Color Correction Rocks

I like editing because you can change the way a video looks. Everyone has their own opinions on how a video should look. I personally think color correction is especially crucial because it can make your video look very pretty or very amateurish. That's why for this video I spent extra time color correcting.

Here's what a raw piece of footage looked like:


It looks okay I suppose, but the contrast between the dark colors and the bright colors is definitely not distinct enough. Let's increase the brightness and contrast:


Not bad, not bad, but the colors are a tad bright, don't you think? Let's desaturate it a bit:


This looks much better, but it's still missing something... Let's add a blue tint and see what happens:


Okay, so this is something that I think looks great. The darks and lights are nicely contrasted, the colors aren't too bright, and the slight blue tint is like the cherry on top to bring it all together. This is how much color correction can do, and it's astounding.

This is not at all the right way to color correct because you could really do anything. You could increase the contrast even more or tint it green or something. You can do anything. And this is an introduction to the magic of video editing.

Editing

I love editing. It’s probably the most unique form of art ever created.

What’s so powerful about editing is that you can take an ordinary movie clip and make it look amazing. You can string together a bunch of ordinary movie clips, color correct, add music, and bam, you have a fantastic movie. It’s a powerful thing.

The thing is, movies are never made perfect. There are a ton of things that happen during filming that can only be fixed with editing. If the microphone picks up some irritating background noise, you can edit it out. If there’s a scene that is too dark, you can brighten it. If you really want to edit someone out because you don’t like them, then you can do it (but doing that takes way too long).

Editing takes a movie and gives it life. There are so many possibilities with editing. The artistic spectrum is ridiculously broad. There are a ton of different styles, defined simply by clip placement, timing, and use of music. It makes movies art.

I used to want to be an editor because I loved seeing movies unravel before me. Every time I make a video, I look forward to editing. Sure, the raw footage sometimes looks good. But editing gives it life—it turns that footage into a living, breathing entity that tells a story. Without editing, movies would not look like they way they do. Special effects could not be achieved. Bad scenes would be preserved. Simply put, editing makes movies what they are.

Some of my videos, like UNDERFIRE War, started off looking like pure crap—we looked like such idiots, running around with Nerf guns and pretending to shoot each other. That video is intense because of editing. The music, the sound effects, the pace of the action, the intensity, are all achieved through editing. It’s unlike anything else.

Some may not enjoy editing as much as I do. But everyone should appreciate how much video editing does for movies. It’s not easy, and it’s not a fast process, but damn, it sure does deliver.

Making Better Movies

Now I’m not condoning that I make great movies. My projects still have a lot of mistakes that I need to fix. But over the years I’ve gotten better because I’ve focused on the small things.

In order to make a movie, or anything in general, you should never leave out the small things. When you think about it, all the small things will eventually build up to become one big conglomeration. You may not think it’s such a big deal, but it can become a big deal.

For instance, in my last post, I talked about editing audio. Today, on a second viewing at a higher volume, I realized that my “editing job” left a pretty noticeable artifact in between dialogue. You can’t tell when the volume is low enough, but when boosted, you know it’s there. I opted to go back and re-edit all of the audio clips I did yesterday. I finished half of them yesterday.

To go back and re-edit these clips, PLUS edit the rest of the movie audio, took the entire day (excluding going out to the mall). Some may not have opted to take on such a task, but I did because I knew that I’d be sorely unhappy with the results in the future. This artifact, while not so imposing, would have been present throughout the entire video and would have ruined the parts where silence was key to the mood. Taking it out of all the audio fixed a small problem that encased the entire video.

What I’m trying to say here is that the smallest details are sometimes the most crucial. There should be no shortcuts to making a good movie.

Arranging and Audio

I haven’t been able to edit all week because of school, but guess what I started doing just as I got home?

That’s right. EDITING.

