Making a Sr Class DVD slideshow.

[ingeborgdot]

When I went ahead and finished in both products I found out the finished product is not really any different in Vegas so that is what I am using to finish it off because I can do more with it.

What is the Ken Burns thing? Where can I find it? Thanks.

[guns1inger]

The 'Ken Burns' effect is named after documentary film maker Ken Burns, and is basically a technique of adding interest to photographs by zooming and panning them in interesting ways. The later progression of the idea is to add depth by separating out key areas of focus and lifting them to a closer plain to the camera. It is a cliched technique now, and often used mindlessly because most slideshow programs offer a variation on the techniques as standard. What set Burn's original work apart was more how he used it, rather than the fact that he did it. It wasn't just a random pan across an image, or a zoom in or out on some random point, but a deliberate decision on what to zoom in on, or how best to pan to make the image work with the narrative being read over the top.

The technique itself is something you do at the slideshow stage, not after the slideshow has been done.

[ingeborgdot]

I have been doing the pan and zoom for a while and try to do it strategically and not just randomly.
I am interested in the idea of adding depth. Where can I go to find the technique of doing this? I would really like to try it.

[guns1inger]

Will show you how to get started. It uses After effects. You can do it with an image editing tool and a video editor that supports layers in 3D space, but a proper compositor such as AE is the best option.

[ingeborgdot]

I have sony vegas pro. Is that good enough?

[guns1inger]

With a bit of mucking around you can get an effect. Basically you have to

1. Open the still image in photoshop (or your favourite, capable image app) and extract the main subject cleanly. Save the extracted images as a png with transparently.
2. Paint a new background behind the subject, to effectively remove them from the original. You don't have to do this, but it adds a lot to the illusion.
3. Load the background into the timeline.
4. Load the foreground into a timeline above the background.
5. Click on Track Motion for the foreground (top timeline), and change the compositing from Add to 3D Source Alpha. You should see your layout change to give you 4 views of your timeline object.
6. Set your Z (depth) value to bring the object out of the background, then keyframe a pan of the front image to make it feel 3D. You can also add rotation around the Y axis to make it appear to spin slightly.

Keep it subtle and it can look pretty good.

I have attached a simple (read : rough-as-guts) example I have just thrown together in Vegas. The image is a webcam grab, and the keying is using the built-in chromakeyer, so the extraction is not pretty. The animation is all done with 4 keyframes in the Track Motion settings. For your purposes the main object should be smaller in relation to the background, and the effect you are after would be a pan from one side to the other. You might do this by bringing the main object closer to the camera, then shifting the background behind it. A slight blur on the background and the right rotation of the layer will help fake depth as well.

What AE has that Vegas does not is a proper 3D camera, so you can set up your objects in 3D space, then move the camera to get the final shot. In Vegas you have to work backwards from a fixed camera to get the same effect, which means moving your images instead.