Matthew OSullivan

Great read, thanks Christine!

Yeah it's hard to tell. I seem to remember seeing motion in one scene, which made me think that at least sometimes it's projection. If you run across that article, let me know if you think of it. Cheers!

Hi all, The show Mad Men uses backdrops quite a lot in the Manhattan office set (skyscrapers outside the windows, everywhere...) I'm trying to figure out if they're using translights, paintings, projections... anyone have any insights? I'm working on a flexible system for doing this with rear-screen projections, with multiple windows in plain sight, on standing sets where the time of day changes often etc. Thanks!

Just go to Asbury Park! Seriously though... a quarry could work. Some friends just built this set in a gravel pit Centralia is a creepy place, and the fumes are toxic as hell. Camp there at your own risk.

Thanks guys... power and shutter are my best guesses too, but if it's a shutter I'm confused why we've never had the problem before, and also in theory an LCD projector should have enough decay that refresh rate is a non-issue. But trying a 144 degrees is definitely a good idea. Robert...power... do you have any experience with a "ghost in the machine" causing flicker? Our gaffer has run a line test on the power sources (220 for the projector and 120 for the laptop) and the power is good and steady... do you think there could be another problem in the line, like some kind of EMF or other anomalie? We're literally right next door to the main power station for the whole area so I've often wondered if that's causing some sort of weirdness... though if anything the proximity should be good not bad. Thanks again matt

Hi, I've been working with rear-projected plates from an LCD projector with pretty good success for a couple of years, but recently we've run into some problems. We're shooting film, and the projections are from a Christie LX1500 LCD (15000 lumens) fed by a laptop. Up until a few weeks ago it was working well... always a battle to light it right, but the filmed results were pretty good. But, suddenly, we've got flicker on the film (not visible to the eye or through the finder, only on the printed film). As far as we can tell, NOTHING has changed in our setup (but obviously something has) It's really baffling, and we've swapped out the projector and the laptop for identical units, but no luck. The flicker shows up with still image plates as well as motion at any frame rate, so it's not a frame rate issue. Camera shutter is at 180, and we're rolling at 24. The flicker is very consistent, and not overly pronounced. It's a faint, fast flicker. Laptop is feeding projector at 60hz. I'm wondering if anyone has run into a situation like this, or had any issues with flicker from LCD projectors in general? And while I'm at it ... has anyone got any tips for how to balance the projector for tungsten film? The UHP bulbs it uses run very high, like around 6500-7500, and it's a battle to get rid of that blue. We do our best to correct the plates, and then play around with orange and magenta gels over the beam, but it's always a bit of a crapshoot (though not too bad). I'll seriously send a bottle of the finest whiskey on the planet to anyone who has any clue why this flicker problem would have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. If I had any hair left I'd be pulling it out. matt

Thanks Mark. We're going to do some camera tests with various filters soon and I'm still hopeful, but I'm starting to think the only way to pull this off is to light for daylight.

Hi, We're experimenting with using an LCD projector for background plates outside windows on sets in a studio. We rear-project a still or video of, say, a street outside a livingroom window, in place of a translight or painted backdrop. The projectors use high pressure mercury arc lamps, which are very blue and have a temperature of something like 7600-8000. Everything works fine when we light the set with HMI and shoot daylight stock, but obvious problems ensue if we shoot the scene with tungsten film. We make the plates very warm to compensate, so the projections look quite red/golden to the eye, and when we meter them they show as low as 3000K (though with a lot of green), but it seems no matter how much we warm up the images they still look VERY blue on tungsten film. Filtering the beam with a single or double 85 should fix this, or go a long way towards fixing it, but we can't really afford to lose that much brightness. Wondering if anyone has any experience with this scenario? Any outside-the-box solutions? I'm thinking of wacky ideas like making the screen yellow and then front projecting instead of rear.. Any thoughts?

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone has experience with using LCD projection in place of scenic painting in a studio. I've been doing it here and there with decent results, using still photos of backyards or streets rear-projected onto screens outside windows and doors and such. So far we've been renting screens and projectors but now we're thinking of buying, which is actually a pretty big investment... wondering if anyone has any recommendations about specific screens, for rear and/or front projection, and any tips or just... whatever! Share your stories about this wonderful and fascinating topic! :P I'll keep this thread updated with anything useful I run into also. We've been happy with the stills, and we want to move to video - drive bys, etc. Thanks in advance!

He's missed for sure. Just watched "Cries and Whispers" last night... great movie, but what was a real treat is the interview with Bergman from 1999. It's a great interview, check it out if you're a fan, or even if you're not. On the Criterion release.

Interesting... thanks again. We might be going that way (out the window "reality") a lot in future, as we've done in the past with still images. I agree that the cleaner the projection the better... good thought about the dynamic range - he might also be thinking about matching stock? The thing at hand is an artsy montage of "memories" to be projected behind the actors, and there's no need to simulate reality - it can even look kind of dirty or have some low-fi look. At the moment I'm just concerned with any flicker issues due to the various factors of projector Hz, LCD decay rates, frame rates, etc. But you think this should be fine showing NTSC projection to HD camera? I see no reason why not. The projector should be around 60Hz minimum.

Fastest reply in history. Thanks David! Have you done a similar thing with success? And, the original source is 24fps film, transferred to video. Might this cause any problems (aside from possible judder on slow pans)?

Hi, newbie here to HD and to these forums... sorry if this topic has been covered elsewhere but I can't find it in a search. I posted this in the HD forum as well. A fast upcoming HD shoot features rear-projected video. The playback will probably be NTSC DVD video, coming from a laptop and projected with an LCD (not DLP) projector. Should this be smooth as butter, or are there any potential flicker/judder issues? Thanks for any hands-on feedback! Matt

Hi, newbie here to HD and to these forums... sorry if this topic has been covered elsewhere but I can't find it in a search A fast upcoming HD shoot features rear-projected video. The playback will probably be NTSC DVD video, coming from a laptop and projected with an LCD (not DLP) projector. Should this be smooth as butter, or are there any potential flicker/judder issues? Thanks for any hands-on feedback! Matt