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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

DISNEY DEVELOPS NEW METHOD...

Elsie N said:
Here's a link to a software solution called Ductake Disney has developed to help low budget movie making easier.
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I don't see anything about this being pitched to low-budget movies. This is a technique where you stitch the left side of one good take with the right side of another good take, and composite the two together in a way that's imperceptible. My memory is that George Lucas was doing this with Phantom Menace back in 1999, back when this was expensive and time-consuming.

To me, the low-budget way of doing this is to keep shooting until you have a scene where both actors deliver good performances at the same time. This can be achieved with lots of rehearsals, good planning, and good acting -- and zero effects. Sometimes, I think too many people look for technological solutions for artistic problems, when I think the natural approach (doing it right in the first place) is simpler and much cheaper and faster to do. Really, how much would five more takes on the set really cost, compared to a 2-minute seamless composite?
 
"Video compositing to create special effects, replace backgrounds or combine multiple takes of an actor's performance is an integral, but highly labor-intensive, part of modern film making. Researchers at Disney Research, Zürich, however, have found an innovative way to create these composite videos that is simple, fast, and easy to use.

Rather than perform a painstaking segmentation of elements that are to be added or subtracted from a video, the Disney system, called DuctTake, uses computer algorithms to find a spatiotemporal "seam" through the video frame that enables two or more videos to be joined together. "...

"...can be used across a wide range of video composites. For example, it can combine the best performances by actors from several different takes into a single seamless output, reducing the number of on-set takes that are required to be filmed. Furthermore, the same technique can be used to make a cut seamless, allowing the first half of one take to be combined into a second take. In another case, the researchers eliminated unwanted cars from a street scene by offsetting the vehicle with empty street imagery from the same video take. Hard-to-shoot scenes involving animals, they demonstrated, become a bit easier when an animal trainer can be easily removed from the shot, or other actors can be added at the moment of time when the animal does the right thing."

"but as a result it is robust, fast to compute and easy for artists to use, enabling compositing techniques to be used on lower budget shots and productions."

A DuctTake user can combine two videos by making a few quick brush strokes to indicate which parts of the video to keep in each take. An algorithm developed by the Disney Research, Zürich team then computes an optimal seam and merges the two videos together.

DuctTake also includes a number of tools necessary to create a composite that looks realistic, such as adjusting the seam between frames to compensate for camera movement or content movement. Other tools adjust for differences in brightness, contrast and hue between takes, blend images along seams that are visible in a common background, and increase the blurriness in some video to match blurring that occurs in the video with which it is being combined."
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I can see this as actually needing less of a software solution than more. If I can get my shots on set with an eye on how to stitch them together in post, I am saving a lot of rotoscope work, for one thing. Not only that, I can save a lot of time and money by combining an actor's good performances within a scene instead of requiring take after take after take to get perfection.

In my mind this will be an invaluable tool for post work on a low budget movie.
 
Elsie N said:
Here's a link to a software solution called Ductake Disney has developed to help low budget movie making easier.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/dr-drd051713.php
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I have to compliment you on your fine sentence structure in saying what this software does for movie making.:) This software could put Red out of business. It makes movie making no more than pasting together a collage electronically. You can take a 100 scenes and grab pixels from each and blend them seamlessly. A photo shop for composing a film from films. Adding humans to animation pioneered I suspect by Sony years ago now would be a 4th grade art or science project.
 
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mark haflich said:
Thanks for the link. I have to compliment you on your fine sentence structure in saying what this software does for movie making.:) This software could put Red out of business. It makes movie making no more than pasting together a collage electronically. You can take a 100 scenes and grab pixels from each and blend them seamlessly. A photo shop for composing a film from films. Adding humans to animation pioneered I suspect by Sony years ago now would be a 4th grade art or science project.
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Mark, before I accept your compliment on sentence structure, I want to point out that only the words below the asterisk line are mine.

And I would like to return the compliment to you by saying that other than your apparent love for Sony and disdain for RED, I find your post to be a good one ... especially the idea of taking stock footage and composing some sort of silent or overdubbed movie from that. '-)

Just an afterthought... I think it might be possible as Mark suggested, to take different episodes of Criminal Minds and piece them together as a new episode. The only problem that might arise is that the actors might look slightly different as they have aged in between the time an original episode aired and the more recent similar episode airs. Creating a hybrid episode would be jumping-the-shark, but I think they passed that stage some time ago.
 
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Try reading your first sentence in post one. :) NBD When I was a kid splicing was done with a razor blade cutter and a bottle of glue. I recorded on wire and set levels to avoid clipping using an eye tube.
 
mark haflich said:
Try reading your first sentence in post one. :) NBD When I was a kid splicing was done with a razor blade cutter and a bottle of glue. I recorded on wire and set levels to avoid clipping using an eye tube.
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I get it... I misspelled DuctTake and should have put a comma after it. Thanks for catching the error. I've changed it.
 
