Originally posted by: LethalWolfe
Originally posted by: CQuinn
Not to dispute your points, but there is already software out that can apply the same effects as adding
diffusing filters to the camera lens.
Why spend time rendering what can be cheaply and effectively while shooting? Just because something can be done in post doesn't meant it should be done in post.
I assume you meant to add a "done" in there somewhere? And I would counter that while shooting
you incur the costs of travel to and from location, the cost (if any) of using said location, and the
cost of "talent" (how much you have to pay the actors per day. Such costs can make limiting your
shooting schedule favorable when compared with being able to take more time to maximize the
utility of the footage you do capture.
Thanks in part to recording direct to digital, movies like The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix Trilogy, and the upcoming Return of the Sith could be shot and edited in near-real time. This offers the potential
to cut the editing time for "low rent" porn from weeks to days.
LotR and the Matrix were shot on film, not digitally.
You never heard the stories of how the crew for LOTR would transfer film dailies around
on thier iPods? Film and digital sources were combined during production.
Shooting is always done in real time. And rendering the FX for any of the three movies you mentioned was no where close to real time.
I quote myself: "shot and
edited in near-real time". You are correct that it took a few more
days after a scene was shot to start applying the basic effects layers, and months after that before
they were completely rendered, but the initial selection of scnes, sequencing and transitions can
be affected as soon as the first digital capture becomes available.
Thats not the point I was trying to make though...
I have seen first hand TV quality transitions, blends and effects done on DV footage using readily available PC hardware and applications, without much more overhead than the time it takes for the producer to familiarize himself with the technology. The cost for that is low enough to match
what someone might be spending on a new PC now.
Shooting the footage, logging the footage, digitizing the footage, editing the footage, and outputing the final piece won't be drasticaly effected by tech, in terms of speed, until tape gets replaced by nonlinear media.
Shooting to DV (AFAIK) already combines the first three steps you list. Tape is replaced by nonlinear
media by transferring the chosen footage from the camera to hard drive over firewire or USB 2.0 connection. The exersize of selecting and logging separate scenes can be done while footage is transferred.
Thats assuming the camera rig was not already set up to save footage directly to an attached
external drive.
And the latest versions of Digital Image editing tools like Photoshop Elements already have
automated the process of fixing many common types of blemishes. Batch processing multiple
frames is only a few steps beyond that.
The problem here is that the blemishes move 30x a second. You can batch proccess FX that effect the entire frame (like color correction) or for things that, relatively speaking, don't move very much (like some basic wire removal), but removing a herpes sore from her lip that make-up can't hide from HD would have to be done by hand, frame by frame.
Not at all, there was a time when the process of wire removal had to be hand assisted per frame.
I'm not talking about seeing this happen within the current generation of video editors, but using
already established technologies you could:
1. select the start and end points for the scene in question
2. select the face of the actress in question at the start of the scene
3. Isolate the blemish in question.
4. apply pre-loaded blemish correction feature, or load custom "herpes sore-star" script (that changes
a given sore into a star-shaped mole).
5. add a touch of facial recognition
6. apply process: "For every frame of scene(1), where you recognize(5) face(2) of actress,
find blemish(3) on face(2) and correct using "herpes sore-star".
Note, I'm not saying there is a piece of software that can do all of that right now, but the technology
to do so does exist now. You assume each frame has to be examined by hand to find the blemish
in the first place, but applying another "filter" of isolating the face in its own framework drastically
reduces the area that the computer itself can isolate and correct without assistance.
All talent is afriad of how they'll look in HD because SD is so soft in comparison. I know shooters that use more diffusion now (w/HD) than they did before (w/SD).
Lethal
On the other had there are who genres of adult entertainment that specifically target their products
based on a specific characteristic of the performers; and the more real and stark that characteristic
can be shown the better. It seems that the whole point of some studios is to keep pushing the
line until they find one that their audience won't cross, then they know what they can sell to the
masses, and what will end up on some compilation DVD in the future.
(What? dispose of it? Nah, we can sell that stuff in the Totally Gross series, volumes 1 & 2!)
