@shian Quick question.. would any of your ghears work as a diffuser / or how would you suggest I go about it to make a hazy (non-flat) look? Maybe it's something that is covered in a tutorial in which case I'll be glad to watch it.. I've been using MBLooks for this kind of thing before but I would like to try it out in AE if possible /if it can yield better results.

@shian cheers!

"My workflow consists of the following (All Pro level Film workflows are similar)

1) Edit in an NLE. ----GET FILM LOCK!---- (can't stress this enough)"

...Number 1) I'm having difficulty with, especially for feature length. I think a (budget) workflow should allow editorial round-tripping for both grading and sound. Flame Premium has this tight iteration going, but it's not for mortals... I guess the alternative is to break down the project in 9-10 sub-projects and get Picture Lock on those as they happen.

@shian what is film lock?

@tonalt Film Lock = The edit is locked - no more changes.. time to finish and deliver.

I'll say it again, "Being a good filmmaker means you have to make decisions whether it be on set or in post. Great filmmakers make great choices."

@stonebat I never want to lose the EDL info because I don't want to have to do further editing. And to get separate clips in AE, Resolve, etc, you need the EDL. No. what I mean is; you are done futzing with the cuts. The film is done, locked, no more editing, moving on to grading, FX, sound, score, etc. decide and deliver.

I realize that for many of you, this is a foreign concept. We are used to doing everything in one program. Maybe we'll bring in elements created in another program, send certain shots to AE or Motion for FX and such, but always finishing in our NLE, rendering it out, and calling it finished. And for most tiny projects, this works. But feature films and television, the standards by which we usually measure our work, are not produced this way. In fact until FCPX, FCP had a 10bit max limit for rendering, but mostly it was 8bit. "Hello, color banding." I would always finish in AE just for that reason. But now current NLEs have 32bit capabilities, so it's not that big of an issue in that regard, unless you are still using FCP7.

Most people, and I was one of them too until I started doing it professionally, who work in a NLE environment think that a visual piece should always be fluid... and they tinker with it endlessly. Which is why most indies take forever to finish, they just keep getting tinkered with, and some just go away, and are never finished. You have to decide. AND Finish...

Finishing is the hard part. With my film "Singularity", I agonized over whether or not to say, "It's good enough. Not perfect, but good enough given my resources." After consulting with many of my filmmaking friends, I had to just call it: time of death, September 10th 2010, and submit it to the world. We had film lock on it for over a year (2009), but I was unhappy with the VFX. So I and the VFX team kept tinkering. Was I happy with the delivered film? No. Would I have liked to spend another 6 months to a year making that one final FX shot I wasn't happy with perfect, and reshoot a couple of moments I feel didn't really work? Yes. But it had to be finished. And it did what I wanted it to do - it showed people I could direct one hell of a movie, won some awards, it gets me invited to movie premieres, gets me meetings at the studios, TV work, etc. It was a very productive $1500 investment. One that would still be sitting on my hard drive if I didn't decide that for the budget, it was as good as it was going get, and release it into the wild. Move on to the next project. Learn from my mistakes, and move forward.

I've adopted the "hollywood workflow" if you want to call it that, because it produces better results. I suggest you do the same if you ever plan on working in production as a career, so that it will become familiar to you. Or if you just want to get better results than you are getting just working in an NLE alone.

@Shian I dont know if its apparent...But I often wish I could have someone like say..Roger Deakins as my mentor.........but I realize now that no... I would rather learn from someone like you. This is 2012...you are on the CUTTING EDGE of an era where a $700 camera can shoot a feature that looks damn well good enough to pass on the big screen to most viewers.YOU have the REAL WORLD knowledge based on experience... and you have a passion and tenacity about cinema and sharing what you know and continue to learn with others. In 15 years people may be talking about YOU the way they do Ridley Scott and will say this I for one respect you sir...and if I could choose an Obi-Wan in my life as a filmmaker... right now I would choose you. If other people on the forums don't want to heed your wisdom.....f-ck them. -

@shian Quick question, I'm in an odd predicament.

I'm shooting a 5 minute short over Saturday and Sunday this weekend as part of the Sci-Fi London 48hr Film Challenge. At Noon tomorrow (well, today now) we are given a title, a prop that we need to include and a line of dialog. We need to then write a script, plan photography, shoot, edit, effects, grade and deliver - by 12 noon Monday morning. We're not planning on sleeping.

One thing that is making me a bit nervous is the unknown quantity of render times. What I'd like to do is is edit, grade and FX the first night, and then add the second day's shoot the night after. I'm just a bit worried that we end up with a 5 minute EDL to grade, FX and render out with only 8 hours to go, and it decides it's going to take 12.

Any ideas on how to tackle something unique like this?

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@No_SuRReNDeR Thanks dude...very flattering, but I wouldn't throw me in with that lot just yet. Just tired of seeing good stories, told well, but getting swept under the rug due to poor production value that could have been had on the cheap, if only one knew where to look.

The work flow I shared is just one alternative of Adobe round tripping. One advantage of their software. It works for me, so thought it might work for someone else. The concept is to share and test different workflows to find out which one is right for your project. If you don't have any workflow to After Effects than you should also put in some effort to research, watch basic tutorials that are free, and try them out. And if you have something that works and you want to share it with detailed instructions, that would be generous.

@pvjames omg man, you know how to get LOTR green! Great photography!