Try reading it again. I am just having fun here as you do with my typos but this is basic English sentence structure. :) Its no big deal but you need to add the word make after the word help. :)
 
mark haflich said:
Try reading it again. I am just having fun here as you do with my typos but this is basic English sentence structure. :) Its no big deal but you need to add the word make after the word help. :)
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Hah! Spot on. I've always had problems with syntax and try to watch for incongruities. Missed that one. I've since done a complete makeover of the post. '-)
 
from what you guys are describing this sounds like a very common technique already used widely by filmmakers such as David Fincher in his recent movies with After Effects and such programs
 
Peter Dmitriyev said:
from what you guys are describing this sounds like a very common technique already used widely by filmmakers such as David Fincher in his recent movies with After Effects and such programs
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This is new method as in new algorithm, new math and process in the way which these type of effect and technique are accomplished.
 
Elsie N said:
In my mind this will be an invaluable tool for post work on a low budget movie.
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In my mind, you're wrong. But I'm speaking as a guy who's worked for three major VFX companies: Cinesite, ILM, and Reliance Mediaworks. I know visual effects very well, and it's not a panacea for bad performances and sloppy production. I think you misinterpret Disney's announcement, and I again say that nothing can beat just getting the right performance at the same time on the set.

There is such a thing as an organic film, and I think piecing layers and layers together is just kinda phony, especially in a low-budget indie situation. Even with a $200M Hollywood epic, they don't do as many multi-take stitch scenes as you might think. Actual green screen composites are a completely different situation. But at some point, the film goes from live action to animation, which I don't think is within the boundaries of what an indie film can achieve on that kind of budget.
 
Marc Wielage said:
In my mind, you're wrong. But I'm speaking as a guy who's worked for three major VFX companies: Cinesite, ILM, and Reliance Mediaworks. I know visual effects very well, and it's not a panacea for bad performances and sloppy production. I think you misinterpret Disney's announcement, and I again say that nothing can beat just getting the right performance at the same time on the set.

There is such a thing as an organic film, and I think piecing layers and layers together is just kinda phony, especially in a low-budget indie situation. Even with a $200M Hollywood epic, they don't do as many multi-take stitch scenes as you might think. Actual green screen composites are a completely different situation. But at some point, the film goes from live action to animation, which I don't think is within the boundaries of what an indie film can achieve on that kind of budget.
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Marc, I think you are not allowing for sutiuations... That is, there are times when a production, a small one especially, can't just build a set or go in with bulldozers and remove highlines or oilwell pumpjacks or large electric wind turbines and cover up the bulldozer tracks with replanted dry grass. Sure you could paint a background for the scene on a soundstage but is that really more organic than shooting in the real world and rotoscoping, or using the Disney shortcut of stitching shots together to create a seamless scene?

I think you see this being used in a general sense as the central point for making many or all shots in a movie. I on the other hand am thinking of specific shots that can be done that would allow me to create a scene with 3,000 Longhorn cattle moving across an unspoiled plain by shooting a herd of 300 from different angles. Sure there are ways this can be done now using VFX, but at what expense.

I don't see this so much as a shortcut, rather as (hopefully) an affordable way to add more story to my movie.
 
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Elsie N said:
I don't see this so much as a shortcut, rather as (hopefully) an affordable way to add more story to my movie.
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That will not do it. The "more story" has to come with the script, not something you jam in later on with VFX.

I have no problem with people who have to go in and paint out jet trails, get rid of TV antennas in the distance, do sky replacements and all that stuff. This is done all the time, sometimes hundreds of times. But you're fooling yourself if you believe that technology can be anything more than a bandaid when it comes to two or more different actors performing in the same scene together. Realistically, the way to fix this is just good editing, not a $50,000 VFX shot, or even a $5000 VFX shot.
 
Marc Wielage said:
That will not do it. The "more story" has to come with the script, not something you jam in later on with VFX.

I have no problem with people who have to go in and paint out jet trails, get rid of TV antennas in the difference, do sky replacements and all that stuff. This is done all the time, sometimes hundreds of times. But you're fooling yourself if you believe that technology can be anything more than a bandaid when it comes to two or more different actors performing in the same scene together. Realistically, the way to fix this is just good editing, not a $50,000 VFX shot, or even a $5000 VFX shot.
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I see our different take on this as being that of "Old Hollywood" vs the Indie style of adopting new methods. Ironically, what I'm advocating for was developed by an old company that while being steeped in the Hollywood tradition, is not stuck in the "Old Hollywood" ways of doing things.

But I understand your sticking to what you know. In my case, I don't know those things so I am freed up to adopt what I see as the best solution. That is, I don't have to put aside a tried and true way of doing something before replacing it with, or incorporating something new into it, a way that may work as well or better.
 
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Bob Minervini said:
amazing stuff, but a question, whey is Disney Research in Europe?
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I don't Know this, but one possibility is that they have a lot of cash stashed (earned) in Europe that can't be brought to the US without a huge tax payment. It may be better for their bottom line to spend some of the money in Europe doing research rather than just let it sit there in hopes a future Administration will lower the tax penalty so they can bring it home.
 
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