NAB 2012

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Closer than ever, this year’s National Association of Broadcasters Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada looks to be the place to be to check out emerging film technologies.. Some say its the year of 4K, some are still wondering what happened to all that 3D hullabaloo. Regardless of trends and new technologies, I am excited to attend as it will be my first NAB, and more importantly an opportunity to meet lots of great folks and Twitter friends in real life! I would love to meet any and all of you, provided you’re friendly and love to talk film. You can best contact me @TheRedOwl, or email me.

If you remember from previous blogs, Marc Loftus from Post Magazine was the moderator at the SXSW 2012 panel I was on, “Moving From Final Cut: Progress or Peril?” Marc was a terrific moderator and kept things moving well. I mention him in this post because he was kind enough to ask me to write a guest blog for Post Magazine, and I’ll also be on their live webcast from NAB on Wednesday, April 18th, at 11:30AM. I’ll be sharing things I’ve seen on the floor and providing a point of view as someone who is new to the NAB show. I’ll also be there doing a few things with DELL who are in the Intel booth this year. Apologies for the delay, but my first video blog about the Dell Workstation I’ve been testing will be out before I fly out to Vegas this Sunday.

There are many things I can’t wait to get my hands on, or at least see in person. In particular the Sony FS-700 and TS3 Cine are two cameras I am very keen to see more of. Tom Lowe will also be there premiering his film “TimeScapes” for the first time, which I have been excited to see since I first ran across his work. See you at the show, or online!

Cheers.

Moving from Final Cut – Progress or Perils? SXSW Panel

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I’ve briefly mentioned on Twitter and other social media channels that I’d be participating in a SXSW panel. Now is the time I actually get to share about that panel! Quite frankly the fact that it is a “panel” is why I was interested to participate. I don’t think it would be quite that interesting with me up there, alone. I’ll be participating on behalf of Dell and NVIDIA.

Dell is providing myself and several other filmmakers with new, top of the line workstations built with the Adobe Creative Suite in mind. Full disclosure – Dell is providing this workstation for free. Editors and creatives who are moving from a primarily Final Cut Pro 7 workflow to one based around Adobe Premiere is what they had in mind here. I was already planning on doing this, and was quite touched Dell thought I was important enough to have me on board. I’ll be testing and using the Dell Precision workstation over the next 12 weeks and sharing my thoughts on a variety of platforms. I’ll be going into more detail about this social media initiative Dell has embarked on, and my role in it. Another blog post will be out tomorrow going into more detail on how I got involved, and why.

Here are some more specific details about my SXSW panel:

Moving From Final Cut – Progress or Perils?
Monday, March 12
3:30PM – 4:30 PM CT
Austin Convention Center, Room 2

I hope to see you there! I’ve got a few friends in the Austin area and can’t wait to meet new people there. If you have any questions or comments – be they positive or negative, feel free to comment here or email: tom@theredowl.com.

Cheers!

For Your Consideration

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No, this isn’t my post letting you know about those oh so obscure films that should have been nominated, my displeasure with the Academy, or anything like that. However, now that I have your attention with a misleading title, I suppose I should mention this IS about films. Films deserving of your attention that I have seen in the past six months or so. My standards for this post don’t go beyond the fact that I enjoyed them very much, and they weren’t huge Hollywood blockbusters. Here is a list with a brief explanation for you below.

1. Hell And Back Again

So my previous Oscar-related statement goes out the window a bit here, but not entirely. A documentary by Danfung Dennis, this powerful film would be worth your money, Oscar nomination or not. This film first caught my eye because it was filmed on the Canon 5DMKII, a revolutionary full-frame camera that was initially just meant for web clips shot by photographers. People like Danfung, Shane Hurlbut, and many more have gotten much more out of the camera than Canon ever anticipated. On a whim I ordered the Blu-Ray, confident it would be a great film. This was of course after reading many reviews, so it wasn’t totally random. I watched it today and it was gripping in a way that no other documentary has ever been. I’ve seen plenty of fictional war films, and what you feel when you see real soldiers being injured and killed, that close and that real, is unlike anything that’s ever been shot before. This isn’t a political film – others have come and gone before already. Hell And Back Again, is as it is marketed – the true cost of war.

