how to light circular tracking move

[chickalou]

I have a stationary object that I will be shooting a 360 view of using a dolly on a circular track. I will be using DV (canon xl1s) and will hang a greenscreen backdrop around the outside of the track.

 

what is the best way to light this? I need to combine the 360 shot with greenscreen so I can composite the object in post.

 

thanks!

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I guess you'll be putting some sort of fluorecent (ideally Kino green screen tubes) above and below and shooting through them, if you see what I mean. Could be a tricky one.

 

Phil

[Michael Nash]

Is this stationary object completely immovable, like a public statue or something? Because the obvious solution is to keep the camera and green screen still and rotate the object instead...

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, that's my thought as well, as opposed to a 360 degree greenscreen background -- you might as well just rotate the person and the key light.

 

Unless it's a set with only one portion of it replaced by a greenscreen that passes by during the 360 degree dolly move.

[chickalou]

thanks guys ... how would you position the kino flo's ? The object is a store shelf, it's matte black, trapezoidal shaped and would have grocery store items on it - either cans or boxes -- trying to avoid glass or shiny cellophane.

[Aduloju John]

i think the best way is that you light for a stagnant object and create a motor driven 360 rotating platform for the object and shot direct.

 

i have tried it and it work.

 

you can can even get a reverse shot by using steadicam anticlockwise while the platform is rotating clockwise.

 

thanks

 

Aduloju john nsc

camera/steadicam operator

+2348023183604

adulojujohn@yahoo.com

lagos, nigeria.

[Tony Brown]

I'd also check with the post house if the green screen is really necessary. I've not used one for a couple of years now, the post houses seem to prefer a background closer to the background that will be dropped in. As long as your subjected can be defined by colour or tone, the screen shouldn't be required.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

That really doesn't work at all well with DV - far too much noise and artifacting.

 

Phil

[Glenn Hanns]

I have a stationary object that I will be shooting  a 360 view of using a dolly on a circular track. I will be using DV (canon xl1s) and will hang a greenscreen backdrop around the outside of the track.

 

what is the best way to light this?  I need to combine the 360 shot with greenscreen so I can composite the object in post.

 

thanks!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Hey,

Ive done something similar with a series of locks. Using a "lazy susan" device or old record player to rotate the object at any needed speed and placing a greenscreen flat or fabric in Background. A trick Ive discovered is to have your green screen as far back as possible and to angle it at 45 degrees to your camera line of sight. Place a single source light that has a clean spread across its beam and put it perpendicular to the flat so that most spill from the flat is directed toward the light and not toward the back of the subject. Use a 4:2:2 camera, DV will give you headaches. DVCPRO 50 or similar. Light the shelf with soft non directional light so you dont have to "track" the foreground light with the object in order to make it look as if the camera and not the object is moving.

Hope this helps G.

 

Edited November 1, 2004 by glenn@uow.edu.au

[Chris Keth]

Any chance you could shoot that part with something other than DV? It's a great format but it's not good for compositing because of the relatively poor color information. Maybe you could get a hold of a betacam for that shot?

[chickalou]

Any chance you could shoot that part with something other than DV? It's a great format but it's not good for compositing because of the relatively poor color information. Maybe you could get a hold of a betacam for that shot?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I really can't. I'm using a Canon XL1S. Is there a manual setting for the color information that I could tweak?

[Michael Morlan]

Compositing is difficult with the XL-1s and any DV-25 camera because the recorded chroma information is only sampled at every two pixels horizontally & vertially. That is, there is only chroma "pixel" for every four luminance pixels. This creates problems at composite edges where a 4-pixel chroma "block" spans the transition from subject to greenscreen backdrop.

 

Ultimatte Advantedge does have a DV compensation filter that attempts to interpret that missing chroma info in order to develop a cleaner key. However, you will get a much cleaner key if you start with a format that records chroma info for each and every pixel.

 

Here's an interesting article titled "Chroma Key Basics for DV Guerrillas or, 'So you can't afford Betacam...' "

 

http://www.videouniversity.com/chroma1.htm

Edited November 15, 2004 by mmorlan62