Author: Lee Relph

Spring Park Evening – November 7th

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

 

OVFM members are invited to join Spring Park Film Makers for an evening with one of their prominent filmmakers Peter Macpherson on Thursday November 7th at the Griffiths-Jones Hall, Emmanuel Church, West Wickham, BR4 9JL.

Peter is a prolific filmmaker with a record number of 4 star awards for his films at BIAFF as well as wins in the regional and club competitions. With so much knowledge and experience to draw on, Peter has a busy evening planned featuring filmmaking news, techniques and tutorials interspersed with educational and amusing films which will cover the following topics:

 

1. The pros and cons of today’s camera technology from mobile phones to camcorders.

2. A bit about gimbal stabilizers

3. Tutorials about filmmaking, including composition and staging.

4. An introduction to the principles of screenwriting.

5. Music in filmmaking.

 

If anyone is interested in attending this event, please make this known by either replying to this post below or via e-mail to Jane Oliver or in person at the next club meeting on Tuesday November 5th.

Bit(Rate)s & Pieces

Posted on by Lee Relph

BIT(RATE)S AND PIECES

 

During the recent Top Ten competition Jim Morton-Robertson’s film wouldn’t play on the club’s Blu-ray player. The picture would stutter every few frames as it struggled to process the footage.

 

I noticed that the file size was 1.42Gb which was ludicrously large for a 3 minute film so I asked Jim to check the bitrate of his clip, which was 64582 kbps. Jim changed his export settings, this time producing a file with a much more suitable bitrate of 16055 kbps and a far more appropriate file size of 365Mb.

 

But what does this all mean and why does it matter?

 

To start with a brief explanation of video bitrates.

 

Digital video is made up of bits and bitrate refers to the number of bits processed in a set amount of time, listed in kilobits per second (kbit/s). This usually determines the file size as 1 byte of data is made up of 8 bits, so 1Mb of data = 8 megabits (Mbit/s) or 8000kbit/s. The ultimate file size is therefore decided by the sum of the formula Bitrate x Duration.

 

Jim’s film might have a resolution of 1080p but with a bitrate of 64582kbps (64Mbitp/s) crammed into just 3 minutes, it contained the same data as a 4K file, which our Blu-ray player clearly isn’t capable of handling. As this was a setting oversight that was easily corrected, it is worth sharing this with everyone to be a bit more diligent when exporting your files in the future.

 

 

So why do we need high bitrates?

 

As cameras become increasingly capable of capturing ultra HD images (6K is already here) this needs to be reflected and replicated in the films we produce, so higher bitrates will ensure better quality film clips.

 

However this is more for the benefit of online streaming. Many of these sites, like YouTube, are notorious for compressing the hell out of clips uploaded to their platforms, so users have to export them at a higher bitrate (eg: a 1080p file encoded with a 4K bitrate) to trick them into thinking they are compressing a bigger file, ensuring decent quality post-compression.

 

YouTube suggest the following bitrate settings for uploading to their platform:

 

SD (DVD quality) 480p = 2.5 Mbit/s / 2500kbit/s

HD (Blu-ray quality) 720p = 5 Mbit/s / 5000kbit/s

HD 1080p = 8 Mbit/s / 8000kbit/s

HD 1440p (2K) = 16Mbit/s / 16000kbit/s

HD 2160 (4K) = 35-45 MBit/s / 35000kbit/s / 45000 kbit/s

 

N.B – These targets are based on SDR (Standard Dynamic range) whilst HDR (High Dynamic Range) aka Ultra HD, would require higher target values.

 

What about for playback at home on TV or PC?

 

The truth is you can get a perfectly fine looking HD clip for playback on your TV and PC without needing extremely high bitrates because the files aren’t going to be compressed. The only stumbling block will be the capabilities of the device you play them on, whether they have are able to accommodate current codecs – preferably H.264 for MP4 files.

 

As we mainly use 25fps SD/50fps HD, the following suggested basic bitrate targets are based on these parameters, again based on SDR bitrates:

 

SD (DVD quality) 480p = 1.2 Mbit/s / 1200kbit/s

HD (Blu-ray quality) 720p = 2.5 Mbit/s / 2500kbit/s

HD 1080p = 5 Mbit/s / 5000kbit/s

HD 2160 (4K) = 10 Mbit/s / 10000kbps

 

N.B – The following illustrations are from Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2018. Your editor may have different settings and options.

 

Your editor/encoder should offer a range of different settings and options for exporting your files, to cover all file formats, codecs, devices and streaming platforms. To wit:

 

 

One thing which is standard is suggesting a “target” and “maximum” bitrate depending on which settings you choose. For 1080p HD this will be around 20 Mbit/s (target) and 25 Mbit/s (max) though they will usually come in around 15-18 mbps.