It focuses on Sergeant Nathan Harris of the U.S. Marine Corps, a young man who was injured in the line of duty. The story focuses on him during his time in Afghanistan, his wounds he sustained, and the process of recovery when he comes home. The 5DMKII was the perfect camera to capture this story but make no mistake – the story is first and foremost what will grip you throughout the 88 minute film. You won’t be wondering what lenses he used or marveling at the filmmaking of it – Hell And Back Again sucks you in quickly and never lets go.

Trailer

Buy: iTunes | Blu-Ray

2. The Art of Flight

Snowboarding films are not particularly the first thing I would put in my Blu-Ray player, but this one transcends many of them to reach audiences like myself who haven’t seen many, or any snowboarding films. Director Curt Morgan makes excellent use of the large budget of the film, which is truly an experience to behold. Travis Rice and many other talented snowboarders go around the world to the back country to bring you some of the most insane snowboarding you have ever seen. The entire team at Brain Farm Digital Cinema should be very proud of their work. The special features on the Blu-Ray warrant buying it in nothing less than that.

Trailer
Buy: iTunes | Blu-Ray

3. All.I.Can

All.I.Can by Sherpas Cinema first showed up on my radar after Tom Guilmette posted about it. The trailer was unique and intrigued me enough to buy it on iTunes. One mistake I made going into it was thinking this was skiing’s version of Art of Flight – it is most certainly NOT that. Everything about this film bears little similarity to The Art of Flight. The budget was most certainly lower, and the cinematography choices were very different. Hats off to the D.P. and everyone involved who poured their time and effort into this film. The visual language alone is worth the price of admission. One disappointment was the quality on iTunes HD – it was not that great. I’ll be getting the Blu-Ray too.

Trailer
Buy: iTunes | Blu-Ray

4. The Underground World of Sequoia National Park

Steven Bumgardner may be better known in Twitter circles as @YosemiteSteve, and he is the filmmaker behind this documentary. Most of what I enjoy watching on Netflix is National Geographic type content, if you are into nature and such then this film is definitely for you. The Los Angeles Times called this film “A 60 Minute Gem.” The underground caves of Sequioa National Park hold many mysteries, and hold your full attention for the hour long film. A gem made back in 2004, this one is definitely worth your time and money.

Buy: Amazon

Bonus: Watch all the “Yosemite Nature Notes.”

Critical Focus and the SmallHD DP4

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I just got this bad boy in time for MLG Raleigh, and decided to share my thoughts on this new addition to my kit. If you’re unfamiliar with Major League Gaming, MLG is the governing body for eSports in North America. Now that isn’t to say there isn’t competition from smaller leagues, but I would consider them to be the NFL of competitive video games. I’ve been doing contract work at their events for about 5 years. The games on the Pro Circuit are Halo: Reach, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops. This event also saw a sneak peek at Gears of War 3, as well as the addition of League of Legends.

I wasn’t planning on buying the DP4 just yet, but I caught a great deal on eBay and I’m very glad I bought it. It’s changed my quality of work in several ways. I’ll be discussing those first, and then getting into the strong points of the DP4 and the ways it falls short. It’s a great piece of gear, but definitely not perfect. I leave it to you to make your own decision.

That being said, it was a dream to work with this past weekend in Raleigh, North Carolina. MLG events take up a huge convention hall, and things move pretty fast. There’s no opportunity to get the important shots more than once – getting critical focus, how you frame your shot are usually split second decisions when they really count. I shoot a variety of footage there, but it all revolves around StarCraft 2, one of the biggest games in the world for eSports. I shot on the Canon 7D, so thankfully there was no down-rezzing when I would hit record. The 5DMKII and T2i both downrez to 480p and it looks horrid. Even with the problem of down-rezzing with my T2i, I found doing some quick testing that right out of the box it was much easier for me to get critical focus. I know some people swear by the LCD and have never touched an external monitor. My vision is not 20/20 so this monitor has been a huge help to me.

