How to improve your video productions - PART 1

by

JOHNNY CRASH

PART 1 - Color Correction

Color Correction is seen on almost every pop-video you'll watch on MTV. Every film you'll see at the cinema. Every high-end make-up commercial. It's possibly one of the most important developments in high quality video/film production of recent years and yet so many indie film makers just forget what power some slight color correction can have on a production. Now make no mistake, in the "real world" they use mega-bucks machines to do this stuff on. However, I'm looking at things from a no-budget perspective. So, they are not going to make your work look like the new Marilyn Manson video but they may well improve it a bit. Also, if you have access to After Effects, or Combustion then use them instead. However, I am assuming you are pretty much limited to an Edit package and that is it. For this tutorial I am using Premiere 6 but you will find you can probably do similar in Avid DV or Final Cut Pro.

They key is not to over-do it. Color Correction can start off as a great idea and soon become hours of work and dreadful results. It is also somewhat time-consuming if you get too into it and can treble or quadruple rendering times with just a few clicks of a button, so use it sparingly and wisely but DO use it, as it does have some beautiful results. As with all the tutorials I do, these effects will work pretty much the same in Avid and Final Cut Pro.

Please take a look at the before and after clip supplied. The before shot is nice but very video like. Also, please remember you are watching a compressed video clip so the quality is not perfect. Anyway, I wish to make the clip just a little bit darker to give it a more dusky feel. I'd also like it to look a little bit more epic/filmic, so I will introduce you to a couple more very simple effects which can be done to enhance the footage. To start with I want to change the color somewhat and for this I'm going to use a nice effect found in Boris FX, which comes with Premier 6 and works with Avid DV.

Lay the video into a video track in the Premiere timeline. Open the video effects panel and select Boris Effects. Drag the icon onto the clip in the timeline. The Boris Effects User Interface will open on top of Premier. Go to File and Open the Settings Library.

Now you are presented with a whole host of video and transition effects available in Boris. Open up the Color section in the Boris Browser and look for the Color Glaze effect. Click OK on the Boris Browser and then click apply. Save the effect Color_Glaze and you will return to Premiere. Render this effect and take a look. It looks nice but could still do with some fine tuning to give it a more filmic look.

In Premiere, open the Video Effects Panel and look for Camera Blur. Apply the camera blur effect and set the blur to about 10%. This should be enough to soften the video and color corrected edges but still let the clip look in focus. Finally, add a Brightness and Contrast effect and twiddle with that until you get the color that you like. Remember though, if this is going on TV, you still have to keep within TV spec' levels so... beware with the colors. Again, do not overdo it.

Render the clip. It looks better and now we are going to do one more thing. We are going to apply a slight slow-motion. Just a touch. It'll be hardly noticeable but it will add to the feel of the clip and make it look more filmic.

When doing slo-mo's in these kind of situations, avoid going lower than say 75%. I generally keep it around the 85 to 90% mark. This way it just gives it that little edge but does not look like a total slow motion.

Render the clip and hey presto, you have a cool colored video clip which looks way more funky than the original clip.

Johnny Crash
Director, Spider-Babe