So, this is what I’ve done so far after importing everything:

1. Arrange the timeline: The first thing I always do is put all the clips in order as I want them to be. Considering the length of this video, this can take a long time. My first arrangement is rough at best, but it gives me a good understanding of the flow of the video. As editing progresses or during the final touch-ups, I’ll make the finer adjustments to clip length and placement.



2. Edit the audio: This is one of the most time-consuming aspects of my process. How do I edit the audio? Well I extract it to Adobe Soundbooth, boost the voices, and lower the background noise. How do I do that? It sounds very advanced but a single clip can take less than a minute. All I do is take an audio sample of the background noise and tell Soundbooth to eliminate all areas that match that sample. Soundbooth is AWESOME. Then, I just look for those glaring sound errors, like me speaking or screwing up the tripod work.




While it is easy to simply sample the whole clip at once, it keeps me from hearing the errors that I need to fix. This is why I arrange the clips first and then edit them—I can look at each individual area of sound and make sure they’re perfect. Also, it gives me a better understanding of how the clip should sound like in context.

How did I figure out how to do the audio thing? Well a long time ago, I was messing with Adobe Premiere, and I found an option that let me extract the audio to Soundbooth. Then the rest was more experimentation.

Anyway, I’ve only edited the sounds of the first scene. I think I have about seven more scenes to go? It’ll take a while, but the resulting sound quality is too good to pass up.

New Video!

Announcing my new upcoming feature, The Blood Exchange!

No details on what it’s about yet, but I will say that it will star Carlos Cortes, Roger Lau, and Anthony Lucido. Filming went incredibly smooth, and we took our times to make it as awesome as possible. And I must say, even before editing, this video looks promising.

Here are some screenshots :D












They look pretty good in suits doncha think? Anyway, I’ll be releasing more information and development photos as editing comes along. It shouldn’t be very long before it’s done. Stay tuned!

Action Jackson

Because filming plans on different movie ideas failed more times than I would have liked (five times), I decided to take the initiative and film something on my own. Introducing, Action Jackson!

It was my short, special effects, handicam, and HD test video of winter. I decided to try a ton of new stuff because it was such a small project. It's short, yes, but I think it's pretty exciting :D

Action Jackson

Enjoy!

A Tale of Unspoken Revenge Reflection

I was going to do a video reflection but I'm being lazy so I'll just stick to this for now.

A Tale of Unspoken Revenge was technically a very neat film. Other that some less-than-stellar Steadicam shots (by me), every angle benefited the film and showed exactly what needed to be shown. I dedicated a lot of our film time getting the tripod down and getting exactly the angle I wanted. Even if they were a teensie bit off from where I wanted them, I asked to start the take over again because I wanted to be picky.

I realize it starts out slow, but that's what I like about it. The story begins with two guys walking to someone's house, and then they break in and beat the crap out of him. Then it settles, talk talk talk, babble babble babble, whoa what the hell, Ryan escaped and beat up Julien! That's when it got good for me. It starts out slow, and I'm not sure how many people can sit through it, but if you watch till the end, it turns out great. I loved the scene where Ryan untied himself. I couldn't have asked for a better turnout than that.

The fight scenes were awesome. We made up those fight scenes on set and on the spot between each consecutive take. I think it ended up very smooth-like and was a good ending to the video.

The tackle scene was accomplished by placing a ton of pillows in front of Julien. Once again, taking time in between takes for scenes like this was crucial.

I loved how Jared was able to pull off his talk scene with Ryan. Albeit, it took a few tries, it was extremely funny in the end. I would have never been able to pull such a scene off. Special thanks to Jared for being awesome there.

We took our time because we had a lot of time. For longer videos, I can see filming spanning multiple days, but for now, I won't go over two days for a video. The filming for World War Z was ridiculously tiring because we were so short on time, and frankly, it just was not fun at that point. When you're in a small group, taking your time, and focusing on quality, I find it a much more enjoyable experience. Lesson from World War Z and Blood Exchange, do not rush your videos, and do not sacrifice quality.