I’m constantly analyzing things throughout an MLG event, how I’m doing, what I could be doing better, and what would enable me to get better shots in the future. The DP4 was absolutely invaluable when getting critical focus. We also rented different lenses this event – the Canon 24-70L and 70-200L IS II. MLG events are not brightly lit so having f/2.8 available helped me stay at lower ISO’s when in the past I’ve had to resort to as much as 3200 ISO(yuck). The lenses and the addition of the SmallHD DP4 enabled me to get my shots in a much more effective manner. At the end of the match, I’m tasked with getting reaction shots of the winner, and anything he might do after. For example, Korean pro player Nada won a very tough StarCraft match on the main stage during Raleigh. Nada’s reaction was great, and then he came out of his soundproof booth and celebrated a bit on the main stage. These type of moments are fast moving and I can’t afford to not get those shots – they happen only once. These moments tend to be extremely fast moving and I also make my best effort to stay out of our broadcast cameraman’s way. Without the DP4 I do not think I could have maintained focus as much as I did. It can look quite amateurish to have shots go in and out of focus.

One thing I was surprised at was how little I used the extra features of the DP4. The false colour, peaking, focus assist – I used none of them. The DP4 did what I needed it to do – help me maintain focus, or grab it very quickly. Another surprise for me was how heavy the DP4′s EVF loupe was – the thing was not light. Eventually it proved to be more an annoyance to me than a help. The optics were not bad, it just didn’t fit in with the environment I was tasked to shoot. The quality of the loupe was not an issue, however when I needed to do higher shots the loupe tended to fall down back onto the monitor and block my view of the shot. Honestly I don’t see myself using the EVF loupe much, if at all. Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown accustomed to the back of an LCD, but I just prefer seeing the DP4 without looking through an eyepiece.

The screen protector was great to have, and I did an unintentional drop test. The included hotshoe mount for the DP4 that I had was terrible. It felt like unless I tightened everything with all my might, the hotshoe mount would be loose. At one point, thankfully not at a critical moment, everything I had mounted on the hotshoe fell off and hit the ground. The DP4 was unaffected, as was the Rode Videomic Pro and LitePanels MicroPro I was using. I don’t recommend mounting that much stuff on a DSLR hotshoe. The build quality of the DP4 didn’t have me worried before, and after that little mishap I was even more confident in it. Battery life was good, I had 2 LP-E6 knockoff batteries from Opteka on it at all times. I got hours of use out of it, but never timed it precisely so I’m not sure exactly how much I got out of it.

Maybe if I had a shoulder rig or wanted it in a more ENG style configuration the EVF loupe would come in more handy for me – but it doesn’t. There are many different kinds of shooters, whose lenses all capture different types of stories. The types of stories I capture through my lens will not need the EVF loupe for the most part. As I said before, the build quality of it wasn’t flimsy, or bad – just not right for me. I will say the 2 second delay between shooting and reviewing shots on the DP4 is quite annoying. However, SmallHD has said that a fix is coming via firmware updates. I haven’t used Marshall or any competing monitors, so I can’t really tell you if this one is better. One thing I have heard about the DP4 is that it runs a bit hot, and I can confirm that is true. However, it was never a real issue for me. I would be more annoyed if it impeded the operation of the monitor, but it doesn’t, and therefore isn’t too much of a concern in my book.

What you see on your DP4′s screen matches what you will see on your computer pretty closely. I didn’t modify many settings on the DP4, just some slight tweaks to contrast and brightness. My need with this piece of gear was the ability to grab focus quickly and have a larger viewing screen. The SmallHD DP4 has more than met that need for me, so why not check out the SmallHD DP4 and see if it meets your needs?

No Second Take Required

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If you’ve had the chance to get your hands on a KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly, you probably already know how this review is going to turn out. I thought I would share my thoughts on this new and profoundly smooth tool. If the Pocket Dolly were transformed into a human, it would probably turn into Frank Sinatra. Not exactly a scientific fact, but you may be called upon to excuse my hyperbole throughout this post.

Full disclosure: I was able to acquire the KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly from them due to the fact I’m doing a video for their fantastic Kessler University website. I was offered payment in whatever manner I wished, but I thought it better to get gear for my work. So while I definitely am not getting it for free, I thought this something I should disclose right off the bat. I don’t have a “statement of ethics” or anything like that, but I’d like to think I behave in an honorable manner in any of my dealings, on or offline.

I must say, Eric Kessler, Chris Beller, and KesslerCrane’s reputation for good customer service is not undeserved. I knew I could probably use the Pocket Dolly for an upcoming shoot, and let them know. That shoot was a few weeks ago for MLG’s “Dr. Pepper Ultimate Gaming House.” The basic idea of the web series is to pick from user-submitted videos, and remodel the winner’s room into a gaming den of epic proportions. Eric and Chris graciously hooked me up early and sent the Pocket Dolly and needed accessories to the hotel we would be arriving at in Illinois. To say I was ecstatic to finally get my hands on this would be a bit of an understatement. My frequent collaborator Joseph Pollock and I filmed a short test film of sorts called “Firm” later that night.

