Olivier Egli

it would be great to see an example of a scene that has been luma keyed using the DVCproHD codec. for some reason i think art direction will be more challenged...spill would be deadly on faces and edges. what tool do you recommend for post....how about ultimatte or primatte for luma keys? me and my compositing artist we both work mainly in after effects.

yes, i see what you mean. i was just trying to get around the problem that my greenscreen is only 18 feet wide but the white studio wall is something around 40 feet. and since the cameras luma/ color sampling is 4:2:2 in favor of luminance and the actors will be dressed in black and have very dark make up and hair i though boosting the background (in that case not equal light levels on the back ground but probably 1 1/2 stops over) and have the actors at key... this should give me the contrast needed to pull a matte...or am i deadly wrong?

I meant "please help me", thank you

okay so i did it, happy? and now let's get back to topic...still need help

i just tried to change my name, but to be hones i dont know how to do this :)

Dear all I will use the HVX200 in 2 weeks for a musicvideo shooting that involves some keying. I am very proficient with lithing and also shooting in various formats, however the HVX is relatively new to me and therefore a question occurs to me: since it is a 100mbit/s format at 1080 as well as at 720 it must be that since this 1080 has 4times the resolution of sd and sd DV has 25mbit/s the color space or the compression must be similar to DV when shooting 1080p with this camera...right? so wouldnt it be the better guess to shoot 720P maybe even at 50 frames/sec (i am in europe) to get a sharper image and to spare the datarate and benefit from less compression on a smaller frame? my output will be sd anyway, but i want to have more than sd resolution in post to be able to pan and scan the picture without losing resolution. i know that otherwise DVCpro50 would be a good guess, but i need the extra pixels. so 720p50 or what do you think? another thing: since the comp shots from the greenscreen will be put in fron of white and the studio has a decent white background wouldnt it be more sensible to match dark costumes and makeup and hair and shoot in front of white and then luma key the whole thing? the reason is that i want to shoot all the actors separately to have more flexibility in post... any ideas? cheers

well to start off your question seems a bit too general... to set up a green screen is more than just a half days of work. lots of estimations and calculations have to be done to find the right setup that works best with your space. first the purpose should be determined. what will be the main use? also, what material you get for your greenscreen? i was forced to shoot with a lot of terrible green painted walls and wood panels in my time that prove to be a nightmare. the basic idea is to light it evenly. but thats easy to say, hard to achieve. if you are using fabric which is likely to wrinkle especially when windmachines are used (i had that) this problem becomes more prominent. the distance between for- and background is a key, also how deep is the stage, is it possible to position actors far away so the screen is likely to be put out of focus? also what cameras/ optics will mostly be used? if you are shooting on a large neg i.e 35mm you are on the safer side than with tiny ccds since your dof is reduced, and the optics perform well almost wide open (i recommend for calculations to use one stop less than wide open,say T3.5 on a 2.8). thats your key light for the forground which should also be the illumination for the background. as a rule of thumb i set my key lights for the foreground the same as the screen. the separation is achieved using backlight on the forground. so you need to rig those lights as well. if you use an extreme of T3.5 at ASA100 and some highspeed photography, lets say 150fps you get the level of illumination your light setup must have on the actors as well as on the screen. here in switzerland we tend to use round horizon halogenic lamps that can be mounted to the ceiling and put on the floor. they thow an evenly light carpet on the screen at powers of up to 5K at 3200K, but the problem is that the carpet tends to flat out. you can help it with the use of flobanks that are balanced to your horizon lights. on smaller screens i used a lot of bounced off appollos by arri. they were 2K. using a scrim i bounced them off some large styrofoam panels using big flags to avoid that the light areas intersect. i could go on forever, even with my amateurish knowledge. but to light a greenscreen in a general way is a book with seven seals...

