clip that matches your exact description - amazing for creating cinematic worlds that exactly match scripts. It's insanely amazing and easy.

I only recently tried out this program. Great share Maia Buljeta

That is so awesome to hear! Thank you,

The epic music is so fun! LOL Really keeps everything moving for sure. Thanks for sharing!

Hey Kerry Kennard unfortunately Kontakt and 3rd party developers have to have very specific versions line up in order to work. I still have VSTs that only work on a specific version of Kontakt and not others. I've never found any work around, so you might have to install older versions or newer versions of kontakt for things to work. Not everything is backwards compatible. Hope you're able to get things sorted out.

Thank you Daniel Husbands - appreciate the information. I think I did move the correct version of Kontakt to the 2020 machine and it still did not work. I can look into it later. Thank you for your input, I really appreciate it. Have a great weekend. KK

I use Kontakt and unfortunately they made major changes to the library in after 2011. This falls under Grain States responsibility. They need to provide a solution or upgrade path to work with the current version of Kontakt or let you know which version it works with. You can usually run multiple versions of Kontakt on the same machine.

Thanks for sharing this Stephen Van Vuuren This is fascinating to watch. The level of quality and time saving in the sodium vapor technique is very interesting. And to have been around for so long, I can think of several use cases where that would have been beneficial. Especially against motion blur.

I watched this video when it came out and was mind-blown! It's so cool!

Well, that's about the coolest thing I've seen today. What a great share, Stephen Van Vuuren!

I wonder what other techniques have been lost to time, that's why it's good to know the history.

That is so cool! It's so odd that it's not used. We always have to tell costumes what colors they can't use for cast and/or depending on that cast, blue or green. Very interesting.

I LOVE these evolution videos that show how far things have come in VFX over such a short time. Thank you for sharing, Dustin Richardson!

I've always been a big 007 fan, great share Dustin Richardson

Very cool video! Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for sharing, Daniel Husbands. "Sometimes "more" isn't necessarily better, and that goes for post-production workstations as well." That's intriguing.

What surprised me the most about this video is that the heaviest tasks, i.e. fusion effects, doesn't benefit the most from a power house GPU. For all the VFX ability built into fusion, I was really shocked that it's all CPU based. Make's me rethink my GPU shopping list and think new build from the ground up.

This is awesome, thank you for sharing Daniel Husbands! My husband built out his computer by himself a couple of years ago to ensure that it was catered to CAD design, fusion, and gaming. It makes sense that you could make really smart and affordable decisions to customize your own computer for your post-production needs.

Hey Daniel Husbands thanks for sharing our video! We were also very surprised and immediately checked our systems and settings back at the studio.

I'm glad it helped. It's completely changed my wish list.