Love the show 24..how to make the boxes?

sunshinegirl690 · Post by **sunshinegirl690** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 1:55 am

What I mean is...Can I make different size boxes and keep the picture ratio the same? I inserted the videos, used overlay tracks, made the clips various sizes BUT I didn't like it. So I tried the crop... cropped 4 video clips to different sizes BUT I didn't like that either.

In 24 there are times when the clips are horizontal the entire bottom half of the screen and Jack's face does not look like a large oval! So is there another way?

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:12 am

I've noticed that effect, and wondered how they are doing it. It appears to me that for the horizontal scenes they are using a widescreen or letterboxed. The shots of Jack are of course real tight, so it may help alleviate the stretching, I really don't know.

For the other shots they are just PIP of various sizes. You just have to play with them. When they do these, they are of course planned, and storyboarded well in advance of shooting. The camera operators know just what and how to capture the scene so that it or another can be superimposed (PIP) and show what they want. They can do this using full sized shots, the overlay then covers the part of the shot they intended it to cover. (Do you mean what I know??

) Sometimes trying to reproduce things that hollywood uses is difficult without doing the actual shooting.

sunshinegirl690 · Post by **sunshinegirl690** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:23 am

I do use pip a lot and have tried various sizes. I was experimenting with boats running in the water 34, 31 & two 41 ft boats that I filmed. Stretching them a little...not so good

I have watched the show since day one and always liked that effect. Thanks for your thoughts

Post by **Ron P.** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:27 am

Hopefully one of the actual experts/pros will venture along and provide more meaningful help..

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:31 am

The easiest way is to use MediaStudio Pro, in fact I created some Smart Compositions that do that sort of thing:
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=10841

With VideoStudio it is perhaps more complex as you don't have the same amount of control over the overlay tracks. Having just spotted this post at 0230am and about to go to bed I would think the easiest method in VideoStudio is

a. For several PIP's all the same same size and using the default 4x3 or 16x9 dimensions, place your first clip on overlay track 1 and drag if to the top left corner - resize to your liking.
Now Place your second clip on overlay track 2 and drag it on top of the clip on overlay track 1. Resize it so that it is the same size is the other. Having got the size right drag it over to the right or wherever you want it to be.
Repeat for any other PIPs you are including in you multi-screen display.

b. For Portrait PIP's you would need to use the crop filter with the [Fill color] ticked. You then remove the excess with the chroma key function.

You can also make use of the gridlines as a means of getting your PIP's the right size and spacing. You can alter the size of the grid by clicking the icon to the right of 'Show Grid Lines' the default is 10 but you can have up to 100.