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Shooting a subject next to LCD monitor
Yesterday, I had to shoot a talking head seated next to an NTSC monitor which was either LCD or Plasma. He was running a PP presentation of his laptop through the DVI input. My problem was with color temperature. I had the subject lit @ 3200k, but the color temperature of the monitor was off the scale…over 10,000k. I don’t recall having this problem before, when it was a CRT monitor. I think even if I lit with HMIs, the monitor would still be blue. Is there a recommended procedure for this?
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8 Replies
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Rosco and Lee both make gels that combine CTO (color temperature orange) with up to 2 stops of ND (neutral density) in rolls.
Cut one or two sheets to fit the LCD or Plasma where it will hold in place nicely via static cling.
Yeah, the full rolls are expensive. But one will last your entire career.
Good luck.
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Did you try adjusting the colors on the display? Deliberately throwing it off to the eye but making it look right to the camera? If there is a live studio audience this will be a problem, but if you are in the studio alone with the talent, only what the camera actually sees matters.
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There was a white balance adjustment on the monitor, but it was very limited. I had it set to the warmest setting available.
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See, I don’t know what you do when its an HDMI source, but we’re still analog over here and the answer in that case, when you don’t have the lights or gels to match it, would be to run the monitor’s signal thru a proc-amp and time base corrector, use the procamp to jigger the colors around until they looked “right” to the camera.
There was an old practical joke they used to tell stories about. The original source is lost to me, I want to say it was somewhere in New York. Two teams of engineers were trying to match color on remotely located cameras, and instead of color bars, or a live person’s face (takes too long under hot lights of the time) they used a bowl of fruit.
Some wag paints the bannana blue or red or green, can’t recall which now… engineer at the other end just about stabs himself in the eye with his “greenie” because whatever he does to make the bannana look correct, it throws everything else in the fruit bowl into crazy colors.
If you’re feeling naughty, you can do the same thing to somebody with color bars and photoshop these days.
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Now, that’s just plain mean, Mark.
(shaking head)
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Hope nobody did that to the camera calibration targets on the Phoenix:-)
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Guess we’ll find out on Sunday.
There’s no “fix it in post” for that shoot. 😉
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I’ve shot with alot of different monitors and find that I almost always have to warm the monitor settings up, and add blue to the lights. There may be color balance/color temperature/white point setting in the monitor menu that’s buried under advanced settings… its doubtful that the monitor is over 10,000K – usually the settings are 4500K – 9500K – and that’s with an adjustable white point.
Gels on the monitor, I personally wouldn’t do – usually too much hassle, time, reflection, preciseness of the cut, etc… The remote is your friend, but don’t forget the CTBs in your light kit: Full, Half, and Quarter!Better luck next time.
JB
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