Rick Wise
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COW Coin
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The middle one has only 2 lights, so scratch that one. The last one, the D-head kit, is ancient but pretty good, especially with some extra goodies like either a soft box or an umbrella. But those are 1000 watts each, so you run into issues of overloading the circuit. It’s also a very heavy kit (I had one back when the dinosaurs were just going extinct.) And those units are old and student used so likely rather beat up. The Adorama one looks to me to be the most useful. You can buy it directly from Adorama, or through eBay.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
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It’s been my experience, based on lots and lots of telecine transfers, that the most useful tool for the colorist is a gray card properly exposed and in the “neutral” light of the shot. The color chart is for most colorists of little use. Example: you want a warm, setting sun feel. The gray card is exposed in the neutral light of the shot, 5600K if daylight, 3200K if tungsten, keeping away from the card any “sunset.” That way, when the colorists adjusts color so that the gray card is truly neutral middle gray, the sunset look will be quite visible in the shot. Obviously, adjusting to the gray card is just a starting point, but it gets the timing off to a quick and good start.
While my experiences were mostly with film-to-tape, color-timing video to video poses very similar opportunities.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
I’m a little late jumping in here. I have shot with a 3-D rig. It’s a monster! The technology has evolved quite a bit since that early enterprise, but the rigs remain huge and heavy. I’m with Todd: I have yet to see 3D work really well. Though we have to remember that it took DPs quite a time to learn how to use color well. So maybe it can be done. We are not there yet.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
There’s a Manfrotto MH055M8-Q5 Photo-Movie Tripod Head that with sticks weighs 8.3 lbs. Never tried it. I suspect it will be harder to make very smooth moves with this one than with your 503. I could be wrong….
If no one comes up here with something they love that weighs less than 11 lbs, I’d suggest you do a search on B&H, “professional tripod systems”. Set the range of price you are interested in, sort low to high, and work your way through.
Let us know what you end up with and how you like it!
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
The diffuser is closest to the lamp. The egg crate goes in front. If you were to reverse the positions, the egg crate would do nothing but cut down light intensity, not channel the light. The whole purpose of the egg crate is to make the soft box a bit more directional so it doesn’t spill light everywhere.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
There are several different ways to tackle this issue of color balance along both the red-blue and magenta-green color axes. One is to use a color meter. Those, alas, cost around a grand, though you can find good used ones for less. Whatever “correction” the color meter gives you for a specific light, usually it’s best to apply only 1/2 the correction.
Another is to work with a professional monitor. Your observation that every time you use the shared monitor it looks different is no doubt because other users are tweaking it to look “right” without actually setting it up correctly. Here’s one of many articles about setting up CRT monitors. https://spareroommedia.com/video/monitor_setup.html.
Whatever method you use, manually white-balancing the primary shot to a gray card or piece of true-white paper set in the dominant light of the scene is probably going to give you the best results. Sometimes you may want to warm up the scene slightly by placing a sheet of 1/8 ctb set in front of the lens as you white balance. Equally, if you want a cooler look, set a sheet of 1/8 cto in the front of the lens. The camera will correct for the extra blue in the first case, rendering the scene warmer, and the opposite in the second case. If you can trust your editor to correct in post, it may be better to let him/her make that adjustment later. Do shoot a cu of a gray card in that dominant light to give the editor a handle on how the colors are being recorded (after you have made all your changes, but before you actually shoot the scene.)
Relying on the eye is difficult because we adjust our vision to the circumstances. A piece of white paper under fluorescent appears to us to be white, and then again white when we put it in either shaded or direct sunlight. Photographically, they will be very different. However, with a lot of experience, some gaffers and cinematographers can spot green or other casts.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
With white you will have an easier time of making the light even across the visible screen. With silver you will have more intensity. You need BOTH the right intensity and also even lighting. Modern software is much more forgiving about pulling a clean matte than early versions, but it has its limits. You are also limited by the capabilities of your camera.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
The issues:
- Distance. What matters is the distance of the subject from the green screen, not the camera. Why? The further away from the screen is the subject, the less green contamination bouncing at him/her. It doesn’t really matter how close or far is the camera except that the farther back he/she is, the longer the lens, and the smaller the area of green screen you need to pay attention to.
- Color: You don’t mention what kind of 800 watt light you are using for the key. I presume it is daylight balanced so it matches the live daylight coming through the window. Magenta/green: I think it is safe to say that all CFLs emit a green spike. You may want to wrap some 1/4 minus-green around each. (If you didn’t have true daylight coming in the window, you could white balance to the CFLs raw.
- Lighting the green screen: three issues: it should be wrinkle-free; it should be lit very evenly across the area that appears in camers; and the intensity should be roughly the same as the key, or maybe 1/2-1 stop less, depending on your software. Whatever methods you take to achieve all 3 work.
There are other issues to green screen lighting, but I presume you are pretty clear of the concepts. If not, search this forum for many tutorials/posts.
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com -
You either have to use lip sync (not recommended) or use the live audio of each angle. For those to cut well, you would do best to have a good sound person with a good ear. It is common that a wide shot will have slightly less mic presence than the close-ups. Reverses should match acoustically as well as visually.
As to cutting together visually, there should be no problem, especially if you shoot true reverses. That means, you answering or reverse shot has: the same focal length, the same distance, the same height as its counter-shot, and the same framing but switched (don’t cross the line.) So you’ll have a profile shot, and two OTS shots, classic coverage. You can even, if your actors are up to it, add two clean singles. Provided that actors can remember the script well, all of these should cut together very, very easily.
The Hitchcock Rope gag is a whole different issue/problem/solution. In the following diagram, the camera on the right does not quite match the camera on the left as to position. (I should have redone the image, but instead leave it to your imagination….)
Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
