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John Lawrence

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About John Lawrence

  • Birthday 02/23/1970

Profile Information

  • Occupation
    Cinematographer
  • Location
    Washington, DC

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  • Website URL
    http://www.JLcamera.com
  1. For HD, I generally try to run the green screen 1/2 stop to 1 stop below my key light (for a normal set up). I've worked with lots of editors and engineers and have found that if you are anywhere between 50 and 60 IRE on your green, you are fine. I've found you need less light on a green screen than on a blue screen, which tends to suck up more light. I've always been a stickler to keep the green even throughout, though I have learned that this really doesn't matter as much any more. I tend to be careful in shadow areas of the green (from a full body standing on green) but have learned that if there is at least 40 IRE there, you are fine (there could even be less, but I don't push it). The truth is, if it looks green, they can key it. The main things beyond that (and in many ways, more important): watch for green reflections in glasses, watch out for green clothing, and be careful of fly away hairs. I try to avoid using diffusion on the lens for green screen, and I make sure that I have enough stop so that I don't have part of what I'm shooting go soft. Hope that's helpful.
  2. I've heard this quote before: "waveform is your lightmeter for HD/video" and I've always found it a flawed comparison. The reason is that these are tools that work in very different ways. A waveform monitor shows you luminance levels within your frame, whereas a light meter (incident) will tell you how much light is falling in a particular area of the set/location. You don't need a camera, waveform, or monitor to check your light levels with a meter. The most valuable resource you have is your eyes, and you should never light "to" your meter, but still it can be a valuable tool. there seems to be a discussion about which is "better" to use for HD field production: 1. monitor 2. waveform 3. light meter The truth is that all three of these tools work differently and can be very useful depending on the situation, or application. This goes for video, HD, or Film for that matter. I learned long ago that every job is not ideal. I don't always have the luxury of staring at a monitor and waveform with my gaffer, calling it our light meter. Consider the location where you will be shooting a round table discussion of 8-10 people at a table. Let's say the room has dark, walls. And, it's just you and a sound person. Big surprise is that they haven't hired 8-10 people to be stand-ins and they pretty much want to roll fairly quickly after "talent" arrives. Without people sitting in your frame, a waveform doesn't do you any good and the time it takes to have your sound person sit in every chair to check the lighting consistency is prohibitive. Perfect time to pull out an incident light meter and check that an even amount of light is falling in each position. I rate most HD and Video cameras I work with around 320 ASA just as a base. I'm not using the meter to expose, because I have zeebras for that, and I have correctly set up my viewfinder so I'll have a reliable way to choose exposure. I'm just using my meter as a guide to keep my lighting even when I don't have any stand-ins to look at. I might not pull my meter out for a few months of shooting HD, but I would pull it out in that application. In that situation, I also would not take the time to set up a waveform monitor unless I had more time and more crew. I recently did a large green screen shoot in a studio and relied on my monitor and waveform, which my DIT had on a cart. In this situation I did not use a meter, as my waveform gave me all the luminance info I needed, and my monitor gave me a very accurate representation of color and contrast, as it was set up correctly in a controlled environment.
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