Hi!

Could someone tell me how the guys of Top Gear achieved this look? Is there a a way to do this in Vegas? Do I need some external software like Magic Bullet or CompositeLab Pro?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCrHwqGfkYs

I am looking forward to your answers!

Regards, Oliver

The gradients can be achieved:

A- In camera, by adding grad filters in a mattebox.

B- In Vegas, you could use the gradient generator (add that on a upper track) and the compositing modes (multiply, or subtract) to add gradients.

Use parent/child relationships to avoid affecting other tracks.

Hi Glenn,

thank you very much for your answer.

[...] B- In Vegas, you could use the gradient generator (add that on a upper track) and the compositing modes (multiply, or subtract) to add gradients.

Use parent/child relationships to avoid affecting other tracks.

Could you give me some more details? I was already playing around with it in Vegas, but could never reach a result similar to the look in the BBC vid. :(

This is how you set it up in a .veg:

http://glennchan.info/Proofs/forums/sony%20back/nd-grad.veg

Hello Glen,

this is incredibly nice! Thank you very much for your efforts. I think I understood, what I have to do.

Regards, Oliver

Could someone tell me how the guys of Top Gear achieved this look?
First you need an extra car and then a willing railroad officer.

Sorry... had to say this. Awesome video. Actually I did not look at the gradient-effect but the actual footage. Totally crazy! How could they be sure that the engine would not go off from the rails? And the huge amount of cleaning & repairing afterwards... Insane!

And teaches a good lesson...

If you notice, they don't have the 'Top Gear' look in all of their shots. They may be hamming it up a bit in post, but I think that the vignetting that you're seeing comes from two things:


1. Wide-angle optics. The Top Gear guys use a range of gear, including regular-old HDV cameras that require screw-on lenses to go wide angle. Screw-ons often vignette like crazy. Their crews typically use somewhat more professional cameras, but you'll notice that the most vignetting is in wide-angle shots, like the top-down at the tracks or Clarkson standing in his safety gear in front of the tracks.

2. Pushing contrast in post. If you increase the contrast in post-production (look at the color of a cars in their spots compared to the colors of the *same* car in their studio, which is rare, as they often use a different car for the studio setting), you will exaggerate vignetting.