Re: Frame Blending a Pre-composed layer?

[joe ger] "I have 4 time lapse animations shot on dslrs that were shot at 1 frame every 5 seconds and are between 8000 and 10000 frames each, making over 5mins each at 25fps 1080p.
I need to make the final film edit at under 15 minutes where they currently make 23 mins in total."

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you've REALLY got your work cut out for you now; work that could have been avoided by investing a little time in pre-planning.

By taking time for adequate planning, you would have KNOWN how much time you had to cover, you would have KNOWN how long the shot actually was before you began shooting the time lapse, and you would have KNOWN the frequency for firing off that DSLR.

That is what it takes to do successful stop-motion animation or time-lapse animation. The fact that it was shot on a DSLR simply makes image acquisition easier, but it doesn't negate your duty to plan.

The best you can do now is to import those shots as image SEQUENCES. Learn how in AE's online help. You can then use a mixture of strategies: you can conform the footage to various frame rates, you can use Time Remapping, and you can use the Time Warp effect.

It will take a lot of trial and error before you stumble across the best combination to get your shots to the proper length... and you may or may not get to the point where it looks acceptable.



Dave's Stock Answer #2:

When you're out on a shoot, and you say, "we'll fix this in post" without knowing PRECISELY HOW you're going to fix it in post, don't shoot it! You'll only end up shooting it over again.

Since post typically costs three times the cost of production, fixing something in post is not a way to save money, but rather a way to spend more of it.

And, before you say "well fix it in post," always consider who's doing the work, especially if you're the one doing the editing.



Dave LaRonde
Sr. Promotion Producer
KCRG-TV (ABC) Cedar Rapids, IA