Rick Wise
1
COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Thanks Todd. Also something like this Avenger “super clamp” (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3575-REG/Avenger_C1575B_C1575B_Super_Clamp.html) could do the job.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Thanks, Mark. Looks like there is no easy way to mount one of these on a light stand. But fun to use.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Mark, can you please identify your happy LED light? Perhaps a link?
Thanks,
Rick
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Dogme 95 was the Danish movement. The rules are included in a good Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
Rather than a chip chart, I find a Kodak gray card is a much easier solution. Zoom in to fill the screen. Make sure the card is lit with the main lights of your scene. Provided your NLE has a Vectorscope option, in post color correct the card until there is NO color; all the dots are clustered in the center of the center circle.
Years ago telecine colorists told me they find the gray card the easiest way to set up my footage. That’s only the beginning, of course. After you roll into the scenes you may want to make all kinds of adjustments but at least you are beginning with a neutral color balance.
Shoot the card at the head of each change of lighting.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
The barrel extenders will give you the cleanest look. Probably work best on your 70-200. They are difficult to use on wide lenses. Also, you want a set that does not interrupt the signal from your lens to the body.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
I’d say you are off to a good start. I only played version 3, since that’s the one you like.
Exposure: you seem to be setting the camera to auto expose. That’s something you never want to do as something in the frame may cause the iris to either open up or close down, which doesn’t look so hot in the middle of a take. If your camera has a Zebra setting, set it to 70%. Then manually adjust the iris until with a Caucasian subject there is just a hint of Zebras on the hot spots of the face, usually a bit of forehead, maybe bridge of nose, maybe cheek bones if they are prominent. Now leave the iris setting alone.
Light placement: try lifting your key light quite a bit higher, about 45º above horizontal, and tilting down. Try playing with a bit or “ratio:” the fill side not as hot as the key side. Try moving the key around a bit until you get a look you like. (Meaning, more to the side, or closer to the camera.)
You do seem to have a light on the back of your narrator (you perhaps?) which you don’t identify. For your hair and jacket, the intensity of that back/rim light is good, but for someone who is bald or has gray hair it would be way too intense. The light on the background is a separate light.
The major rule is: every face and every costume is different. You have to look at how this person looks in this light, and then adjust accordingly. You might want to add a light blue (maybe a 1/4 CTB) to the back light if your client has silver hair. Or, if he/she has reddish hair, perhaps 1/4 CTO.
If you can add a good critical monitor to the set you will have a much easier time of making those judgement calls.
On this screen I do not see “grain” on the background. I trust that it’s there. I don’t know if that’s because there is grain in the background or your camera is adding some because you have it on auto and it’s pumping up the ISO.
Which brings us to ISO setting. You do NOT want to use auto anything on that camera except possibly focus, and even then you may get in trouble. Probably the cleanest, grain-free setting will be around ISO 400. If you install Magic Lantern on your camera, you can set the ISO to 360, which will be even cleaner. However, I find 1250 is still darned good. At ISO 360 or 400 you may not have enough light. I’m not clear just what lights you are using.
Try working with the manual settings and play with light heights and positions, and come back, if you like, for more notions.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
I’m not sure with your model. I jury-rigged some small Lowel clip-on barndoors to hold a piece of flexible bamboo I bent into the right size circle, to which I stapled both light diffusion and 1/4 minus green. Not a great solution since the rig looks pretty micky-mouse and likely to not stay in place. But the bulbs need to breathe, so you need to leave an air gap. For my simple gig this do-it-yourself system worked OK, just as the light works OK. I wouldn’t buy it again unless I was really, really pressed for cash — which you are.
I’d suggest you look at the light after it arrives and then start thinking about how you might rig the 1/4 minus green. For your green screen you obviously don’t need the color correction.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
I bought a slightly earlier version of the Cool-Lit 9 for a very low-budget project. It’s OK, has a decided green spike that you need to gel out with 1/4 minus green for normal applications, but for green-screen that’s no problem.
Rather then get the 5-light version with a soft box, I’d go for two of the 9’s, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/569816-REG/Interfit_INT216_Super_Cool_lite_9_Fluorescent.html. The heads are heavy. You need a beefy light stand for each. If you end up having too much light, then you can progressively switch off some of the lights.
However, working with a 15’x15′ screen in a tight space is going to cause you a lot of trouble. I suspect the 9-lites backed off as much as possible might get you there but it will be tight all around. You will have trouble both lighting the screen evenly and keeping the lights for the screen off your foreground. Perhaps you can make it all work…. hope so.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
I doubt this exists anywhere else. Looks to me like some very clever grip work, a one-of-a-kind.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com