Overall, I'm mucho proud of this video. It sets another standard for me in quality. Taking the scenes slowly with care pays off massively in the end. It showed me the power of the tripod and that I need to practice more with the Steadicam. Until next time, with my next big feature!

A Tale of Unspoken Revenge

The new video hits Youtube!

A Tale of Unspoken Revenge

Check it out!

World War Z Reflection

World War Z was an interesting video to film. One of the things that really pressured us was the lack of time we had. The project was due a week after it was filmed. We filmed it a week in advance because I knew, we all knew, I would not be able to finish it in one day. Thank GOD, editing was kind of a pain.

While not overly complicated like some of my other films, World War Z had the time constraint. I love editing, and I loved editing this one too, but instead of editing in some of my free time between school and outside activities, it WAS part of my school, so I had to get it done at a certain point. I stayed up late every night for a week editing this video, and I'm the type of person who cannot really function without sleep.

It did help though that I had a chunk of it thought out in my head prior to filming. Like most films I tend to have a certain perspective on a video idea. I knew pretty much what I wanted to do during filming, so thinking about some scenes wasn't as big an issue as others. Plus, we made a script.

I thought this video was pretty well put together. It would be a bit self-centered to say this, but I'm proud of it so I'll go out and say that I thought my editing job was pretty damn good. Everything timed well, and the flow of the scenes was good. Everyone else did pretty good too. Kevin did a great job portraying the mentally unstable hero of the story. Aaron, while not exactly a pro actor, he fulfilled his role. Julio did well in his scene, though he smiled a few times. Julien was my favorite character. If it wasn't for English, I would have cast him in a better role.

We had five main actors and about eight zombies. Filming those fight scenes was a huge pain in the ass. Everyone started getting bored at one point and messing around. While I understand that waiting is boring, it got to the point where Kevin started yelling to horde everyone together. The two zombie scenes took about two hours in total. We got those done first, and goddammit it was tiring.

I'm quite proud of how this video turned out. Until our next big project!

World War Z

Introducing, the new Theorem 42 video, World War Z!

Follow Kelly Dewey as he recollects on his experience in the Great Zombie War and how he survived with the Z Team.

Lots of hard work put into this. Hope you like!

Make sure you watch both parts.

Part One

Part Two

World War Z: A Film Adaptation

As previously stated, our video is based on the novel World War Z. In the novel, they deal a lot with military and millions of troops and places around the world. Of course, for an English project, we do not have the resources nor the time to do such a thing. So, instead of basing it off stories from the book, we created a story of our own based on some things they say in the book.

The main star is Kevin. He does a good job being the main character, but no more details than that. This video will end up being Theorem 42's longest ever. I've gotten 6 of the 8 scenes done and its almost 15 minutes long already. All I'm saying is, this had better get an A+.

Here are some pictures :D







The video looks very promising. It will be done by Monday! I shall be working very diligently until then. Update later :)

Surprise! ZOMBIE FILM

Hello friends, once again I am working on a new project. It was originally supposed to be just an English project, but it has spawned into something much more than that. It is now going to be a Theorem 42 production!

Based off the novel World War Z, it is an interview-style zombie action film. Hopefully it'll be good in the end.

Filming took place over the long weekend and in total took about 9 hours. Yeah, it's crazy. There are four survivors, an interviewer, and about seven zombies. SEVEN ZOMBIES. That's a lot for an amateur director like me. Lemme say this outright, it was not an easy experience. I have imported all the footage and am now in the process of editing it all together into one long masterpiece.

(JUST LIEK MY DICKKK)

Julien and Kevin return as actors, and Ryan and Roger are zombie extras. We have a lot of other people in our video too, so look out for them.

I shall post pictures next time!

More Thinking

I have written a script for our next video. It will star Chayan, Julien, Matt, Henry, Me, and Ryan. I've been thinking long and hard about how I'm gonna film this next one. I really want to stress the camera angles.

