Projections of stock footage

[Josh Mitchell Frey]

Hey all. I'm DP on a student documentary (something fairly abstract/experimental), to be shot in the near future. And a possibility has been raised: it could be interesting to project stock footage over the walls of the subject's home, or onto specific objects inside the house, etc etc. I quite like this idea, could make the shots a lot more interesting.

 

But essentially, I'm worried that the light output provided by a conventional projector may be insufficient to record a good picture, given the nature of our gear. We're shooting DVCAM, using a Sony HVR-Z1p. Doesn't have the fastest lens in the world, it's got 1/3" CCDs, and I'm not sure whether this will cut it. Even at wide angle, with the iris wide open, with 1/25 shutter speed... I'm not confident about it (and I'd be reluctant to boost the gain on a Z1p.. small CCDs packed with pixels usually means lots of noise)

 

If anyone's had experience lighting a scene with projected footage with a similar sort of camera, I'd really like some tips. Should I be looking to get a specific sort of projector that will output a lot of light? And will there be a myriad of framerate syncing complications between projector and camera?

 

Thanks.

[Saul Rodgar]

It can be done. If the camera lets you go to a slower shutter speed, something like 1/12th of a second, you will get more light in and possibly get rid of the noxious flickering of the projector's blades. Motion will be a little blury though. The shutter speed settings vary with different camera / projector combinations.

 

The camera may have a synchro scan feature too that will let you sync to the projector, without affecting a lot of the light / subject motion. You just have to do a test and work it out.

[Eric Moers]

I did an "artsy" short a little while ago on 16mm that had a scene where the character was back-lit by this 16mm projector only, with a lot of smoke to bring out the beam. It's a little crude, but our main "beam of light" was originally a Source 4, however the bulb just died and we had no spares. So we pulled out the 16mm projector and just used that. All in all it worked.

 

 

Here's the raw footage, granted it's not in someone's house and there's really no coverage, but if it can be captured on 16mm with low light and a fairly slow lens (2.5/2.8 wide open I believe), I'm sure you can do it on video.

 

As a matter of fact, when I took light readings on the walls, they read about 3/4's of a stop darker than what appeared to show up on the film.

[Matthew Parnell]

It can and has been done, just make sure you get a nice powerful projector with a lens that can do the range/area you want.