Inspiring

Question

Gradually increasing brightness of talking-head video

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 16, 2022
4 replies
2197 views

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.

This topic has been closed for replies.

J

JayNewWebAuthor

Inspiring

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

Legend

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

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

J

JayNewWebAuthor

Inspiring

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.

YANNA26705213grl5

Inspiring

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

YANNA26705213grl5

Inspiring

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 . "

R Neil Haugen

Legend

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

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

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