The temptation to go on a slider fetish run was great, I won’t lie. If that makes you scratch your head and wonder what I mean, I mean abuse of a slider, doing moves with one “just because you can” and for no other reason than that. Thankfully my duties on the shoot prevented me from letting my mind wander to my new piece of gear. We ended up only using it for one part of the shoot, for b-roll in an old arcade. This was one area my DSLR was an absolute nightmare, trying to tweak the shutter speeds to match the refresh rates on the different arcade screens. However I was able to get some great shots regardless.

One thing that surprised me immediately was how much I disliked the hand crank. It felt very unnatural to me to use the crank, so I opted for a more hands on approach. If you choose to go the Pocket Dolly route, know that any errors on slider moves are probably your fault. The Pocket Dolly is seriously as smooth as butter. You may not be perfect at it immediately, but keep using it and practicing with it so you can use it perfectly when it does count. Joe and I’s short film “Firm” was more or less an interesting way to practice using the Pocket Dolly. The only slider I’d used before was a Glidetrack SD. I won’t say much about it other than I was not impressed with it. I’m sure I could have gotten better with it over time, but having it seize up mid-move drove me nuts. The high quality craftsmanship behind the Pocket Dolly shows. Any minute errors with the different moves you can achieve with the Pocket Dolly were definitely my fault. I had to even learn to control my breathing so as to achieve perfectly smooth motion. There are a host of different moves you can achieve with the Pocket Dolly, you are not limited to just horizontal moves.

The next gig I used it at recently was MLG Anaheim, in Anaheim, California. Major League Gaming is the governing body for eSports in North America. Our events attract thousands of spectators, competitors, and millions of viewers online. Our most recent event, in Anaheim, attracted over 20,000 spectators, over 120K in prizes, and 35 million views online. MLG’s broadcasts employ a sports type model for broadcasting on the internet. The production values are quite good – we have 4 channels on our website, one for each game and one “best of” type of channel that broadcasts all 3 games. MLG currently has Halo: Reach, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Pro Circuit.

This was my first experience traveling with the Pocket Dolly. I got no trouble from TSA or airlines carrying on the Pocket Dolly and a Pelican 1510 case. The Pocket Dolly fits quite nicely in an overhead for travel. The Anaheim event was 3 days long – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Friday I used the Pocket Dolly for strictly vertical moves. This configuration is easy and requires only one tripod with the quick release plate mounted in the middle. I used a Giotto ball head so that I could point the camera perpendicular from the vertical Pocket Dolly. This enabled me to do vertical moves with the camera pointing at whatever I was shooting. Most of my camera work on Friday was crowd shots, and shots of our players. I refrained from using the Pocket Dolly on Saturday, and used it in a horizontal configuration on Championship Sunday. In order to have it properly balanced, I used 2 tripods on either end. If you get the Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly or Pocket Dolly Traveler, you do not need to do this(or so I’m told). The PD Travel or Philip Bloom Pocket Dolly only require one tripod.

Carrying around the two tripods and Pocket Dolly rig was a bit of a workout but more than worth the trouble. It enabled me to do various moves I hadn’t been able to do before. More dramatic crowd shots, and on one occasion to do a pull-out move on a pro StarCraft player. Moving away from him with my camera accentuated the fact he had just lost and worked quite nicely. On one occasion I used the Pocket Dolly in a slightly unorthodox manner. One player had just beat his mentor on the main stage, and he immediately left his area to talk to his mentor who had just lost. It was a fast moving moment, could have been easily messed up, especially on a DSLR where a stabilized shot is key. In my current configuration I had the Pocket Dolly mounted parallel to the main stage – and I had the camera mounted to the quick release plate attached to my Giotto ball head. I slid very fast with it in a pseudo-handheld type of shot that worked well. It allowed me to follow him across the stage in a much smoother manner than just pure handheld.

