Contrast Question

[vervor]

Hello all,
I have a rather specific question. 3 or 4 years ago when I solely used iMovie to rough out little experimental films I wanted to do, I downloaded a lot of sample effects that you can play around with. One of them was called Vitrix Black&White. If you're not familiar with this effect, it essentially features a value bar and on one side the contrast is way up, and on the other way down - and in B8W. But the place where you pick on the value bar effects the picture so that it picks a value and everything brighter than it goes completely white, and everything darker in value goes black. So you're left with what looks like moving shadows and blobs. I've been gradually getting better at shooting with this in mind and then using the effect in iMovie before dumping it over to FCP for touchups and further editing. I can make it animation-ish and even combine elements of different shots to make the composition even more creative. My question is - how do I recreate this effect with tools in FCP?? I'm sure there's away, I am just not super-experienced in combining various effects in FCP to get to what I'm looking for. Does anyone have an answer for me? Thanks very much in advance...

-Aaron

 

[Filmosity]

Ya know, I'm not exactly sure what you're going for here.

However, you really just need to go into final cut and play around with the color and brightness tools.

First, I would desaturate the image completely. That removes all color information. Then, try the contrast and brightness filter. Play with the amounts in there a bit. Next, try playing with the Curves option. You can adjust each of the Red, Green, and Blue values individually or as a group. You may get some cool effects that way. Finally, you could also try the Levels option, which gives you a visual histogram and options to play with the input values, output values, and Highlights, midtones, and shadows (or Hi's, Mids, and lows).

A combination of one or all of these may achieve the look you're going for. I'll take a look at iMovie and Final Cut and try to approximate the look you're going for, if you can explain it a bit better.

Chris

 

[Filmosity]

Which one of these are you talking about?

or

Both can be accomplished in FCP4

 

[vervor]

The second is the one - any clue how to get there in FCP?

thanks mucho for the help so far

 

[Filmosity]

that's pretty much a matter of pulling out all the color from the image, then cranking the contrast of the image. You can also use the levels settings in FCP to do create more extreme high contrast. Just experiment with the settings. You'll get what you're looking for.

Chris

 

[DerekEastham]

You can do this in final cut pro...

I suggest using a combination of tools... the key tool you'll want to start with, however, is the 3-way color corrector.

In there you can modify the three main tonal qualities of the image... Also, use the desaturation tool to remove the color. The contrast & levels tool's would work wonders for this as well.

Saddly, FCP does not yet have a "curves" color correcting tool... otherwise I'd specifically suggest you use that, as it simplifies what you're intending...
however, you can still achieve this effect using multpile tools with FCP.

Make sure that when you're using the 3-way color corrector that you're in the "Visual" tab, instead of the numbers... it will let you see what you're doing much better.

 

[vervor]

ah derek thanks those specifics did it for me - i appreciate it

 

[Filmosity]

Saddly, FCP does not yet have a "curves" color correcting tool... otherwise I'd specifically suggest you use that, as it simplifies what you're intending...

woops, i was thinking in photoshop terms. hehe. yeah, do what derek said.