Help With Ken Burns Effect (Premiere 2.0)

[Haz]

Hello. Recently i've been fiddling around with a ken burns effect project, I need some help.

This is the result - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esf_aUGs8js

Two things -

1. For some reason premiere exports with the image in the wrong position. I've set it up as so and by all accounts it appears as if it is positioned and keyframed correctly.

Anybody have a clue what could be happening? Thanks.

2. Is there any creative way to deal with the negative space around the image? I absolutely need to have a full framed profile of the womans body to begin with, but zooming out means the black space appears. I assume this a common occurance, and would seem an editing faux pas to leave in. Is this false?

Thanks.

 

[Zensteve]

1) Not sure I have any suggestions about what's wrong, without knowing how it's supposed to look.

2) Plop image into Photoshop. Move image of woman to another layer. (Create selection >> New Layer via Cut.). Export as a PSD. Import into Premiere. You'll have with two images that you can scale independently of each other. Useful for covering up blank spots.

Might be tricky, though, as the woman's outline is not particulary crisp. Maybe play with feathering? Dunno.

 

[Alter Ego Productions]

Are you are editing with NTSC 720 x 480? Remember that it is 4:3 aspect ratio. So if the picture isn't in that ratio it won't fill the entire screen. It has to have black filler. Unless you have a really high resolution photo with lots of edge room you can't do what you are asking. What I would do is take the pic into Photshop and remove her from the background. Take the edge background of her and clone it and build the edges into 4:3 ratio. There also a way that you can have her layer look like it is 3D layered from the background. That is a popular method to give a static photo more life. That is another topic for discussion.

 

[Haz]

Thanks for the responses.

1) Not sure I have any suggestions about what's wrong, without knowing how it's supposed to look.

The woman is supposed to be squarely in the middle, such as in the image I have provided. For some reason adobe media encoder insists on pushing it down for some reason after the video is exported.

2) Plop image into Photoshop. Move image of woman to another layer. (Create selection >> New Layer via Cut.). Export as a PSD. Import into Premiere. You'll have with two images that you can scale independently of each other. Useful for covering up blank spots.

Might be tricky, though, as the woman's outline is not particulary crisp. Maybe play with feathering? Dunno.

What I would do is take the pic into Photshop and remove her from the background. Take the edge background of her and clone it and build the edges into 4:3 ratio. There also a way that you can have her layer look like it is 3D layered from the background. That is a popular method to give a static photo more life. That is another topic for discussion.

This is an excellent tip, thanks. I'm quite familiar with making selections using the pen tool, feathering and changing the opacity of brushes should be enough to blend the picture with the background well.

Are you are editing with NTSC 720 x 480? Remember that it is 4:3 aspect ratio. So if the picture isn't in that ratio it won't fill the entire screen. It has to have black filler. Unless you have a really high resolution photo with lots of edge room you can't do what you are asking.

720 x 480 yes, but I have it in 16:9 ratio. 4:3 is more appropriate for documentaries of this nature, I am assuming? Come to think of it, I can't think of too many documentaries that were shot in widescreen....

 

[Zensteve]

What's the purpose of the keyframed Position attribute?

Also, is the anchor-point of the image in its original place?

Does it render properly when running a timeline preview?

Can't sleep.

 

[Haz]

The keyframed position attributes appeared when i adjusted the final part of the zoom to close in on the womans face rather then her neck, the anchor point hasn't been touched (i doubled checked this just to make sure), and it's renders perfectly in the the timeline preview.

I've figured out a compromise at least. I was editing in 16:9 which seemed to be causing all sorts of problems exporting, moving the image around and squashing it on output (even if I tried changing the resolution and the aspect ratio correctly). Surely it's some unfamiliar settings that are causing this, but changing the ratio to 4:3 solved any problems I was having.

Thanks very much for your help.