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Pierre Devereux
Pierre Devereux
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Title and Action Safe guides

Aug 3, 2012 1:10 AM

Hi,

 

I am finally at the stage where we are going to start shooting some footage and testing our compositions on our project. My next big step, is to get my head around Action/Title safe areas. We are shooting for 16:9 widescreen, HD TV, but am i supposed to take the smaller standard TV screens into account? Keeping in mind that I am very new at this, I am getting confused between the zones and guides on AE. I see the centre-cut guides (for the smaller TV screens I guess) and then the normal guides for widescreen. If I compose all my shots for the standard TV screen, that means I will need to make up a lot of wasted space around them for the widescreen TV.

 

Once again, I know this is an AE forum, but I am using the excuse that AE has the guides, and thats what I am trying to understand! :-)

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated, or even some links to external forums or sites?

 

Thanks guys.

 

Pierre

695 Views   5 Replies   Latest reply: Pierre Devereux, Aug 6, 2012 11:33 PM
 
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  • TimeRemapper
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    1. TimeRemapper,
    Aug 3, 2012 6:12 AM   in reply to Pierre Devereux
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    If you're shooting widescreen, then shoot for widescreen safety. The center-cut guides are only useful if your content will be shown center-cut (not scaled down and letterboxed) on a standard 4x3 aspect ratio screen. In most cases, you're going to want your content to be scaled down and letterboxed, not center-cut.

     
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  • Pierre Devereux
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    2. Pierre Devereux,
    Aug 3, 2012 6:16 AM   in reply to TimeRemapper
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    Thank you for the reply.

     

    Ill aim for the widescreen safety as you suggest. I have taken several shots of the characters now, using different lighting styles etc. Next week will be dedicated to Keylight. I am quite familiar with it, but want to get really really deeply involved. I am going to spend some time with multi passes and different tests.

     

    Soon, (hopefully) I will be able to tell you all where to check out our work! :-)

     

    Thanks again for the feedback.

     

    Pierre

     
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  • Dave LaRonde
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    3. Dave LaRonde,
    Aug 3, 2012 8:54 AM   in reply to Pierre Devereux
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    If there is no chance that your project will appear on SD broadcast, you'll be fine using 16x9 title & action safe. 

     

    If there's a chance the project will be repurposed for broadcast -- which at least in the USA simulcasts 16x9 HD with 4x3 SD or rarely 16x9 SD -- you may want to consider the implications of shooting 16x9 title & action safe.  No chance?  No worries!

     
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  • BenMarkus
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    4. BenMarkus,
    Aug 3, 2012 11:02 AM   in reply to Pierre Devereux
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    Another thing to take into account is that most computer and television screens these days are widescreen.

     
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  • Pierre Devereux
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    5. Pierre Devereux,
    Aug 6, 2012 11:33 PM   in reply to Pierre Devereux
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    Hi Guys,

     

    thanks for the tips. Our project is specifically for television. We are going to aim at UK first, then USA.

     

    So I will have to take the broadcast thoughts into account...

     

    Pierre

     
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