Post by Douglas Mallette on Jun 4, 2009 14:47:30 GMT -5
Hello everyone,
I'm going to start talking about various lessons learned in this blog. I have yet to do this, but it's 2009 and why not start now? lol. This film has been an amazing learning experience, so why not share the knowledge?
On my mind today are green screens, and how they can be your best friend and worst enemy at the same time! In our case, more of an enemy than a friend, because we didn't have much help with the lighting of our green screen set.
We had awesome screens and a nice setup, but the lighting was way too bright. I was mislead to think that the computer could fix it all. How was I supposed to know? I was talking to people who were in positions where they were supposed to know, so I trusted them. Bad idea. So here are my recommendations...
Schedule 1 weekend before you start filming in your green screen set to film some basic stuff in your lighting scheme. Standing, walking and jumping jacks to get fast motion. Now vary the lighting scheme and film another take. Do this for several runs using different lights and different setups. We're talking like a 20 second take here, not a 5 minute scene. Make sure you note the differences so that you know what run used what setup.
Now go home, capture the footage, and try to key the footage yourself. See if the basic keyer can handle your footage. Is it a clean key? Which ones are the best. Sometimes you're limited with what you have, so you just have to pick the best setup you can based on your limitations. For us, it would have been a simple reduction in lighting. If we had turned off 1/3 of the lights we used, we would have had better footage to key.
Well, capturing as DV Interlaced didn't help either. Progressive is the way to go. My point is, if YOU can pull a decent key then your compositing staff, who are supposed to be educated or getting educations in this stuff, should be able to pull a great key for you. This makes life better for everyone and also makes post production go faster.
I'm going to start talking about various lessons learned in this blog. I have yet to do this, but it's 2009 and why not start now? lol. This film has been an amazing learning experience, so why not share the knowledge?
On my mind today are green screens, and how they can be your best friend and worst enemy at the same time! In our case, more of an enemy than a friend, because we didn't have much help with the lighting of our green screen set.
We had awesome screens and a nice setup, but the lighting was way too bright. I was mislead to think that the computer could fix it all. How was I supposed to know? I was talking to people who were in positions where they were supposed to know, so I trusted them. Bad idea. So here are my recommendations...
Schedule 1 weekend before you start filming in your green screen set to film some basic stuff in your lighting scheme. Standing, walking and jumping jacks to get fast motion. Now vary the lighting scheme and film another take. Do this for several runs using different lights and different setups. We're talking like a 20 second take here, not a 5 minute scene. Make sure you note the differences so that you know what run used what setup.
Now go home, capture the footage, and try to key the footage yourself. See if the basic keyer can handle your footage. Is it a clean key? Which ones are the best. Sometimes you're limited with what you have, so you just have to pick the best setup you can based on your limitations. For us, it would have been a simple reduction in lighting. If we had turned off 1/3 of the lights we used, we would have had better footage to key.
Well, capturing as DV Interlaced didn't help either. Progressive is the way to go. My point is, if YOU can pull a decent key then your compositing staff, who are supposed to be educated or getting educations in this stuff, should be able to pull a great key for you. This makes life better for everyone and also makes post production go faster.