Dave Plake Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I want to silhouette a dancer in front of a green screen so the black image of the dancer can be keyed out and put into another background, but colored red or white. It is similar to the ipod commercials where the dancer is a silhouette and you see the earphone cords and spikey hair of the dancer. I was thinking I'd light the green screen wall to a certain stop, and then backlight the dancer to try to make him a black silhouette. Any suggestions as to how to have the dancer a completely black image? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dzyak Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 I want to silhouette a dancer in front of a green screen so the black image of the dancer can be keyed out and put into another background, but colored red or white. It is similar to the ipod commercials where the dancer is a silhouette and you see the earphone cords and spikey hair of the dancer. I was thinking I'd light the green screen wall to a certain stop, and then backlight the dancer to try to make him a black silhouette. Any suggestions as to how to have the dancer a completely black image? Thanks! Just light the greenscreen and move the talent far enough away to keep any green spill from hitting her/him. It also helps immensely to have a large enough stage/space so that none of the units that are lighting the screen are "spilling" to cause light bounce from a ceiling or walls back onto your talent. Basically, just keep ALL light from hitting your talent in front of the screen and the silhouette takes care of itself, providing your exposure ratio is sufficient enough to drop the talent into complete black. No backlight required and in fact, not a good idea at all. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zamir Merali Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 You dont need to silhouette the subject on the green screen. Just key the non sihouette person out and adjust the color values in post to get the right colour. This seems a bit easier to me because you wont need extra lights or a bigger greenscreen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Chad Stockfleth Posted January 12, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted January 12, 2007 Yeah, if you key the person, you can make them all black in post. Will the colors be changing or something in the video? If not, why not just paint the cyc wall the color you want. Regular paint is a lot cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dzyak Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 "Just key the person"? What does that mean exactly? You can't just key someone out without an even background to cut them out from, unless you're interested in some painstaking and expensive roto work. And yes, any color will do but it has to be an even color and evenly lit to key it successfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Chad Stockfleth Posted January 13, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted January 13, 2007 I was still refering to shooting them on greenscreen, but they don't have to be completely black against it. once you key them, you can adjust them to be black. however, if you just want a silhouetted person on a red background, i would paint the background red and silhouette the person, avoiding the key altogether. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Plake Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 I was still refering to shooting them on greenscreen, but they don't have to be completely black against it. once you key them, you can adjust them to be black. however, if you just want a silhouetted person on a red background, i would paint the background red and silhouette the person, avoiding the key altogether. Actually... there will be a few differnt backgrounds put in in post, but here's another twist...what if the person is holding something, like a white or blue object..like a silver blue hard drive or something in his hand, and that is the only thing that won't be silhouette in post. In other words, the person will be keyed off the green screen, made to be a certain color, but the object he's holding needs to look normal or somewhat accentuated in post. In that scenerio I need to light the talent and especially the object correct? Should I key with a nice soft source like a barger bag light and just wrap tungsten around him while lighting the wall with kinos? Any more suggestions? Thanks again! D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zamir Merali Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I think that If your subject needs to be black and you need another colour object in their hands, that is going to require rotoscoping. You would shoot the person on the blue/green screen, key them out, adjust their colour so they are black and at the end you would have to go frame by frame tracing the object they are holding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dzyak Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Actually... there will be a few differnt backgrounds put in in post, but here's another twist...what if the person is holding something, like a white or blue object..like a silver blue hard drive or something in his hand, and that is the only thing that won't be silhouette in post. In other words, the person will be keyed off the green screen, made to be a certain color, but the object he's holding needs to look normal or somewhat accentuated in post. In that scenerio I need to light the talent and especially the object correct? Should I key with a nice soft source like a barger bag light and just wrap tungsten around him while lighting the wall with kinos? Any more suggestions? Thanks again! D How