If you’re looking for a “score” at the end of this to rate the Pocket Dolly you’re out of luck. I can tell you it’s a solid addition to anyone’s kit. If you’ve gotten to the end of this and are envious, you’ve missed the point. Writing this is not some elaborate ad for KesslerCrane – purely my own thoughts on how it’s already helping my own creativity. The thing about creativity is, it’s all well and good but you can’t do a jib move without a jib, or a slider shot without a slider. There are certain moves you cannot achieve without certain pieces of gear. There are so many sliders out there, I can’t tell you if KesslerCrane’s Pocket Dolly is the best one out there. All I can tell you is it’s a solid product with fantastic customer service to back it up. Would I have bought the Pocket Dolly if I wasn’t doing a video for KesslerU? The answer is most definitely yes – while I am prepared to accept some compromises on quality & price in some areas of gear purchase, this was not one of them. I’ve heard too many horror stories about a slider seizing up mid-move during an event where there are no second takes.

If you’re interested in a product that requires no second take, check out the KesslerCrane Pocket Dolly.

Shifting Focus

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Well to anyone who reads this even on a weekly basis I must apologize. I’ve been neglecting this blog for a long time, but it’s simply because I’ve been “shifting my focus” as the title of this post would imply. To be honest, I don’t dig the idea of baring your soul on the internet in extremely heartfelt blog posts, not that I’ve ever written one. Most of my blogs have centered on my work. However, I’ve felt the format of this blog to be a bit lacking.

Facebook pages and Tumblr have filled the void I felt was there for my type of blogging style. Facebook has been a great place to share behind the scenes sort of material, among other things. I’m still feeling things out in terms of what belongs on Tumblr and what belongs on Facebook. However any short blogs I do write tend to end up on one or the other. So, I invite you to check out my Facebook Page and my Tumblr! You should find something of value in both places.

This post doesn’t mean I’m not going to write another post here – it just means most of my blogging is very “short-form” and this blog is going to be kept for longer posts that are not suited to Tumblr or Facebook. Cheers!

My Favorite 10 Photos of 2010

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#1: Expose The Train

This photo is my favorite of 2010 for a few reasons. The main one being how incredible it is that there is no shake evident in the photo. At the time, I had a terrible tripod. When I say terrible I mean TERRIBLE, like got it for $20 terrible. At the time I was excited to try out my new intervalometer on some long exposure photography. This shot was a happy accident. I set the exposure time for 45 seconds and the train happened to end up like this.

#2: Tax Dollars

If there’s one thing I enjoy about a photo, it’s when symmetry plays a large role in what makes it visually pleasing. This photo was shot at Gail’s Harley Davidson. Every year they do a motorcycle ride in honor of those who died on 9/11. In order to keep things running smoothly, the police help direct traffic and lead the ride. I couldn’t resist snapping a picture of all their motorcycles lined up.

#3: Mullets

This one’s probably one of my favorite photos shot on my iPhone. The camera itself is not very high resolution, but apps like Cross Process allow you to play with the colors and processing in very interesting ways.

#4: Starry Night

This one was one of my first shots while on vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. I’ve been in the country plenty of times, far from the city life. However the view of the stars there was incomparable. The view made me painfully aware that I need faster glass. However I think this shot definitely gets the point across.

#5: Love & Hate

This one was another adventure in long exposure photography. The results of combining sparklers with long exposures has never let me down. Thankfully I had a few friends on hand who drew these shapes with a good guess!

#6: Antelope

One of my favorite trips this year was to South Dakota’s Black Hills. I was lucky enough to see an antelope near the road, which I’m told doesn’t happen very often. This one was not very jumpy – I didn’t have anything beyond a focal length of 55mm, combined with the crop factor of 1.6 on my T2i.

#7: Motorcycle Madness

This shot was also taken on the day of the 9/11 motorcycle ride at Gail’s Harley Davidson. There were so many great bikes there I could, and did, shoot photos all day. I picked this one mainly because of how I processed it in Photoshop, and the beauty of the bike. If there’s one area I’ve advanced much this year, it’s how to properly process photos taken in RAW.

#8: The best thing one can have…

I’m a bit biased here as I know the photo subject and she is wearing my favourite sunglasses…but I still think this is one of my better photos. Taken in Custer State Park. In particular, I liked the lighting of this shot.

#9: For Good Measure

This one was also taken at the 9/11 ride that started at Gail’s Harley Davidson. The military landed an Apache helicopter there, which was what attracted me to it in the first place as I was driving by. This gun is attached to one of the most amazing cameras I have ever seen. The camera is helmet-mounted and responds to the gunners head movement. This gun follows suit. While I am anti-war, one can’t help but admire the engineering effort that went into such a system.