well one last thing that you shoudl keep in mind with white balancing is which area in your shot you want to white balance to. if you get too close to the green spike fluos and white balance to them the rest of the scene that is not illuminated by much fluos will tend to go on the magenta side. if on the other hand you white balance under the other light the green spike might get too apparent. so if you cant balance the lights properly as mentioned before you should look out for a spot where you get evenly the same amount of all the three light colors. you might still have to add a keyframed color correction in post using a gradient matte, but chances are that you get away with it. good luck

hi there i have a hard time to remember about this one... to expose for a bleach bypassed negative that will afterwards go to telecine for music video processing in post it is quite obvious that i will try to keep my highlights sorta low in order to avoid horrible or too massive burn out as the silver halide does not get washed out in the process, but what if you go for a print instead? does that reverse the situation? it would be handy to know this....anyone got an idea? can i rely on my normal and custom keylight measurements or does it all change then?

yes, I understand that, but what I am concerned about it the field of view I lose when using a 35mm camera on a K3 that has been converted to S16. If I use a 35mm lens it will still be 35mm but with a different (narrower) field of view. How much less? let's say if I want a field of view of i.e. 7' and I know that the meteor gives me that at 27mm, what 35mm lens would I need in order to get the same field of view? see what I mean? I am being a bit religious here, right? <_<

alright so if I use a 35mm lens with focal length of 35mm on my k3 which is s16 it going to give me the same field of view as a 17mm s16 lens?

wait...you're talking about a 10mm lens in 35mm for SLR cameras which will turn out a bit more tele when used on a 16mm camera, right? What field of view would a 10mm 35 SLR lens on a K3 give me? Is this equivalent of a 20mm Super16 lens?

okay, it aint easy, that's for sure, now I am facing another problem: If I am using a K3 for handholding in the super16 format, then what lenses can I use? The Meteor 1-5 that comes with it will only cover as far down as 27mm which is quite long for most handheld stuff. it will be shaky as hell and cause people to have nausea. and with the pentax screw mount m42 I can use 35mm lenses that will cover the super16 range but how wide must such a lens be in order to be wide in the S16 format? it is quite hard and expensive to find such a lens let's say a 10mm for 35 will easily go for 500 bucks, right? and yet it will be quite tele... what would I need? the peleng is a fisheye, am I right?

okay, it aint easy, that's for sure, now I am facing another problem: If I am using a K3 for handholding in the super16 format, then what lenses can I use? The Meteor 1-5 that comes with it will only cover as far down as 27mm which is quite long for most handheld stuff. it will be shaky as hell and cause people to have nausea. and with the pentax screw mount m42 I can use 35mm lenses that will cover the super16 range but how wide must such a lens be in order to be wide in the S16 format? it is quite hard and expensive to find such a lens let's say a 10mm for 35 will easily go for 500 bucks, right? and yet it will be quite tele... what would I need? the peleng is a fisheye, am I right?

how about this: as this is going to be a guerilla style short, I decided to use a sr2 as maiyn camera for the sync action and a super16 converted K3 for the footage that does not require sync sound or where sync sound is not difficult (exteriors, long focal lengths, car/ train shots...). This way I save money on the rental (sr2 are still quite expensive around here) and I have a camera that's really good for documentary type hand holding. what do you think about that?

okay, so this might be completely obsolete to many of you guys but this question is driving my crazy. I am in preproduction for a 15 minutes short which I will be directing and doing camera on. The thing is it is going to be low budget (what a surprise) and extremely guerilla-dogma like. It will all focus on one really tight and as I think good story. The problem now is the picture: I really want to shoot film. N16 or S16. But which one makes more sense? Second: Should I finish up with the telecine dub to digibeta, make my NLE edit and then use the digibeta master and maybe do a faz sometime in the future? Or should I do a negative cut from the start. But what then with my Super16 stuff? If I do not blow it up to 35mm then I will have to go back to N16 in order to be able to use an optical track for sound..? Then the camera: I need something that's easy to carry, handheld and load and handle. Something that will let me record sound, not too perfectly, but still more or less okay sound. Something that has a quite stable transport, does not to have super sync. Something that offers okay lenses. I was thinking of the K3. But it uses 100foot daylisght spools... is it very noisy? reliable? What about the Super16 option? Decent? Are Pentax screw mount lenses not too telephoto for handholding? Is the meteor lens any good? Another option seem the scoopic. But I know hardly nothing about it. Loud? Picture steadiness? Speed accuracy? And my favorite option: an eclair npr. I could get one really cheap: 1900 Dollar for a npr with a canon 12-120 and switar 10mm, not converted, with beala motor, kinoptik eyepiece and a battery belt. What do you think, folks? done deal? any hints? thanks

well, yeah, sorry, I thought about that and I forgot to mention it. was just a way of saying it :) as I am using 500T expression and need quite a bit of artificial light I might have to ND, so what can I do to stick ND filters in front of the optex lens?