 

 

 

Here you can see there is a preset which will encode the video suitable for uploading to Vimeo, with the following settings:

 

 

However, you could still get a good quality video with bitrates half these sizes. For those unsure of what to select, you can trust the  presets of your editor/exporter and use the “Match Source” option to replicate the project/timeline settings.

 

 

These values are easily adjustable, either manually or by changing the output resolution in your project/timeline, for a higher setting if you want a better quality film. Even with a high bitrate, the output result is still in line with the YouTube suggestions yet won’t produce and excessive bitrate or file size.

 

This example is the automatic setting from the Match Source – High Bitrate option:

 

 

To complicate things further, there are two kinds of bitrates – Variable (VBR), a dynamic setting which only peaks when the video detail requires it to, resulting in a smaller file size, and Constant (CBR), which stays at one rate throughout, but means a larger file size. Both have their benefits and setbacks, but most editors will default to VBR so the choice is made easier for you.

 

 

You’ll notice that there are two VBR options Pass 1 and Pass 2. Pass 1 analyses how much bitrate is required and therefore is a quicker encode, Pass 2 will render the entire video compression thus yields a better quality images but takes considerably longer (many hours!) to encode and export, so most people tend to stick to Pass 1.

 

 

How do I check the bitrates of my files?

 

Very easily. If you are using a Windows PC simply right click on the file and a new window will appear. Scroll to the bottom and select “Properties”:

 

 

 

In the window that opens, select the “Details” tab:

 

 

The main information is the “Video Data Rate” and “Total Bitrate” , the latter being the more crucial one.

 

 

 

For the more advanced user, I can recommend a tool you can download for free called MEDIAINFO which will tell you everything and more in great detail.

 

Once installed, as above, simply right click on the file and select “MediaInfo” from the option window:

 

 

 

Every detail about the file from the video encode to the audio and more is there for your perusal:

 

 

 

Hint – Make sure to go to “Options” then “Preferences” to set the “Tree” view in this illustration as default as this is easiest one to read, but not the default setting, otherwise select View from the top menu then “Tree”.

 

 

I hope you found some of the information here useful. I appreciate the technical side regarding bitrates might not seem easy to comprehend at first (I don’t understand half of it either!) but the message here is more about alerting you to this issue and hopefully avoid any future situations where the club Blu-ray player can’t play your files.

 

Thanks for reading.

OVFM CLUB MEETING TUESDAY OCTOBER 22nd

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

It’s a double header evening for the next meeting, as we’ll be dividing the session into two halves.

In the second half we hope to have a Q & A discussion to people a chance to ask that burning question and get a helpful answer from our knowledgeable experts. Before that we have some unfinished business to attend to.

As you recall, this year’s TOP TEN 2019 competition was originally scheduled for two rounds but with only 13 entries and a combination of technical issues, illnesses, new members joining and laziness, the Committee sanctioned this additional “Last Chance” round for people to submit their films.

Names of club members whose entries are outstanding are:

 

Ron Williams

Andy and Marian Watson

Jim and Fran Morton-Robertson 

Brenda and Roger Wheatley 

Ian Menage

John Alford

Peter Mitchell

Charley Caseley

Sam Brown

Colin Jones

Reg and Annabelle Lancaster

 

Along with new members David Halliday and Mandy Carr.

 

As always we ask you to PLEASE reply to this post in the comments below, if you have a film ready. This is vital if we are going to also hold the Q&A session afterwards, so do please respond below by letting us know the following important information :

 

Run time

Media Format (DVD, Blu-ray, USB stick)

Picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9).

 

It’s a simple courtesy we are asking of you and it only takes a few seconds to comply.

Just a reminder if you are bringing a file on a USB stick, the club’s Blu-ray player does NOT play .avi files or anything encoded at 4K or above. MP4 (h.264 codec) is the best format to brings your films in.

Thank you for reading and good luck to everyone who enters a film and don’t forget to have those questions ready!

OVFM CLUB MEETING TUESDAY OCTOBER 8TH

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

NON-VERBAL

 

We appreciate the fact that we announced this project just last month (don’t look at me, I don’t make the programme) which hasn’t given you much time for everyone to get your creative juices going or your films made but hopefully some of you have been inspired to put something together for this theme of “Non-Verbal”, or have something lurking in your archives that would fit the bill

In the announcement post, I linked to a silent film I made a few years back. I actually filmed and edited the whole thing inside 6 hours, with half the usual filming problems eradicated as there was no dialogue to record! So if I can do it, you can too.

As usual we ask a little cooperation from everyone bringing a film to the meeting to PLEASE REPLY TO THIS POST in the comments/reply section below, letting us know the film’s run time, media format (DVD, Blu-ray, USB/Memory stick), file format if using the latter (MP4 is preferred, 1080p maximum) and picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9). This is a great help for us when planning the evening out and helping things run smoothly so if you could do us this courtesy it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing your films on Tuesday!

