Gradually increasing brightness of talking-head video

[JayNewWeb]

I just recorded a spontaneous, unscripted, not-easy-to-repeat, rather well-done 30-minute business video consisting of just me talking in a talking-head format.

The setup was more than ample, with one minor exception: I was sitting in front of a window and relying on natural sunlight. (Yeah. That.)

The problem that resulted is that during the 30 minutes the sky became much cloudier and the lighting diminished substantially.

If there's a way to correct this in Premiere Pro, at least the good news is that it's a unidirectional shift in lighting rather than sporadic ups and downs. If I can apply some kind of "gradient" fix, that should do it.

I have no idea how to even begin to approach something like this, though, or even if it's possible to do.

I guess I can cut it into pieces, add levels of brightness to each piece, then put the pieces back together. I'm hoping for a smoother approach, though, because this entire 30-minute talk flowed very well with no cuts or morphs and it would be nice to maintain that fluidity without the jaggedness of abrupt brightness changes.

Probably the whole thing could use a brightness boost but I certainly have to address the decrease, especially in the last 10 minutes or so.

Here's the video:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R9fJSb1M8H5OHkTTuVO9QEwdrm-pDVPm/view?usp=sharing

Thanks so much!

Jay

EDIT: Actually, I do know how to do this -- sorta. I know how to apply Effects including how to set beginning and ending points for a gradual increase (or decrease). I just have no idea which Effect(s) would be the best to choose for this situation.

[R Neil Haugen]

The Lumetri effect has many tools that can be keyframed ... go to the Color workspace, and apply any correction to a clip (so that the effect is actually applied) ... and then check the Lumetri effect in the ECP.

You can open the various tabs, and many of the controls have the little stopwatch icons for keyframing.

So yes, you can say play though and perhaps subtly lift the Exposure control (Basic tab) or the Color Wheels midtone tonal ring.

Or you can apply a second Lumetri via an adjustment layer, set for the brightness needed at the end of the clip. Then work back, setting the opacity of that layer lower as you go along, so it affects the visible clip brightness less. By somewhere early in the clip, the opacity for that layer would be down to zero.

That is at times easier if you are also needing to do subtle color shifts along with tonal shifting.

Neil

[YANNA26705213grl5]

yeah, you're right ... the last ten minutes is the only problem but it doesn't really bother me that much cause I'm paying attention to your promotion speech and not the lighting so much.

I would make a copy of the video and adjust to the last frame ( levels ) on the copy... so the whole thing is too bright until you get to the last 10 minutes.

Put vid 1 on 2 ( above copy ) and don't make any cuts... just adjust opacity for the last 10 minutes gradually... on your copy ( at first it is zero and at the end it is 100 ). Since the copy is above your original it will become gradually more VISIBLE... but do it gradually.... you can move the opacity markers by just watching that last 10 minutes and adjusting as you like. 

It doesn't bother me that it got darker but if you wanna tweak it it should be easy. Has nothing to do with color ... just levels from last frame and first frame and 2 copies AND opacity.

I feel compelled to comment on the idea re: wealth and money and so on.... just cause it might help you in the future and your approach to doing self promotion.

a) wealthy people ( especially trust fund kids who inherit ) don't think the same way about money like a " normal" person who works for a living. It is something you can't know about unless you've been with them personally. It can't be described by me. But in a sense it is a totally different world and has absolutely NO bearing for comparison. I guess, in short, you could say " wealthy people who inherit without working for it don't think about money at all . "

[YANNA26705213grl5]

whoops, I think I made a mistake...the copy would be on top and orignal on vid 1  duhhh.... you'll figure it out.

[JayNewWeb]

Thanks for the advice.

Before I saw those suggestions I took a stab at it myself -- without knowing what I'm doing.

I used Visual Effects > Adjust > Lighting Effects, and set it to Omni and set Intensity levels with keyframes -- all positive values (no negative values).

The result seems decent, though perhaps a bit washed out:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QOpvNFTD40ZzgGWGEGJUh8MZPZJ20Fg7/view?usp=sharing

With my limited skill and my preferring to just use one effect, maybe I should just tweak my values and perhaps keyframes a bit? Maybe I should at least reduce the Intensity values across the board.

Though I'm thinking there's perhaps a better way to do this based on your suggestions so far. Is there a better Effect to use -- maybe Levels -- that allows me to still keep it simple with one Effect?

Or should I consider it good enough and move on and shift to getting it in the right hands and getting the right responses?

Thanks so much!

[R Neil Haugen]

I would simply use the Lumetri panel in the Color workspace. You need to learn that panel for all color/tonal work in Premiere anyway, and it has the best tools.