#10: Dead Hills

This moment was one of the more surreal and reflective moments of my trip to South Dakota. This was taken from the top of Mount Moriah. On one side, there’s these hills. Lifeless and barren trees – which I found quite interesting as a new sight I had never seen. On the other side directly behind the direction I took this picture is the famous town of Deadwood. The view from the top of Mount Moriah is nothing short of majestic.

New Video: The Black Hills

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The Black Hills from Tom Baurain on Vimeo.

So, I finally got around to editing the footage I shot while on vacation in South Dakota. The Black Hills are an incredible region of the United States, you owe it to yourself to make it out there sometime in your life.

I haven’t posted this before now due to my contributions to “Love The Earth,” the film by Imogen Heap and Thomas Ermacora I blogged about right below this post. I wasn’t sure what they were going to use and didn’t have time to edit this until now. Sadly, they didn’t use any footage from South Dakota. I hope you enjoyed it! I particularly loved the shots of the buffalo itching himself against that wooden post. One of the weirder shots I’ve ever lensed.

Cheers!

New Video: Denoise

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Denoise from Tom Baurain on Vimeo.

Music: “In Motion” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross Amazon MP3 | iTunes

If you’ve been following my blog or Twitter you’ve probably seen me tweet a few times about Magic Bullet Denoiser, a great new product from the folks at Red Giant Software. The post below this one gets into the basics of the program. This video is a better example of what Denoiser can do.

It’s not all gumdrops and lollipops, unfortunately. Denoiser is a great product, but it is not perfect. One should never expect that of a product but Denoiser certainly does a fine job. Those with a trained eye may notice some compression artifacts in the video. By this point my patience was completely gone and it does what I set out for it to do. It’s not what I wanted it to be, but it comes close.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty of the flaws of Denoiser. I can tell you right now that “Cannot Sample Frame” is an error you will curse many times. In Final Cut Pro I found Denoiser almost unusable. I came up with a few workarounds but Denoiser definitely has room to improve. Perhaps it is just FCP showing it’s age. I’m honestly not sure and would love to be corrected in the comments if anyone knows for sure. These are my best guesses. I am running the latest version of Final Cut Pro.

There would always be a certain point in the timeline where I would run into the infamous “Out of Memory” error and Denoiser would refuse to render. I tried several common workarounds for the “Out of Memory” error and closed all other projects, timelines, and even made FCP the only program I was running. At 8GB of RAM my user experience was hardly what I would call good. One thing I should mention is that the “Cannot Sample Frame” error will completely kill your job in Compressor, while this same error in After Effects won’t wreck your render and completes the job just fine.

To alleviate my woes I set After Effects CS4 to the task of “denoising” my footage. AE proved to be much more reliable in this task. For a workflow that involved an actual project with deadlines I would most certainly rely on After Effects over Final Cut Pro. I would also denoise the clips in need first, as this task should be performed before color correction. Another thing worth mentioning is how RAM intensive the plugin is itself – it’s not what I’d call fast.

Don’t take my words as all doom and gloom – FCP did handle around half my clips with Denoiser applied just fine. The render times were pretty bad, but at least it worked. My timeline ended up being 3:31, so you have an idea of what I was working with. Denoiser’s fine tuning options are definitely well thought out, kudos to Red Giant Software. The options I found myself coming back to again and again were “Enhance, Shadow Offset,” and the actual effect itself. Shadow Offset really saved me on a timelapse recently – it was long exposure so there were variable amounts of light in each frame, which resulted in the shadows for part of the timelapse being very “blocky.” Adjusting the Shadow Offset property saved me on that.

Chroma Smoothing was a bit tricky, at least for me – I usually left it alone. Most of the time it made the footage I shot look worse. Honestly I was surprised at what Denoiser could do with the footage I shot at ISO’s 3200 and 6400. It wasn’t perfect, especially at ISO 6400, but it was better than I was expecting. Now I’m not saying my EOS Rebel T2i is as good as a 1DMKIV, but footage shot at 1600 and 3200 is definitely usable depending on what lighting conditions you are shooting in.