OVFM CLUB MEETING TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 24TH

Posted on by Lee Relph

TABLE TOP FILMING

For this session, it is time to get the cameras out again and do some more filming, this time scaling things down a bit to try our hand at table top filming!

What’s that you ask? Well, rather than me explain it to you, I’ll let John Bunce have that honour. Take it away John:

 

 

Yes, we are giving simple stop motion animation a go, or something approximating that.  If you recall, former club member and erstwhile chairman Simon Earwicker also made some stop motion films using a whole array of everyday items, like elastic bands, glasses, coins and a desk lamp. Obviously this is a painstaking and time consuming process and two hours isn’t going to be an enough to ke a whole film (especially as it takes everyone so long to settle back down after tea break) so anything we do attempt will need to be very short and straightforward.

Hopefully though, this will prove educational and inspiring enough for you to try this for yourself or give you an idea for your entry into next year’s Top Ten competition!

So, if you have an idea for something you’d like to try, please reply to this post below so we can accommodate as many projects as possible, otherwise if you simply want to learn something new – after all that is why we are members of OVFM to learn new skills – make sure to join us this coming Tuesday and be a part of the fun!

(More) COLOUR CORRECTION

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

Hopefully, you will recall John Epton’s video tutorial on this particular subject and my companion piece article explaining the benefits of colour correction and colour grading to our films. Since then I have been delving deeper into the practice of colour correction and learning more grading techniques to give my films a bit of a lift, and now I never leave a single frame untouched.

 

As my eye has gradually become acclimatised to this aesthetic phenomena it is possible to spot when a film has been graded, or had some correction applied to it. During the most recent Top Ten evening, our chair Jane Oliver showed her part black and white, part colour film Braveheart. It was beautifully shot as ever but for me the images didn’t leap out of the screen as they could have.

 

I asked Jane if she added any correction or grading and she admitted she hadn’t, so with her permission I downloaded an older version of her film from our Vimeo account and set about applying some basic (or primary) correction some of the shots. I can’t say they are perfect or to professional standard but are good enough for an illustration of what can be achieved.

 

N.B – Because some of the footage was shot in the dark there is some noise present on a few clips. Unfortunately, my editor doesn’t have a noise reduction function to clear this up – Resolve, however, has an excellent one – so you will witness some attempts to disguise this by making some of the clips a bit darker.

 

The following video features “before” and “after” examples of how even basic colour correction can add so much punch to your images:

 

 

Straight away, you can see how much difference it made to the black and white footage, the simple raising of the shadows and darker areas and shifting of the lighter areas to create a sense of depth and definition to the image. There is now balance between the various shades of black and white where before everything was one shade of grey, and individual features stand out more prominently.

 

Here is an example of the settings I used (my editor is Premiere Pro CC 2018) and the clip it pertains to:

 

 

 

The secret weapon in this case is the curves, which adds the final tweaks to the brightness and contrast of the image with greater precision, yet is the most subtle of all the correction tools:

 

 

For the colour clips, it might be that they are too dark for some tastes. Shooting at night or in low light is hard to get right and, as mentioned earlier, invariable incurs noise on your clip unless the camera is set-up properly and the scene is appropriately lit.

 

This almost required different correction setting, including some finer touches brought out by using the temperature and tint sliders:

 

 

 

In trying to compensate for the noise in some the shots I made the sky and surrounding areas a little darker which enhanced the brightness and colours of the lights, as well as adding depth to the refracted light on the walls and trees, etc. Admittedly I did use some extra tricks here to give the colours a lift but not to the extent of overhauling the entire clip.

 

For instance, I cut back on some of the blues to allow the other colours to shine as represented by the colour wheel:

 

 

Whilst in this clip, you can see the smoke cloud is barely defined and the colour of the lights almost imperceptible, but after correction the vividness of the blue come through very clearly:

 

 

 

 

It might look intimidating or even voodoo to some of you but it really isn’t. It is time consuming when you first try it but after a while, things fall into place and once the basics have been mastered it is simply a matter or making the other bits work in tandem with them. And remember, everything I did here was quick and basic for the sake of this demonstration – had I attempted a full colour grading, it would be much different!

 

And the best part of it all is that YOU can do it to. Yes, you. It really is as simple as moving a few sliders about (depending on your editor’s layout) and recognising where best to cut or boost the corresponding part of the image.

 

Like most things, it takes a while and plenty of trial and error at first, but it will fall into place eventually, and you’ll find colour correction will be as natural to your editing process as adding a transition or title. The key is not to look at it as more work but as making your images that whole lot better.

 

I hope you found this article useful and the video will encourage you to try basic colour correction for yourself to get the best out of your images. Whatever editor you use, there are bound to be online tutorials to show how it’s done – that is how I learned it – and if I can do it, you can do it too.

