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Strange bands of colour
I recently did a Multicam shoot with my prosumer Panasonic camcorders. At one point there was a projection on the theatre cyclorama which shows differently according to the angle – please see the attached photo. The camcorders were all set 1080/50i. I suppose it’s something to do with different frames per second between the projection and the cameras, maybe? How can I explain/justify this to the client?
Other projections involving all sorts of other images and colour combinations were fine. It was just this relatively complicated green one where it’s noticeable. Thanks in advance for any help!
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6 Replies
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If you scrub through the multicam, do those bands crawl up / down?
It looks like something often seen when shooting monitors or displays where there’s a mismatch between frame rate and refresh rate of the display. That can sometimes be fixed with a plugin like Flicker Free.
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Thanks for the reply Doug – I was away and only just saw your reply. No, there’s no flicker. The bands stay solid. It doesn’t sound like Flicker Free would be appropriate but thanks for mentioning it as it could be the one to use another day. Oh well, I’ll just have to blind the client with pseudo science… Wish me luck!
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Do the bands move downward, from top to bottom, repeatedly?
If so, your camera was not set to the correct shutter speed and angle to compensate for the refresh rate of the projector. Projector screens, computers screens, TV screens, you can get this sort of thing on all of them. So when shooting screens, set the camera so it doesn’t pick them up (shutter speed, etc). There’s lots of tutorials on YT about it. But after the fact, there’s really not much you can do about it in post.
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Thanks for confirming my suspicions Ben but no, those bands just stayed rock steady. I’ve seen the effect you describe elsewhere.
Good advice about setting the refresh rate accordingly but in this case the super enthusiastic tech guy probably wouldn’t have had a clue what rate was being used anyway. He was so happy the projection was just there and stayed there! For now, in the edit, I’ll just favour those cameras where the effect is less noticeable.
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How about using a plugin like Keyper, ShotAnvil, or the built-in Scene Removal Mask effect to cut the people out of the shot? First, copy the clip, so one’s on top of the other, then add one of the 3 keyer FX to the top clip, and on the bottom clip, use shape masks to isolate the band and color correct it. If the camera moves, track the background so your shape mask follows. Just a thought.
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It’s a great idea John and I might give it a try if the client makes a fuss. This whole project is pretty amateur (very much including me) but it’s good to have that idea. Thanks!
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