Ever since the Missing Immigrant Agency, my copy of Adobe Premiere has had a bug that prevents me from importing all the footage. It freezes while I import. I have been dealing with it by importing on my parents' computers and then transferring it to my computer. It's a pain in the butt. I see this as a major problem for my summer video with my cousin.

For the next video, I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to film it in HD. There are many ups and downs to HD video. The video quality is great. I can film in progressive 24 fps and in full HD. However, it is more expensive, the footage will need some compressing, and there's the thing with my Premiere. If I import it on any other computer in my house, it will be in SD.

I think for this video I'll be filming in SD, but with high contrast and desaturation. Hopefully not too much grain and noise will appear. I hate that stuff.

Expect filming to commence in the next few weeks. I have stuff to do over the next few weekends.

:D

Upgrades Needed

At the end of 7th grade, Henry, Kristin, Khodadod (an old film friend), and I made a video entitled Suburban Ninja. It was about a boy who thought he was a ninja, and sought to show off his ninja skills to random people. He failed of course.

I remember this video because it was another turning point in my film history. It was really fun to make, but it lacked quality. My acting sucked, there was always laughter behind the camera, and it didn't seem to flow well. I have trouble watching it because of my acting...



That high pitch voice and the cackling at the end of this clip is Henry by the way.

I was not quite as pleased with the turnout of this video as my friends. I wanted to make a good video with good acting, story, and camera, but at this point, I knew it wasn't going to happen for a while.

Not long after this video, I realized I needed a camera that was actually meant for video, not a digital photo camera. Also, I needed an editor that was better than Windows Movie Maker. I realized early on that it was very limited. Then, my problems were solved. I bought a Sony Handycam for $300, a cheap consumer-grade camcorder. It did the job. Then, my dad got me a copy of Adobe Premiere Pro CS2 from his office. At once, the new editor astounded me. There were so many options, so many possibilities with these two new tools. I was eager to try them out.

Over the summer I filmed two videos with my cousins and brother, and I was extremely happy with the end results. I experimented a lot with Premiere Pro while I was visiting my cousins. I couldn't wait to film again with my friends and try out my new stuff.

UNDERFIRE Trivia

In case any of you out there want to know more about the UNDERFIRE series so far, here ya go.

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I've been lazy. Realize that all the trivia only applies to the UNDERFIRE series, not any other videos from Theorem 42.

UNDERFIRE SERIES

• Ryan, Brandon, and Henry have been in every UNDERFIRE video to date.
• The sound effect for the Maverick/Revolver has been the same in every video, the Counter-Strike: Source Desert Eagle sound.
• Each video ends in the same spot.
• During filming, we have always been questioned by neighbors about our shenanigans.
• The inspiration of the series was Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2.

UNDERFIRE

• This is the only video so far that only stars 3 people.
• This is the only video with subtitles.
• This is the only video that ends with everyone alive.
• This is the only video that has a "happy ending"
• When Ryan and Brandon are facing off, Ryan hides behind some stairs. After Brandon is ambushed by Henry, the stairs that Ryan is hiding behind changes. This is because when we were filming, the person who lived there came out, and we didn't want to be confronted.
• The Wilhelm Scream can be heard.
• This is the only video that a Portal song appears, 5000 Degrees Kelvin.
• This is the first video that Adobe After Effects was used in a Theorem 42 video, for the title.
• The primary color for this video is red for the sunniness and the high energy.

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch

• This is the video in which William makes his Theorem 42 debut.
• The video was actually filmed in the rain, thought the rain was intermittent, so sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn't.
• Henry dies in a similar fashion in the beginning as the first video; Ryan headshots him when he peeks over a bush.
• When Henry kills Ryan with the shotgun and runs away, you can see William sitting on the stairs in the background.
• This is the only video that a Team Fortress 2 song appears, Faster than a Speeding Bullet.
• The title retains the quick word glimmer as in the first video, but more advanced.
• This is the first video to have limited lives. Though it is not directly stated, once Ryan kills Brandon for the last time, he does not respawn.
• Though not directly contributing to the video, in the first 5 minutes of filming, we were yelled at by a woman for being too loud outside.
• The primary color for this video is blue for the gloominess of the rain.