you do it best depends on the object. If the object is just one color, you could shoot the silhoutte as described above and then paint the object all one color (that is not green). Then perhaps some kind of follow spot on the object would be needed. If you get into that situation, then you may need to go one more step and have your talent wear all one color so that if any light fell on him/her, you could isolate that and take it back down to black. The roto could work, but only if you didn't need to see the whole object. Any part of it that is still in his/her hand wouldn't be visible. So maybe your best bet is to go with a full red or white background (not green), but paint your talent blue or green from head to toe so he can be keyed to black while he's holding the object that has no green or blue in it. You'd just light your background evenly as well as your talent. After that, it's all post as you work to successfully pull the green or blue and take that element (the talent) down to black. Sounds like fun! Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted January 13, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted January 13, 2007 Just shoot them in silhouette against a white background and do a luminence key... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Plake Posted January 13, 2007 Author Share Posted January 13, 2007 Just shoot them in silhouette against a white background and do a luminence key... right but what about the object..like in the IPOD commercials..the silouette is holding the white ipod. How do you light for that? D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted January 13, 2007 Premium Member Share Posted January 13, 2007 right but what about the object..like in the IPOD commercials..the silouette is holding the white ipod. How do you light for that?D I suspect the ipod & cord is animated CGI after-the-fact actually. But if you had to do it for real, then you'd need to use a chromakey as well, not just a luminence key. Maybe put the person in black, face painted black, etc. against a greenscreen holding a red-painted ipod & headphone cord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Dzyak Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 I suspect the ipod & cord is animated CGI after-the-fact actually. But if you had to do it for real, then you'd need to use a chromakey as well, not just a luminence key. Maybe put the person in black, face painted black, etc. against a greenscreen holding a red-painted ipod & headphone cord. Yeah, sort of like I mentioned earlier. :) As long as the background is a solid distinct color and the talent is a solid distinct color then you can independently key those out essentially creating traveling mattes. Then the object can be whatever it is so long as it doesn't have either of the two colors being keyed out. The success of this depends on how well you can get an even coloring on the talent and how good your post software is (and the talent of the editor doing it). Give him good clean lines to cut and it shouldn't be too difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolfe Klement Posted January 14, 2007 Share Posted January 14, 2007 You can use a standard White cyc room Light the background - not the dancers The object you want them to hold make Matt Chromo Blue or Matt Chromo Green Film at higher resolution then required If you have the money - raise the floor with wood flats (the dancers might demand it) then light the walls with cyc lights every 2 meters Some of the work on the ipods is CGI'ed but much is not - MSA and the ipod guys use this method Here is a still of something I shot that uses this method thanks Rolfe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Plake Posted January 16, 2007 Author Share Posted January 16, 2007 I suspect the ipod & cord is animated CGI after-the-fact actually. But if you had to do it for real, then you'd need to use a chromakey as well, not just a luminence key. Maybe put the person in black, face painted black, etc. against a greenscreen holding a red-painted ipod & headphone cord. If I was giong to black the face with makeup, does anyone know where I could find such makeup in LA? Place in Hollywood maybe? I need to grabit today. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscar jimenez Posted January 17, 2007 Share Posted January 17, 2007 silohuette, that would be ( my formula ) can expose at greenscreen ( lets say 5.6 ) and talent for being silhouette, should be at least 4 stops down ( reflected metering ) but can go maybe at 3 stops and then sink in the M pedestal o master black if needed, can you just work with the matte? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Plake Posted January 22, 2007 Author Share Posted January 22, 2007 Just light the greenscreen and move the talent far enough away to keep any green spill from hitting her/him. It also helps immensely to have a large enough stage/space so that none of the units that are lighting the screen are "spilling" to cause light bounce from a ceiling or walls back onto your talent. Basically, just keep ALL light from hitting your talent in front of the screen and the silhouette takes care of itself, providing your exposure ratio is sufficient enough to drop the talent into complete black. No backlight required and in fact, not a good idea at all. Good luck! I tried that way and it worked...another way that worked, and the way we eventually decided to go, was to light the dancer and backlight him for seperation. I used kinos with green tubes and the backlight really got rid of the spill off of the wall. It came out great...thanks for all your input guys. D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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