In every audiovisual project it is important to make an accurate planning of everything that is going to be shooted and edited.
Specially, when applying VFX into a sequence, is really important to know which effects we are going to apply, in order to shoot the footage according to them. In this way, we make sure that the footage has the necessary qualities to apply the post-production effects.
If we need to apply a camera tracking in our footage, there are some tips and recommendations our footage will need to have in order to achieve better results, or just make the tracking much easier.
Add camera motion
Camera motion is not strictly mandatory, but it will make the footage much more interesting to track. By adding camera motion we will make the composition look more realistic and visually interesting. Anyway, camera motion has to have a reason and not being random, so it can be avoided. If we do not use camera movement, we would like to track an object which has movement within the scene, otherwise we won’t have anything to track.
Minimize motion blur
Motion blur is a huge inconvenient while camera tracking, because the software won’t be able to recognize the tracking pattern when it is blurred, as it needs to have crisp high contrast areas. Motion blur makes everything a bit smudgy and if there’s too much of it, the shot can become un-trackable.
In order to avoid the motion blur, we have two solutions. On one hand, we should avoid hectic camera movements; camera movements are interesting, but we should keep them clear and smooth.
On the other hand, we should record with high shutter speed. The higher shutter we have, the less time will the camera take to shot a picture. This means that each picture will be recorded within a tiny amount of time, so it will be less able to catch the movement, and more likely to catch still images in every frame. Therefore, it also will be helpful to shoot in higher fps, so the camera will allow us to use higher shutter speeds.
Track contrasted points
The tracking software need sharp, crisp contrasted patterns to succeed in the tracking. Therefore, we would need to ensure that the element we want to track is good exposed, focused, defined and contrasted. This will make the post production work much easier.
If we do not have such points, we will need to place tracking markers in the scene, in order to succeed with the tracking.
Shoot a blank background plate
In every scene in which we want to add trackers or mask, is really important to shoot a blank background plate. Thins means a clean footage in which we can clearly see the background. This will be really handy in case we need to key something out of the original footage.
Shoot at High Resolution
It will be always helpful to shoot at the highest resolution possible, like full HD or 4K. This will help to keep things crisp and will give more accurate information to extract the tracking from.
Write down the camera settings
Sometimes, the shooting information is not written on our footage. It can be really helpful to right down some details of the shooting such as focal length, aperture, and shutter speed; and the details of the lens we are recording with. In few tracking techniques we will be asked about this information, and providing the right one will make more accurate 3D tracking and rendering.
In conclusion, when we think in VFX we usually assume is only a post-production work, but nevertheless is really important to know well what we are going to do in the time we record the footage, in order to record it properly. A bad recording can make us impossible to work with the footage, and it can be a huge waste of time in production and post-production. So we better be aware of all the shooting process in order to make our work more efficient and have a good quality result.
MA Visual Effects 