hey for my new music video I am intending to implement a few shots of the actors really close looking into the lens with massive linear barrel distortion close to the look of a fish eye lens. But I still want to be able to maintain high quality and focus. And not compromise resolution. What are good options and advises for such a thing? My main lens is a canon 8-64 zoom. for this shots I intend to use: either a century 3,5mm T1.8 (fisheye I guess) or a optex S16 4mm T1.9 (expensive) or a tegea S16 5,7mm T1.8 which one should I chose to obtain the desired effect? What do I need to be cautious about? I think focus is not a big issue since it is really deep with those lenses. Altough the actors are standing close by, almost sticking their nose into the mattebox... depth of focus might be an issue if I do not have the time to check it. It is shallow like nothing, right? Also, which one of these lenses will intercut best with my zoom? thanks

I think to remember that in a few cases back here the static electricity of the neg during the processing caused some "sparks" to flash the film. This happens when the film is wound/ unwound too fast or if something is touching the film during this process. I hope I remember correctly...but it would kinda make sense imo. good luck!

hmmm...interesting. some lighting guy once explain to me that the color shift downwards the temeprature scale was not so strong as upwards. which means you wont really be able to tell that the 2700K fixatures in the dining room are of a lower output (redder) than my tungsten lights. Am I wrong?

...and I intend to use the Kodak 7229 expression stock for more subdued contrast and color rendering and smoother skin tones. would you agree my choice? the 7218 is somewhat too harsh and hard looking for this kind of location imo..

hey all once again I am in the course of prepping a music video shoot. this time it is going to be in a turkish restaurant. a quick run through with my color meter showed very varied light sources. the fixatures are in the frame so they cannot be gelled. Also I am going for a cyanish allover look with some excess in green and blue. here's the thing: one part of the frame is covered by a kitchen with energy saving osram lamps outputting at around 4100K with an average of about +12CC in green (a lot, I know). the other part of the frame is covered by the part where the customers sit and eat. there I have halogenic lights with around 2700K and +2CC in green. My plan now was to use daylight balanced kinoflos in addition to the existing lights. And over the flos I would hang 1/2 or a 1/4 CTO to bring them down and add a plusgreen which would give me quite exactly +12CC. The front part of the restaurant would then look quite normal and warm compared to the kitchen, which would give me a nice tonal separation, which I intend. Is my assumption right? Will my plan work out? Anything I overlooked? PS: I do not use any type of color camera filtration...

what larent.a said: My advice : Don't over light the backgroung, set it by the keylight, not overexposed. this shall be your bible! Very often novices make the mistake to overlight the greenscreen because they thing that the blooming effect will help the screen to look more even, but this is not so true when you are sitting in the compositing suite. Clear separation with back- and kickerlight set at 2 stops over key will help separate fore- and background. if you plan on using heavy fill on the actors you need either a big distance to the screen or to flag it down like hell cause it will spill on the screen. kinos are helpful but often prove too weak to light such a bright area, and if you still want to do it it will eat up your budget in no time. If you got it then go on, best way to do it. Do you have acces to round horizon flooders? they come in casings of 2x1k and have a very soft edge. mount them on the top bar and have them light the screen from above. Do not light the screen from underneath. use side and 3/4 fron light with high output that match the lights on the overhead fixatures and keep them off the actors.

thanks mitch, I just got that cable today.

uuuh, I think I will most likely use soft backlight and make an incident reading towards the backlight treating it as a key light. the filler will then be 1 stop under and this should give me a decent exposure within the range, right? backlight read 160 fc, fill light coming from other side 100 fc... F4 with ASA200 (rated ASA160 for one third stop overexposure).