Motion Control?

[Andrew Benz]

Hi Curt,

Hehe... I was having a little fun w/ Aqua... I have been all over your website and I have as much faith in your (and your brothers) talent, skill, and design acumen as I do in RED. We have converging goals and of course you have my financial support (not much-but hey...), Your cost conscious/great design ethos doesn't hurt you either ;-). I am thankful to get the opportunity to buy great tools at affordable prices and extend my craft/creativity.

Just downloaded the reservation form, I will fax it off thursday or friday.


Cheers,

Andrew

 

[CVB]

Awesome.. look forward to having you as a customer. Make sure to tell your friends

 

[allano]

I love the dirty way that this effect is achieved - it makes it easier for more people to make stuff like this - and I must tell you that I really is deligthed that you share - not all people are willing too share "secrets" like this....

But the MoCo force inside me , urge me to make a little PR about why MoCo is needed sometimes - just for the record and for those who have not been there yet (and also for convincing myself that there IS a future for MoCo after all)

In the real life shooting with a large crew , many people use the monitors to get the notion of what the heck is going on.On these monitors you can see in sync with the move all layers mixed and keyed if neccesary ; Something is important for the DoP other stuff is important for the Director , even the actor can have good use of seeing the Surroundings / 3D environment he is acting in , instead of all the green/blue stuff

e.g. its important that actors have the rigth eyeline if you want to "convince" the audience .The rigth eyeline is not always to look at the "other" object , but may be a tennisball moving on a C-stand , and this eyeline can be checked because you have the sync from the move , and the same move , in all layers. (When you use sound it is off course evident that the sound needs to follow the move in same timing )

Even though not many will take notice , the eyeline is a little off in the end (in the "near miss" that is - BTW a good title to a docu on my life, miss in the meaning Miss) , a little detail that is easy to over see , especially if its not possible ......not important in a single shoot maybe but imagine a feature film stuffed with effects where all actors look the wrong way all the time

BUT

I see many timig issues though that is better achieved with a "free" camera , but hey , different shoots different gear.

Can you use the xyz data from the head to make your trick even faster ?

Or is it easier to just track it ? (If the pan is very long dont you need multiple trackers etc ?)



babble babble off for work
best wishes from Copenhagen

 

[Jim Arthurs]

Hi Allan and all... thanks for your thoughts and comments. Again, I must stress that this is a test, and such things as roto and eyelines weren't important, what was important is the fact the multiple plates are moving in sync with each other independent of their original motion and without any form of mechanical sync during shooting. Heck, my "talent" wasn't prepped more than a minute or two for the shot, and I shot quickly with a single take for the car and person.

I agree with all of your comments about motion control. I LOVE motion control. Always have since I was a teenager building little stop motion dolly tracks out of wood and hardware store aluminium angles and rails. I remember reading a CineMagic article in the early 80's saying MOCO would NEVER be affordable for the indy... and look what is happening! I really want a small multi-axis rig for stop motion and miniature work, and I see Curt's work taking us in that direction quickly.

As an FX supervisor, I believe that any time you get another technique that overlaps an existing one it gives you OPTIONS. More choices is a good thing. Some shots this method is quicker, some shots MOCO is quicker. My method fails the moment you add a travel axis into the mix. Or try to do very low frame rates or stop motion, or need your multiple takes to have absolutely identical camera paths and retain your full frame raster for all takes, or...

One clarification for Curt... the roto and comp work I'm doing is EXACTLY the same, whether MOCO or tracked... in this way they are absolutely identical. The guy passing in front of the car would need to be roto'ed whether MOCO or retargeted motion, same with adjusting for changing light conditions, etc. I have no more (or less) roto and comp work with this than the same setup would have with MOCO.

The actual client driven project that I used this technique on I won't be able to share for several months. That's why I'm showing off some of the work product that got me to this point and continuing to shoot new tests to improve and refine the method for future work. It's fun, and I share in that spirit. If there's something someone can take from this, and use in a project, then all the better.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Thanks, Curt

Thanks, Curt

Thanks, Curt I have been manufacturing underwater housings and lights for 25 years so understand the pricing/business issues and appreciate the extra time.

Also thanks for the explanation of Jim's technique. I think my basic idea is that your system provides a pretty low cost way to get some exciting effects into a low budget feature.

I have a feature idea I have kicked around for a few years, and one of the components was that our ability to bring a lot of underwater work to it at relatively low cost would be our primary "effect". But I also I have kept my eye out for anything else that could be leveraged to give a bigger budget feel to a low budget feature - and I see your system as a real possibility.

Aqua, just to clarify... the near miss video is a cg shot that Jim did without moco. He's got an awesome process where he can move a camera on a tripod without any synchronization whatsoever. In post he maps those shots to a sphere to create an effect similar to a motion control shot. That said... the head we are making can do the same thing and can do it much faster, the amount of post effects work is minimal (usually just a split screen or tracking roto). We have taken a few more reservations past the deadline already so I see no reason why we couldn't extend the deadline for the faithful reduser crowd - May 30th it is.. keeping the the price artificially low isn't a good way to make sure our company is here for the long haul, if we could get the raw components at a better price I'd love to keep the price where it is, unfortunately not all companies are like Red is