[Andy Lewis]

How strange.

I switched keyboard shortcuts to Adobe Premiere Pro default and it worked initially (I could change trim type without stopping playback). Now it’s back to not working. The trim type will only toggle when playback is stopped. Right-clicking shows the options but selecting them does nothing. Re-defining the shortcut key doesn’t help. With Avid or FCP shortcuts selected I also can’t change the trim type without stopping playback.

My install? Unless there is something else I’m missing. Some odd setting that could be causing it?
This has never worked for me. I trashed preferences fairly recently and that didn’t fix it. I’m glad to hear it should be working as I imagined.

[Andy Lewis]

“I was actually being very conservative. I only want you to use the 12 shop lights, NOTHING ELSE.” Ha! OK thanks, I didn’t get that.

“Think of your little box at the end of the room as a refrigerator …. open the door (turn on the camera) and reveal the contents — in an all encompassing wash of light.” Lovely description. I once filmed something from inside a fridge (not joking). I didn’t appreciate how easy my life was back then.

“The only good thing is that it is deep. It’s not wide enough, though”
I’m in Hong Kong and rent is astronomical here. The only places we found with more space were either way outside the budget or really grotty – fine for us, but not for filming kids. We tried photography studios but 12 foot seems to be a standard width here. Every (affordable) studio has a 12 foot wide cyclo with a foot of space either side. That would have given us a bit more room but we would have had to set up the green screen and take it down again 12 times.

We can use the length of the room to our advantage though, speaking of geometry. We can put the cameras far back and go for longer focal lengths to flatten perspective. I’ll test it this weekend. A 70-200 on a super 35 sensor should give us enough reach. I’m hoping we can get 8 to 9 feet of useable width. I think it will be fine for the younger kids. For the older kids, if it’s not working, we will have to split the groups and comp them together in post.

[Andy Lewis]

“The whole plan is doomed by the design criteria that 4-5 kids, and then it seems the filmmaker/dancer in addition, so five people will be dancing in a room 12′ wide”! This is physically impossible. ”

“Just for fun, imagine shooting three independent groups on the tiny set, one at a time….”

The kids are aged 8-12 (grouped by age). There will be 4 or 5 of them but no filmmaker in addition (I’m not really going to paint myself blue and join them, tempted as I am!). We can choreograph specifically for the small space so tight groups should (I hope) work. The songs are 2 minutes long so we can film them multiple times. We can split the kids into 2 groups to comp later, and maybe even film them individually for lip-sync close ups. The songs are insanely catchy – they will haunt my dreams for years.

Dennis, that GAM floor stuff is very interesting. Does it have enough rigidity to work as a cyc on its own? Or would it need curved support underneath? I’m assuming the latter as it squeegees on, but it would save a lot of time and hassle if it will curve smoothly from wall to floor.

“Rent 2 Kinos/stands to use a front fill for each of your shoot days. MY choice would be Parabeam 400’s (but 200’s might be enough).
This is dance, you don’t want a lot of frontlight. Sidelight and top light is what models form and is the best angle for dance.”

We’ll hopefully have 2 Kinos for front fill, probably not parabeams though. What would you use for side lights? We’ll have access to 3 x 150 watt Dedolights but I’m assuming they won’t do very much – although we can use one as a spot for individual close ups. And having said that, those Dedo 150s put out way more light than I expected. And of course when I say side light, I mean the lights will be against the wall, a couple of feet in front of the dancers. So diagonal light.

Oh I’ve also got a colour-variable LED that I’ll mount high above the green screen to add a touch of magenta backlight.

[Andy Lewis]

Yes, I love the good stuff too but cheap has a beauty all its own.
And I like the idea of using 4 x 2-bank fixtures, that makes a lot of sense. The main worry I have about using cheap fluorescents is the possibility of colour phasing and banding that isn’t fixable with frame rate / shutter speed. I know it’s only lighting the green screen but I imagine that pulsing, wavey spill is much harder to deal with than consistent, steady spill.

