The rampant success of the tribute-laden ‘La La Land’ belies the fact that cinematic homage is not an easy thing to pull off. Here are some the lessons it can teach us all on how to do homage right.
When production crews don’t have the time or budget to reshoot a scene at night, VFX teams can change it digitally — but doing this effectively goes far beyond the flick of a switch.
‘Shrediting’ is very common. Most people just may not call it that, because, well, it’s kind of a silly word. That said, it’s actually perfect for what it refers to: a shooter, producer, and editor combo.
Equalization is a simple concept: it’s about making certain parts of your audio track louder, while making other parts more quiet. Here’s a guide to working through the frequencies, from low to high.
Pond5 has thousands of After Effects templates that can be easily adapted to fit your projects. We rounded up ten of our favorite recent submissions for your convenience and viewing pleasure.
Use your camera lens as the eyes of your protagonist, the subjective view of your main character. A POV shot implies that what the camera is capturing is what the character is seeing. The shot is usually captured at that person’s eye height, whether they’re sitting, sprawled on the ground, or standing up. More than ever, we’ve be seeing a high volume of requests for a wide variety of POV footage, for both unscripted and scripted productions.
• Beginning of the day: Waking up, getting out of bed – feet on floor, making coffee
• Social scenes: Toasting drinks, serving food, etc.
• Performing tasks: Putting gas in a car, cooking, mowing the lawn, moving through a grocery store with shopping cart
• Sports themes: Mountain biking, surfing, skateboarding, skiing, horseback riding
• Animal POVs: Rig your pet with a go-pro and record the action
Suggested Keywords: Point of View, POV, Viewpoint, First-Person
Typical Users: Food and Beverage Commercials, Travel Companies, Retail Chains, Electronic Companies, Tech Companies, Entertainment
PoV Extreme Mountain Biking on Dirt Trail by ActiveStock
Pro-Tip: Make your camera moves as smooth as possible, unless you’re engaged in an activity that requires erratic movement. It’s natural to blend pans and tilts within your shot if your intent is to offer the viewer more insight into the character(s) and their surroundings. If you don’t possess a camera stabilizer, we recommend finding an inexpensive handheld rig as a solution. If you have a few dollars to spare, we highly recommend EVO.
Casting Considerations: Authenticity with talent and imagery. Accept the challenge to subtract artificiality from your setups. In other words, keep it REAL. These things will play an important role in the success of your shoot. Read more in our post on authenticity and why it matters.
Location Diversity: Urban, Suburban, and Rural
Before You Shoot:
• Please check what content already exists in the Pond5 marketplace
• Think about a visual approach that will result in new and fresh footage
Submission Checklist:
• Remember to tag your clips with the keyword code: POVP5BRIEF
• Have all property and model releases filled out and submitted
• No logos or brands may be visible in any of the clips
• Don’t forget to add any applicable conceptual keywords
Top image: Friends Toasting And Drinking In Nightclub by blendimages
Milestones are the significant events that occur in one’s lifetime, and Pond5 needs images that demonstrate firsts, which signify change and progression. These images are enormously popular in commercial advertising and may take on a greater importance given recent world events — which translates to an increase in requests to convey closeness, security, love, and other concepts related to a softer tone and spirit.
• Pregnancy: Scenes showing a couple expecting a child, tender moments demonstrating hope and anticipation, setting up a nursery
• Childbirth: Checking into a maternity ward, being handed a newborn for the first time, looking at a baby through nursery window, babies in incubators
• First Steps: A baby being guided by parents, falling into parents’ arm, or attempting to walk and falling on their backside.
• Breastfeeding
• Babies being comforted or consoled
• Safety: Baby being secured into a car seat
Suggested Keywords: Love, Pride, Compassion, Happiness, Security, Innocence, New Beginning, Milestones, Tenderness, Care
Typical Users: Healthcare, Insurance, Banking and Finance, Credit Cards, Telecommunication, Utilities
Little Feet of a Newborn Baby by fedorov
Pro-Tip: Consider using more graphic shots to illustrate your concept, such as an inked baby foot or baby’s hand wrapped around an adult’s finger. In addition, tight close-up shots on babies’ expressions are always needed.
Casting Considerations: Authenticity with talent and imagery. Accept the challenge to subtract artificiality from your setups. In other words, keep it REAL. These things will play an important role in the success of your shoot. Read more in our post on authenticity and why it matters.
Location Diversity: Urban, Suburban, and Rural
Before You Shoot:
• Please check what content already exists in the Pond5 marketplace
• Think about a visual approach that will result in new and fresh footage
Submission Checklist:
• Remember to tag your clips with the keyword code: MILFEB17
• Have all property and model releases filled out and submitted
• No logos or brands may be visible in any of the clips
• Don’t forget to add any applicable conceptual keywords
Download this brief in PDF format here.
Top image: Close Up Portrait of Baby Boy Smiling at Camera by ImageSource
Establishing shots are critical for creating a geographic location for your action. An establishing shot is usually the first shot of a new scene, designed to show the audience where the action is taking place. It’s usually a very wide or extreme wide shot, and is especially significant, being that it usually sets the time of day for action being filmed on a studio set far from the apparent location, because of budget, permits, or time limitations.
• Real-time and matching day and night lockdowns, pans, tilts
• Suburban Neighborhood
• Mansions
• Apartment Buildings
• Town or Row houses
• House at night when lights are switched off, magic hour where lights are turned on
• Impoverished neighborhoods and run-down buildings, housing estates, dark and empty streets
• Fire or Police Station
• Court House, Prison
• Office Building
• Hospital
• Schools
Suggested Keywords (depending on location): Home, Security, Safety, Family, Wealth, Poverty, Protection, Danger, Community, Education
Typical Users: Unscripted drama and reality TV programming, feature and documentary films
Suburban House White and Tan Establishing Shot with Mailbox by JaimeByrd
Pro-Tip: Attempt to avoid anything that may give the viewer a clue about where your location actually is, such as palm trees or signage (strive to shoot generic buildings for more potential usage). Other than impoverished neighborhoods, all properties need to be well-kept, attractive, and iconic. Other types of camera moves are recommended, but a lockdown is our most preferred — extra points if you can capture day and night matching shots.
Location Diversity: Urban, Suburban, and Rural
Before You Shoot:
• Please check what content already exists in the Pond5 marketplace
• Think about a visual approach that will result in new and fresh footage
Submission Checklist:
• Remember to tag your clips with the keyword code: ESTSHOTP5BRIEF
• Have all property releases filled out and submitted
• No logos or brands may be visible in any of the clips
• Don’t forget to add any applicable conceptual keywords
Top image: Large House with Lights by ImageSource
The man behind the much-loved opening credits for Marvel’s ‘Deadpool,’ Franck Balson is a Layout and Editorial Supervisor at Blur Studio in LA. We caught up with him to talk about his work and find out exactly what ‘layout’ is.
When you’re working with different file types and frame rates, you need to be aware of problems like image cropping, black bars/letterboxing, dropped frames, and image stretching — and know how to fix them.