Another thing I noticed was the “smoothing” in general it did. Like I said in my previous blog, there is such a thing as too much, but the more I looked at my footage there is a definite “smoothing” of things. How much is too much is definitely up to you. The most noticeable common area for me was on skin. It was almost like skin being smoothed in Photoshop, though definitely not as over the top as some fashion magazines that get dissected on the internet. It’s not a negative, in my opinion, but definitely something worth noting.

Again let me reiterate that color correction should be done after Denoiser has been applied. I did no color correction on this particular project. I made that choice so that the viewer could get a better idea of what things are like with just Denoiser applied. Hopefully you enjoyed the video! I wanted to use “In Motion” from The Social Network soundtrack and it fit this little side project. If you were wondering, all clips were shot at f2.8 on a Tokina 11-16mm lens. I love the way that lens flares, especially at ISO 3200.

Cheers!

First Impressions: Magic Bullet Denoiser

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Last night I made the best purchase I’ve made this year: Magic Bullet Denoiser. One thing you should note right off the bat is I’ve never used Neat Video, another popular solution for reducing noise in your footage. No posts on this blog will be about comparing the two, just focused on Magic Bullet Denoiser. A new entry from Red Giant Software, Magic Bullet Denoiser is, as Red Giant puts it, “state of the art video noise reduction, right out of the box.”

Red Giant Software needs no introduction – they’ve made, and I’ve purchased, many of their quality products for filmmakers and motion designers. Their new entry into the market, Magic Bullet Denoiser, does not disappoint and is par for the course for them as a company.

Before buying, I downloaded the free 30 day trial. As I already have many of Red Giant’s plugins for After Effects, it only made sense to get it for AE. Red Giant also offers Denoiser for Final Cut Pro, as with many of its plugins. Quick thanks to Aharon Rabinowitz of Red Giant – he read my post and pointed out that when you buy Denoiser, you buy it for both platforms, not just one. Definitely makes more sense than having to buy it twice for FCP and AE. Thanks for the tip Aharon! The plugin itself is fantastic – my first go-round with this software was quite fun, to say the least.

There’s not much technical insight I can give you into the plugin, just yet – why not go read Scott Simmons insightful blog over at Pro Video Coalition? Next, I’ll take you on through the process of reducing noise on a recent clip I shot while at an event in Washington, D.C.

This clip was a recent timelapse I shot at MLG DC. It was towards the end of the event. My camera was set up on top of the main stage area, pointing towards the rest of the venue. It appears to be so empty because the most of the crowd is actually is watching the MLG Halo 3 Championships, or World of Warcraft off to the right of the frame. I only had my 18-55mm kit lens available at the time. The timelapse itself was meant to capture people leaving the event.

First we have a frame grab from the clip itself. Not bad, but a little dark due to the large differentiations in lighting around the event venue. The lens itself is not particularly suited to this environment either at f3.5.

I brightened it a little with a simple adjustment layer using Curves.

When the image is brightened up a bit you can really start to see the image fall apart, especially at the edges and darker areas. The kit lens itself is not good, but that’s not exactly news.

As you can see, not pretty at all. Horrid, one might say – definitely in need of Denoiser. Once applied, Denoiser gives you an array of options. The ones displayed below are what Denoiser applies by default.

Many of these options are self-explanatory, and I can’t wait to try some of the other options for fine-tuning. The picture below is the same frame from before, only with Denoiser applied with a Noise Reduction setting of 200. The flexibility of this setting is impressive – but as I suspected, there is a certain point where too much noise reduction will blur your clip beyond acceptable limits. What those limits are depend entirely upon your clip, and what you define “acceptable limits” as, of course. Motion Estimation is another setting you should pay close attention to, and set depending on how much movement there is in your shot.

Just for good measure, here is a comparison screenshot of what we started with and what we ended up with, thanks to Denoiser.

This was a very quick test, but based off of first impressions with this software, this is the best $99 dollars I’ve spent on postproduction software this year. I’m excited to try these on more clips I’ve shot to test out the plugin. In particular, the fine tuning on this software looks fantastic. Do yourself a favor and download the free trial right now. It puts a nasty red X through the full frame of your footage, but you’ll definitely get the idea. My next post will be a reel of sorts showing off the capabilities of Denoiser in action. So be on the lookout for that.

Magic Bullet Denoiser is a powerful tool to have in your postproduction toolbox.

UPDATE:

Here is the video I promised showing Denoiser in action:

Denoise from Tom Baurain on Vimeo.