As I noted, you could use either the tonal/brightness sliders of the middle or highlights color wheels or the Exposure slider of the Basic tab. Each can be keyframed via the ECP as any as any other effect.

I know some who prefer to work backwards. Start at the end, set a value. Go to the beginning, set a value. You can use the Comparison View featuer of the Lumetri panel to see two images side by side, the 'left' one is your "reference" image, set by the scrubbing tools under it in the Program monitor.

The right image is what is at the current playhead frame.

So for this you could set the "reference" image to either the first or last, your choice.

Then scrub through the clip. When you get enough varianc to make a change, make it. Keep going.

Premiere will transition from one keyframe to another, applying a steady change. So you probably don't need to make many keyframes.

My preference would be ...

I would start at the beggining ... make a keyframe. Go until it starts changing, then back up a couple frames, make another keyframe without changing anything.

Now scrub forward, and as long as it keeps changing, wait ... until it stops changing. Now apply a change, go back and see how that looks as Premiere applies the corrections over time.

Do that to the end. Shouldn't take long.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Thanks. Just now getting to this.

Just to clarify, you're referring to Effects > Video Effects > Color Correction > Lumentri Color, correct?

This seems like the right place to be for correcting most of my talking-head shoots, even when the lighting due to sunlight and clouds changing isn't an issue, using Basic Correction > White Balance or Temperature, for instance, as well as Exposure if needed. And Color Wheels & Match > Midtones and Highlights look useful for touching up shoots as well, though I'm not clear on when to use those vs White Balance, Temperature, and Exposure.

[JayNewWeb]

This advice has been extremely helpful! Thanks! And using Comparison View is just the ticket for this correction!

It seems the best thing to do for shifts in lighting due to the sunlight and clouds shifting is to use keyframes simultaneously for Temperature and Exposure and adjust at appropriate points manually. And making changes to an entire clip globally is when the Color Wheel usage would be most practical. And Matching is I guess good for one or two linear changes only rather than multiple keyframe locations unless one gets very good at replicating manual settings. (And auto Apply Match is apparently not useful with a talking head in front of a richly textured background like I had, but might be okay for a solid background if and when I'm using, say, a solid black background, which I sometimes do use.)

Thanks again!

Jay

[JayNewWeb]

Huh. Maybe it's just my eye and how I manually adjusted things but comparing results using Lumetri Color > Temperature and Exposure adjustments together, versus having previously used Lighting Effects > Light Type = Omni and adjusting Intensity at various keyframes, the Light Effects approach seems to have turned out a bit better than the Lumetri Color approach for the case of having had sunlight shift during the shoot. Of course, I'm a total novice and I'm sure a pro would get a very different result. Either way, though. I already have plenty of uses for the Lumetri Color controls now that I was shown to use them, and already have used them to improve things in other videos and will continue to do so regularly.

[R Neil Haugen]

Your waveform and parade scopes show left to right, right?

In comparison mode, match the left and right side peaks with the Highlight color wheel "ball", and shadow points with the Shadow ball.

Exposure and contrast set by the Luma sliders for each ball. Highlights Luma slider is total brightness and contrast, Shadow Luma slider sets your dark values.

Then the middle set controls the vast middle area.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Let's assume for a moment that I'll be able to understand and do all that once I roll up my sleeves and delve into it. My concern is that those are a lot of adjustments which I assume are at least somewhat visual (analog vs digital?) in terms of the values I'm setting.

Maybe I'm wrong, but if that's the case then it seems challenging to replicate them at numerous keyframes.

Though, then again, now that I think it through further, the nature of what I'm trying to do in correcting for shifts in sunlight already means this is a keyframe-by-keyframe manual/visual adjustment process anyway. Correct?

[R Neil Haugen]

No. By using the scopes, it's all visual.

The Waveform and Parade scopes show the current monitor left to right. So in Comparison mode you see both images in the scope, side by side.

The Reference image of course is on the left half of the scope, current frame on the right.

Use the Color Wheels controls to match the right half of the scopes to the left.

Nothing technical or "digital" about it. Simplest form of matching possible.

Neil

[JayNewWeb]

Right. Thanks. I did already use the Comparison View and it's great -- used L-R and also vertical and horizontal split.

I just meant that a value of "+6" can be replicated across keyframes, but visual positions on a color wheel can't -- but then I realized that since I'm adjusting for changes in sunlight there's no use in repeating a given value anyway.

So, I think I'm good now.

Thanks again for the trememdous help!

[R Neil Haugen]

I've had a couple jobs where the light was indirect through tall windows, and thin clouds were passing by.

You didn't even notice in the room, but the video dropped half to 2/3rds stops. Very notable.

So I was adjusting throughout the whole flipping timeline.

Neil