UNDERFIRE War

• This is the video in which Matt makes his Theorem 42 debut.
• This is the first video that songs from the Half-Life 2 episodes appear.
• This is the first Theorem 42 video to have a trailer.
• This is the first video to include blood effects.
• This is the first video to feature team deathmatch.
• This is the first video to feature full length dialogue.
• Ryan and Henry wear black shirts, while Matt and Julien wear white shirts.
• Brandon only makes a small cameo here, for the sake of being in the video, and also to reference to the previous videos.
• It appears that Ryan, Henry, and Brandon made a truce of some sort and formed a team.
• In this video, there is a better implication of limited lives, as an example of Brandon.
• The real reason why it was raining at the end was because we filmed the ending on a separate day, and it was raining that day.
• The symbol on Ryan's shirt is of Portal.
• The title also retains the word glimmer from the first video.
• The primary color for this video is yellow, for the high energy and the high speed action.
• Team Tigers was the result of a discussion on current issues. The name of that team came from the discussion of Tiger Woods.
• The only person whose name is not mentioned is Henry.
• During the machine gun scene, a neighbor came out and confronted us.
• When Ryan's respawn is shown, an old Half-Life song plays. This is the same song we used for Ryan's respawn in UNDERFIRE.
• The silencer on Julien's rifle toward the end of the video is on crooked. The silencer was made from the core of a toilet paper roll and black electrical tape.
  

UNDERFIRE War Reflection

Like my past few videos, I will be writing a reflection on our past video.

UNDERFIRE War has become my proudest video overall. Its editing and effects are vastly superior to the past videos thanks to Action Essentials 2. This was good for the overall video, yet bad for me in ways. For one, it increased the amount of time it took to edit the clips. Instead if editing every other frame, or every two frames, I often had to edit frame by frame. One clip took me a week, five straight seconds of spray and pray by Ryan. Those kinds of scenes honestly drove me a bit nuts simply because of the number of frames required to edit.

In my opinion, Julien and Ryan shine in this video. Julien, first of all, was an overall great actor in the video. Everything he did was natural; the sliding, the walking, everything. He is a natural actor, and he will most certainly be starring in our next video. Ryan did a good job doing his scenes. They weren't forced; he was simply doing the actions. They were believable and not over the top.

Matt was also good in his first role. In the beginning, it was a bit rough trying him to get to fall or react in certain ways. However, as the video went on, you can visually see his acting getting better. His facial expressions are also hilarious. Next stoner video for certain.

Henry delivered a solid performance also. His speaking parts were a bit forced, but it wasn't enough to make it sound stupid. He did a great job in the machine gun scene, grabbing the side and vibrating the gun in a realistic fashion. All of his falls were also very realistic, from his very first death to his last. All my actors were awesome.

I personally liked the angle choices. They varied more in the beginning because of the amount of time we spent on the first few scenes. Toward the end, we rushed slightly more. But I think in the end, we maintained good angles for our shots.

The action sequences were awesome, however, upon prior examination, I saw that there were not as many sequences as previous installments it seems. They were overall better though. The machine gun scene was my favorite, followed by the beginning scene and the scene right after the machine gun scene. It offers good variance in the flow of the video, from loud and exciting to quiet and unsuspecting. I had many people flip out when Ryan snuck out and shot Julien in the head because of how quiet and sudden it was.

The dialogue was okay. It could have been better I guess, but for the sake of this video, it was good enough. UNDERFIRE is not about story, it's about action. The break in the middle offers a break in fighting to prepare for the machine gun scene. It provides backstory to what happened before the video started, including my embarrassing death. Also, I think it's pretty funny, both sides. It adds personality to the characters.

I'm so proud of this video, and I truly truly hope that eventually it will become more popular on Youtube. Congratulations, friends, on another great video experience.

