Urban Legends of Video

Like urban legends, there are a few pieces of “conventional wisdom” that float around the motion graphics and 3D communities about how to handle video. They are oft-repeated, but several are simply not true. Some are based on wishful thinking; some on a germ of truth; some from articles or manuals which are incorrect. Yes, you probably already know all of these – but they certainly have caught out colleagues of ours.

Not surprisingly, many of these legends are based around the subject of frame rates and interlaced fields. Fields in particular are an area where traditional video diverges perhaps the most from the computers we’re creating our video on, and for that reason are easiest to misunderstand.

Open Wide: Creating That Widescreen Look

For years, the widescreen look has held a certain allure. Most widescreen imagery originated as film that was reframed for television, implying “classy”, “expensive” and “not of video.” Now, with the arrival of high-definition television, widescreen also means “cutting edge” and “the future”, and more clients want that look. The question is, how can you achieve it without hi-def sources? As strongly as our hi-def future beckons, the reality is that many productions for some time will need to be created or repurposed to standard definition.

Elements for Editors

As motion graphics artists, we’re often asked to supply elements for an editor to use in a final composite or program. These might include single frames of text, titles that build on in stages, or a fully animated title. If the production is a corporate video, chances are that the elements need to build in sync with a voiceover. However, final audio is rarely finished by the time we have to create our elements – at best, we have a scratch track. This puts the responsibility on the editor to time these elements over the final version. The image these go over may be live video, or a loopable animated background which you might also be hired to create.

All these variables add up to the need to supply individual elements to the editor, so he or she can decide on how the animation should build and sync to the script.

Luminance Ranges in Video

It would seem like a simple concept: “black” is the darkest color you can have; “white” is the brightest color. However, not all video hardware and software think this way. Quite often, systems can go “darker” than black and “brighter” than white, allowing safety margins for certain situations.

This means that some systems uses different values for black and white than others. This can cause a lot of problems for a video editor or artist who uses a variety of tools during a production, because images may shift in relative brightness and contrast for no apparent reason. Compounding this problem is a lack of accurate information about how to manage these shifts. But if you ignore them, the results can range from washed-out images to illegal color values.

Therefore, you will need to take it upon yourself to be aware of the black and white definitions that different systems are using, and to translate between them as needed. We will also discuss the oft-confused analog concept of “set up” and how it relates to these digital values. It initially requires a bit of a mind-twist, but will pay off in the long run. We will be using After Effects for some of the examples later in this article, but these concepts apply to all systems - so read on…

Timing Video to Audio

In the days of yore, editing video and audio used to be considered two different disciplines. Today, most desktop and non-linear video editing programs also edit audio with the same tools and capabilities. As a result, video editors are all but expected to also edit their own audio.

For most, this means just mixing together narration, music, and the occasional sound effect. However, if go one step further and make your video edit decisions based on the audio - and vice versa - you will end up with a final program that is tighter, and more compelling to watch, than if you just let the respective cuts fall where they may. The same goes for 2D and 3D animation: Allowing audio to inform your timing decisions results in a stronger overall experience.

Don’t know anything about audio or music? Hang on and we’ll give you a crash course in the next two pages. Already have a good idea of how audio and music work? Jump ahead to the section titled Cut Time on Page 3 and we’ll go over a few tips and tricks to keep in mind, followed by a brief case study. As with any artistic discipline, rules are meant to be stretched and broken - but they give you an important head start.

The Magic Tempos

Vibrations in a sound’s wave happen at a much faster pace than frames happen in video or film. Likewise, a musician may pick a tempo where the peaks of these vibrations - the beats in the music - don’t land on nice, even frame boundaries. However, there is a way to determine tempos that exactly line up with frames. If you can get your composer to use them, your job spotting the audio will be much easier later; you can even animate at these paces without hearing the music, knowing it will line up later.

On The Level

Admit it: How many of you mix audio by dragging the music, narration, and sound effects or ambiance bed into your authoring program…and think you’re finished? Okay, you don’t, but I’ve heard numberous television programs and pieces of interactive media that sound that way. Each component might sound fine individually, but when more than one is playing at the same time, they obscure each other. Or maybe during quieter sections, an unacceptable amount of noise or distortion appears when played back on a system with lower bit-depth or compressed audio. The solution to both comes from proper management of audio levels.

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