TECH TIPS

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3-D’ing John Malkovich
Bringing Life to Still Photos with Avid FX
by Joe Eckardt

Figure 1: Photo from Danny Trejo's personal photo album from his time on the set of Con Air.

Filmmaking is no easy feat, and documentary filmmaking is an even bigger challenge due to the fact that the film is based on facts, and you must continuously come up with new and attention-grabbing ways to convey your story.

In our documentary, Champion (which profiles the life of actor Danny Trejo), we were quite limited in terms of “early life” material. Danny spent a majority of his younger days in prison, and much of his immediate family had passed away. Thus, we had no candid home videos, no interviews with parents or high school girlfriends and no inside track to the most influential people in his life. All we had was a childhood photo of him at a youth detention center from the 1950s. With our work clearly cut out for us to capture this period of Danny’s life, and a myriad of only recent photographs at our disposal, we had to utilize these photos not only to move our story along, but more importantly to keep the audience interested.

We agreed that the only way to make things pop was to turn some of our two-dimensional photos into three-dimensional ones. We concluded that by doing this, it would give more life to the otherwise cliché use of still photographs. Creating such images would add another interesting element to the film and greatly enhance the production value. This idea shaped the process of deciding which tools and steps would ultimately lead to our finished 3-D images.

The Tools You’ll Need

Figure 2: Photo with our foreground figure cut out of the picture, revealing the empty background.

The completed 3-D photos went through a few different programs. The original still photo is prepared first in Adobe Photoshop, then imported into Avid FX, which is a component in Avid Studio Toolkit 5.6, used in conjunction with Avid Media Composer 2.6.3. The Studio Toolkit provides integrated effects, animation, and DVD and Blu-Ray Disc authoring tools to editors using Avid Xpress Pro or Media Composer software.

In order for the 3-D process to work, we learned that the best type of photo to use was an image with a prominent figure in the foreground with enough good spatial separation from its background. This allows the creation of depth in the photo, which in turn heightens the 3-D appearance.

Figure 3: The empty space created by cutting the foreground figure has been filled in with the surrounding textures.

In the photo we chose, a still image from Danny’s private photo album (see figure 1), which was taken by a friend of Danny’s during rehearsals with the cast during production of Con Air. The men in the background are standing a good distance from the subject (actor John Malkovich) in the foreground. With a solid depth of field already present, we were able to exploit the image in Avid FX, then add camera motion and essentially create “3-D footage” from the still photo.

Before the photo is brought into Avid FX, we began in Photoshop. We started with our image in a very high resolution (5862x4016 pixels), larger than what we need for the end product. This allows more zooming capability without the possibility of pixelation occurring.

Figure 4: The foreground figure that was cut out of the picture and copied onto his own track.

Once our picture size was adequate, we created a Path around Malkovich in the foreground, then took that Path and created a new layer with just Malkovich. The bottom layer (see figure 2) contains only the background with the other actors and the empty space where Malkovich once was. Next, with the Cloning Tool, we were able to fill the Malkovich space with the background in the photo. In this instance, we filled the Malkovich space with desert (see figure 3).

This step is very important in the creation of the final product. By cloning the background, we were able to move Malkovich within the photo without leaving a gaping void where he once stood.

Next, we shut off the Background Layer and selected the Malkovich layer (see figure 4). From there, we created an Alpha Channel around Malkovich and exported a TIFF file with the Alpha Channel of just that layer. We then turned off the Malkovich layer with the Alpha, turned on the background and exported a TIFF of just the finished background with no Malkovich present.

Bringing Avid into the Picture

Figure 5: Avid FX's Timeline window containing the stills and 3-D Container.

Once we completed the work in Photoshop, we fired up Avid FX and created a new HD 1920x1080 project, clicked Edit, then scrolled down to Project Settings. In this box, you can change the project parameters, including the duration of the shot. This step is where you decide how long the footage you have created will play in the sequence. We selected a length of 10 seconds.

We then imported the two TIFF files from Photoshop into our Avid FX timeline. Once on the timeline, we right-clicked on the timeline and selected New 3-D Container, then clicked and dragged the two stills on the timeline into the 3-D Container (see figure 5). This is done so that whichever transformations or camera movements we make, the effects are applied to both photographs at once. Once the photos were in the 3-D Container, we opened up the Malkovich layer to see all the available, adjustable parameters/menus.

Figure 6: Avid FX's Composite Window showing us the first pink keyframe that is selected to set the position of the image.

It should be noted that the trick to making the photograph move is keyframes. The keyframes in Avid FX work the same as they do in Media Composer, so the learning curve is minimal. Now it’s time to decide how you want the shot to look. For our photo, we wanted to show Malkovich from the waist up, then have it appear that the camera pushes in on him and comes around to the right, while the background moves closer as well. The shot finishes on Malkovich from chest up.

With the first step in creating the 3-D movement done in our Avid FX timeline, we needed to make Malkovich move. On the Malkovich track, we clicked on the first keyframe in the Composite window timeline (see figure 6), then clicked and dragged the image of Malkovich around the frame until he was at our desired starting point. Once we chose the position, we clicked on the last keyframe in that timeline and repeated the process to select the desired finishing point.

Figure 7: In the timeline window, we transform the Position Z track in order to create more depth of field between the foreground image and the background.

In order to move the Malkovich image away from the background, you must first click on the first keyframe in the timeline in the Composition window. Next, you must scroll down until you get to the Position Z option. On this track, you can click and hold on the Range Window to the right and move the mouse left or right to adjust parameters of the depth of the photo (see figure 7).

On the first keyframe, we picked the depth between Malkovich and the background for the start of the shot, then clicked on the last keyframe and reset the parameters so that Malkovich was closer to the camera and further from the background, giving us more depth of field and framing him from the chest up. This process will take time as you adjust and readjust all the settings until you get the movement exactly the way you want it for the scene.

Once the movement of Malkovich (foreground layer) was completed, we repeated the process with the background layer. Movement of the background layer should be minimal compared to the foreground layer. For us, this greatly enhanced the final 3-D photo.

Figure 8: We adjust the camera tracks to create a camera move around our image on the camera tracks in the 3-D container.

With both layers adjusted, we then went to the Camera track of the Container (located at the top of the timeline in the Composition window), opened up that level, and three more camera tracks were revealed, X,Y and Z (see figure 8). With the X, Y and Z tracks open, we clicked on the first keyframe in the Composition window and adjusted each track until we had the camera where we wanted for the start of the shot. Once selected, we clicked on the last keyframe and adjusted the parameters of that keyframe until the camera was where we wanted the shot to end. The process is that simple in Avid FX.

Finishing Touches
Once we were done setting all of the parameters, we exported out a QuickTime movie of the footage using the Avid DNxHD codec, then imported it into the Media Composer to see how it looked with the rest of the film. Initially, the process will take some time, but is efficient once you get the hang of it.

In addition, using Avid FX to do this type of work also gives you access to the third-party plug-ins you may have installed in Media Composer. You are then able to apply these effects to the Avid FX timeline and get even closer to bringing extraordinary life to still photographs.

The final movie file created with the photograph can be viewed here: www.thefilmemporium.com/malkovich.html.

Director-producer Joe Eckardt recently completed Nice Guys with his producing partner Cecily Gambrell for Lions Gate with a projected 2007 release. He can be reached at jeckardt@thefilmemporium.com.

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