last minute shot idea

[Guest jbraver]

Is it possible to use a portable green screen to make a 360 green screen by putting the actor on a turntable and just spinning him?

 

The shot I am trying to achieve is a 360 turn around stationary actor with the background spinning the opposite direction.

 

any ideas are welcome

 

thanks,

 

Jake

Edited March 31, 2006 by jbraver

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure, but his lighting would have to rotate with him or else you could tell that he was moving past stationary lighting.

[David Sweetman]

The problem would be that the lights won't spin. If you were to actually roll a camera around an actor on a track, the viewer would percieve the light source to be spinning with the actor.

 

The cheapest and easiest way I can think of to solve this problem is to spank it with some soft flat fill light, and to fix a key light to the spinning platform, pointed up at the actor, as high as you can get it so it doesn't cut into the bottom of the frame.

 

edit: perhaps you'd also have to angle & cut the spinning key so it didn't interfere with the greenscreen. It could screw up the key-out if every 360 degrees the greenscreen was illuminated by the key light. but if you blast the screen with a lot of light...it might not be a problem, i dunno.

Edited March 31, 2006 by David Sweetman

[Michael Nash]

How tight does your shot of the actor have to be, and how fast does the move need to be? If the shot is an MCU you might be able to have two grips simply walk a 6x6 frame of greenscreen opposite the camera.

[Jaan Shenberger]

probably the best way to do this with limited resources would be to get a collapsable greescreen (that function like flexfill reflectors) and while you shoot, have two people carry it behind him and rotate around him as the camera dollies. of course, the difficulty of this depends on the camera's focal length and distance to the actor. but keep in mind that you only need to have the greenscreen occupy the area immediately around the actor, since you will wanna do a simple animated garbage matte around him in post anyway. just try to make sure that the greenscreen doesn't bounce green spill onto the actor (selective wardrobe can help with this) and that the grscreen doesn't cast shadow on the actor. it would probably be advantageous to do this in soft/hazy light, as direct sunlight would be more likely to create those two problems, as well as minimize the likely fluctuation in luminance of the grscreen as it moves. hope this helps.

 

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oops, sorry to be redundant... didn't see that last post.

Edited March 31, 2006 by jaan

[Guest Kai.w]

If you have somebody carrying the screen, don't forget not to cover the whole BG (as mentioned, you will garbage matte anyway). The compositor will probably need something to track the movement, and you can't expect your grip to hold the screen that steady! ;)

 

-k

[Daniel Madsen]

Not having done this before I only guess that rotating the table is easier. You may actually get tighter shots than you would not be able to achieve with a dolly. I am just trying to think how you would light this rotating table....a soft even light is a possibility but sort of boring. If you are thinking closeups you could have a light support coming out of the center of the table disguised as a vase maybe that your lights could be secured to.