 

Thanks to Jane for the use of her footage and thank you for reading!

FILM TO A THEME PROJECT – NOTICE

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

NON VERBAL

 

Sorry to break the peace and quiet but since our last Film To A Theme Project the committee have decided to throw another one our way. This time the theme is Non Verbal.

 

In case this sounds like a daunting topic, remember cinema had existed for nearly 30 years before sound was added to moving images – and they do say a picture is worth a thousand words! Creating a narrative without dialogue might sound difficult but with a little bit of imagination it is a lot easier than it might appear, as I found out when I made a silent film with my nephew a few years back.

 

Yet, it doesn’t have to be a traditional silent film, it can be anything with a strong and recognisable narrative – maybe a montage of connected images, or a mime act, or even a story told through sign language – the only requirement is that there is no dialogue at all.

 

There is a lot to think about but unfortunately not too much time a the deadline is the screening evening set for Tuesday October 8th giving you just over a month to put something together.

 

Good luck and we look forward to seeing your entries on October 8th!

OVFM CLUB MEETING TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

TIM JONES

A familiar face to OVFM club members old and new, we weclome Tim Jones, son of Colin, back for another stint as Guest Speaker.

 

Whilst newer club members will know Tim from his previous presentations, for the senior members Tim will be remembered as a fully paid up member of OVFM himself. In fact, Tim was making films before this as an unofficial member before he came of age to be admitted – the age restriction has since been reduced after Tim registered his protest as seen in this photo:

This put him in good stead for his future, making his first IAC international winning entry aged just 20. Since then Tim has become a senior lecturer in film and currently restores old 16mm films.

Tim is renowned for his stop motion animation works but for this session, he will be presenting a film about diabetes – some thing I had a brief scare with a couple of years back – which has been shown to various diabetes organisations and societies so it must be good. Well,  Colin thinks so… 😉

So, that is what we have in store for you this coming Tuesday so be sure you are there to check it out. See you then!

AUTUMN FILM SHOW 2019

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

OVFM Autumn Film Show 2019

One of the most important dates in the OVFM calendar is our annual Autumn Show where we share the fruits of our labours from a year of busy filmmaking, along with some gems from our archive with the public. As the nights are getting darker and colder you’ll need something to brighten them up so why not join us for another evening of films from the very best local amateur filmmaking talent.

 

This year’s event will take place on  FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER at 7:00 for 7.30 pm

VENUE –  Methodist Church, 19 Sevenoaks Road, Orpington BR6 9JH

DIRECTIONS – GOOGLE MAP

WEBSITE – http://www.orpingtonmethodist.org.uk/welcome.htm

 

Club members get in free but for guests and non-members the tickets are £5 – which includes refreshments – and are available by making a request via e-mail at info@ovfm.org.uk or by telephone on 0208 3254454. Don’t leave it too late as they tend to get snapped up very quickly!

And of course there is our famous raffle where a selection of wonderful prizes are up for grabs provided you have that all important winning ticket!

If any OVFM club members or our external friends wish to help publicise this event please download a printable version of the poster HERE  (open the file, right click and save).

For an entertaining and sociable evening do join us on October 25th and bring along your friends and family!

NEXT OVFM CLUB MEETING – Tuesday August 27th

Posted on by Lee Relph

 

Okay folks we are ready for the second round of the TOP TEN 2019 competition!

The first round was rather interesting as the turnout of just 15 people and eight entries meant there were fewer options for choosing people to make comments. Hopefully, this time will be different.

For those of you absent last time, the scoring sheet has also undergone a change for this year, which you can read and download HERE.

Here are the club members who have been selected at random to participate in this second round:

 

Jane Oliver

Jim and Fran Morton-Robertson

John Alford

Ann and John Epton

Mike Shaw

Peter Mitchell

Charley Caseley

Sam Brown

Barbara J. Darby

Colin Jones

Matt Swaby

William Child

Bob Vine

Kuldip Kaur

Barbara Walker

David Laker

Reg and Annabelle Lancaster

Horace Chan

 

Remember if you missed the last round then now is the time to enter your film.

As always we ask you to PLEASE reply to this post in the comments below, if you have a film ready. This was proven to be vital as at the last meeting we ended up running out of time to show all the films. If this occurs again, we may need to add a third round to ensure everybody’s films are shown.

So do please respond below by letting us know the following important information :

 

Run time

Disk Format (DVD, Blu-ray, USB stick)

Picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9).

 

It’s a simple courtesy we are asking of you and it only takes a few seconds to comply.

Just a reminder if you are bringing a file on a USB stick, the club’s Blu-ray player does NOT play .avi files or anything encoded at 4K or above. MP4 (h.264 codec) is the best format to brings your films in.

And that is it. Join us on Tuesday for the second round of the 2019 Top Ten!

Thank you for reading and good luck to everyone who enters a film!