UNDERFIRE War

UNDERFIRE War

The new installment in the UNDERFIRE series, introducing:

UNDERFIRE War!!!

There are 2 parts because it is over 11 minutes long. Bear with it and please, watch both parts!

It is the best video I have ever had the pleasure of editing, directing, and being a part of. I could never have done this without the hard work and cooperation of my friends.

So, ENJOY!!

By the way, Henry made that picture up there. Kudos to him for making such a cool poster :D

And The Editing Continues

The scene mentioned in the previous post took me a few days to complete, in between karate, homework, and whatnot. I have dubbed it "The Ass Scene." It was actually ten times harder to finish than "The Bitch Scene" from Deathmatch. I manually cut Ryan and his gun out for 4 seconds straight, which is about 120 frames. God.... But it's over!

Well the video looks phenomenal. The effects make an enormous difference in quality from our last UNDERFIRE. It's a huge step for us. Seriously.

Here are some photos for you!









Gasp, it's me in one of those pictures! Yes, I make an appearance. You'll have to see me in action when the video is released ;)

It looks pretty good doncha think? I'll add filters once the entire video is done. I have about half of the effects editing, probably a bit less. But progress is swift, and I become more and more excited to see this thing finished.

UNDERFIRE: Advanced After Effects

I haven't updated this in a few days because school has been taking up my time unfortunately. However, I have been thinking about you!

Now one of the main focuses of the Underfire series is the special effects. We started with simple photoshop layers pasted directly onto the video timeline. Then we drew the [terrible] muzzle flashes onto the clips via After Effects. That was the worst After Effects experience I have ever had. It was extremely inefficient and didn't even look good, regardless of what I said back then. It taught me how After Effects works though.

Now, with the third installment, I have wisened up with my skills. I'm much more efficient now, utilizing many new techniques that could be considered advanced. My motion tracking is a million times better now. My overall compositing skills have been boosted.

Remember the "bitch" scene? Now that I'm where I am now, that scene is nothing compared to the scene I'm working on at this moment.

I have already used motion tracking multiple times in the video. Almost every fx clip has motion tracking. I'm so proud of how far we've come.

I'm implementing advanced muzzle flashes, concrete hits, sparks, and some blood effects in the video. Here's a picture of a typical scene in the video:


As you can see, simply placing the muzzle flash over the clip does nothing. It looks terrible like this. However, utilizing the power of masking...


BAM, I CUT OUT THE GUN AND RYAN IN ORDER TO PUT THE FLASH BEHIND THEM. This is how the process works. It is a long, and very very tedious process. It's very slow too, going frame by frame (remember, 30 frames per second).

However, it must be done. I honestly kinda enjoy this. It's tedious and boring, but you get to see the ordinarily plain clip transform into something so awesome.

The first two scenes are just about done. This here is the third scene. As you can see, Julien is going to be dominated by Ryan.

I couldn't be happier with how the video looks so far. It's honestly incredible and super exciting. Can't wait to show y'all the final product.

Well night everyone!

UNDERFIRE 3

Announcing, the new video soon to hit Youtube, the third installment of the UNDERFIRE series!

I shall give you readers a small description of what it's about:

1. There are 4 players
2. It is 2 versus 2
3. There are Nerf guns

You may remember Julien from the Missing Immigrant Agency. He makes an appearance in this video. Plus, my friend Matt makes his debut. I make a short cameo, and Ryan and Henry return, this time as teammates.

I am very excited to see the final product. I've lain down all the clips already, and it looks pretty good so far. With music and effects, this is sure to be a great video.

The special effects are gonna be incredibly tough though. LOTS of new things that I'm going to put in, like new muzzle flashes, blood effects?, smoke, and wall hits. It's going to take a while to finish. But I will do my best as editor to make you fans happy!

I have some preliminary pictures for you.

I will be updating this blog frequently. Much editing must be done!

More screenshots and news to come.