A theory: The worst fluorescent phasing problems are caused by ‘dirty’ electricity – so the lights aren’t cycling at exactly 50/60hz, right? So if the fluorescent fixtures currently in the building don’t cause visible in-camera banding, then the electricity is fine and we will be ok with the cheap lamps. Does that sound right?

Talking of spill – it’s slightly unnerving to me that however hard I try to create separation, to reduce the spill from the green screen, the cyc is going to go under the feet of of the dancers. Isn’t there going to be green everywhere?

[Andy Lewis]

Thanks Mark. That’s a really good point about the z-axis. As soon as I read that, I had a very clear mental image of choreography with some depth and differential focus. Great suggestion.

“Considering your dancers are kids and thus shorter than adults, it looks like you may just have enough overhead space to run a strip of PARs with diffusion, or long flo tube lighting, to light the green”

Ceiling-mounting the lights for the green screen probably makes sense. I’m nervous about it though. Even though it’s probably safer than lights on stands. The thought of heavy and/or hot lights hanging overhead with children around makes me shudder. I’ll look into it and make enquiries about whether or not we can drill big holes in those ridges on the ceiling and if they will take the weight.

We’ve budgeted for 2 x Kino 4banks (and might even get the green lamps to make the neighbours jealous) but it is a stretch. Do you think they will be worth it over cheapo CFL bulb units in softboxes? I’d be nervous of PARS cos of weight and heat, but I suppose if they’re securely mounted…

I never considered 2-stage chromakey. I could paint myself blue and join them on the dancefloor – then I can make one version without me (for the client) and one with me (for the world).

[Andy Lewis]

[Todd Terry] ” even if you’re backed up right against the wall.
“

Thanks for that. And yes, backed up against the wall is exactly where I didn’t want to end up. Side-on it is.

What do you think about dimming the Kinos for a (fairly) minimal lighting setup on the kids?

I thought the Congoleum Cartel had already split into warring factions but perhaps the peacekeeping missions have sorted it all out now.

[Andy Lewis]

Guidelines for different number of disks:
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/662972

[Andy Lewis]

BTW have you seen Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encounters_at_the_End_of_the_World

The “disgusting” comment from Bug Man made me think of the biologist in that film, horrified by the behaviour of microscopic organisms. It seems like a ridiculous idea at first – every good scientist knows we shouldn’t anthropomorphise non-human organisms, but why not? The human perspective is the only one we have.

Possibly a digression.

[Andy Lewis]

Thought that was great. He’s an excellent subject and I wanted to know more about him at the end. I wished it was longer and that’s definitely a good sign. I really liked that you got natural interaction between him and his wife and him and the cleaner. How long did you spend with them?

I can understand why you started with the “life’s too short” quote but I felt that the next point about “people should know about insects” didn’t really follow. Life is too short not to learn about insects? This was the only edit in the whole film I felt this about. Maybe after “life’s too short” you could put the shot of him abseiling, then maybe him studying something intensely, then maybe the comment from his wife about him being crazy, then introduce the insects.

[Andy Lewis]

It’s a long story.

So, I was talking about bringing in source fours and using one of the rehearsal days for filming (preferably after choreographing something around the camera – although I was happy to film a straight run through of the performance).

The choreographer said they were short of time before the performance so how about after? The promo is for the future rather than to promote this particular show, so… great. We also talked about what we could do specifically for the camera.

Then… it all fell apart. I won’t go into details about what happened in a public forum – and it’s not that exciting anyway, just disagreements between people. Plus no one has any time etc. etc. So I am back with the very first plan – film the performance (with me having no control over lighting) and edit a promo from it.

Remember how dark I said the rehearsal space was? The performance was much darker. I’d post a clip of the video but you could make it yourself by thinking of a number between 1 and 10 and attributing it to the R,G or B value of any given pixel. I’m only half joking. Though actually, darkness and shadow kind of worked on stage. The video will be as good as can be expected.

I get on well with the choreographer and I hope we can do something together in the future. She has interest in video. I am interested in filming dance. We’re in talks. I think setting out to make a video rather than trying to drag a video out of a stage performance might work better.

Thanks a lot for all your help. It will definitely be useful in the future.