Rick Wise
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If you are using your zebras to check your green screen, where have you set the Zebras? Also, what is your f/strop?
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
You sound guy is way out of line. I’d talk quickly and quietly with the producer and director to replace him ASAP. As noted above, he must be inexperienced. Being booted for bad behavior will be good training for him.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
In general, the worst place to place a key light is on the camera. Why? You get a very flat and often harsh picture. It’s best to use such a light as a tiny bit of fill. Solution? Try to place your kids where there is natural light coming in windows or from room lights.
You are correct to worry about color temperature. Many posts on that topic. Do a search.
As for which light? Also many posts. Another search on the database. Or, go to bhphotovideo.com, search for “on-camera light” and sort the response from least expensive to most. Then work your way up to your comfort cost, and get that one. Some of the new LED units can be switched from tungsten to daylight quite easily. Otherwise, get a couple of sheets of 1/2 CTO or CTB depending on the native color of the light. (IF daylight, have the 1/2 CTO handy when shooting tungsten (incandescent) lights. Or, if the native color of the light is tungsten, have the 1/2 CTB to add when shooting in daylight. You also have to consider greens, which come from ordinary fluorescent lights. Get a couple of sheets of 1/4 minus green (magenta) to take out green spikes if they occur. One or two layers may be needed.
Finally, if the light does not have some kind of softening gizmo, get a couple of sheets of diffusion (I’d have some Opal when I need more intensity at the sacrifice of softness, and 1/2 grid cloth when I can go for more diffusion and less light intensity.)
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
You want to light your green screen with the same intensity as your subject. If you are using any plus gain on the camera, you are introducing noise.
The first rule of green screen is to light it evenly all over. Sounds like a starting place would be to double the number of lights. But be sure you place them so the screen is illuminated evenly.
It is also possible your software is introducing noise though more likely it is the lack of light.
There are lots of posts on shooting green screen. If you are still having trouble, try searching the data base.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
On this forum, almost no posts remain unanswered. So the complaint that “I don’t get a response” does not hold here. My original point stands. I don’t mind at all being contacted personally. BUT: every time I am, the questioner has a problem that almost certainly others share. A personal reply does nothing to educate anyone else. Further, a personal reply cuts off the rich information that might be added by another “expert.” No matter how much one of us knows, there will be others with other solutions to most conundrums.
The great strength of this forum, as with the lighting forum and Vegas forum (the three where I hang out) is that questions are answered, and the answers form an ever growing data base for future seekers of a solution.
Personal contacts are great… for personal contacts. They help no one else.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I rendered each clip out as an AVI clip. In DVD Architect I selected the “movie” theme. Then in explorer clicked on each clip, one by one, and dragged it onto the first page. When the page was full, I inserted a second menu page. Once past 7 clips, the earlier ones would no longer “render.”
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Thank you very much, Mike. I will print out and mark your excellent advice for the next round. I am currently on the last of 5 DVDs with my clips. Next time I will be better educated and as a consequence, “smarter.”
Thanks again!
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Very strange. I seem to be the only person having this problem. I just found it’s not the number of menu pages that count. It’s the number of clips. I am limited to seven. When I add an 8th, the first clip no longer renders video. A ninth, and the second clip goes black. Mystery.
Working solution, make multiple DVDs with no more than 7 clips per DVD. Bummer.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Well I think I found the problem: it appears that Version 5 of DVD Architect will let you insert more than 1 extra page of menus, but when you do it renders the first pages inoperable. As long as you can cram your menu onto two pages you are OK. Or so it seems.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Given the equipment you have, you do have a bit of a problem.
Step one: look at your location in the middle of the morning, and then again in the middle of the afternoon. Where is the sun? (You can also just figure this out using a compass.) What you want is the sun coming in the window, so that what you see outside is the shady side of whatever is out there — trees or buildings. If what’s outside is a vast field of grass, you are going to take another approach: shoot at dusk or dawn.
Your tiny tungsten units will be next to totally impotent in relation to the sunlight. A cheap solution: buy a couple of large, door-sized plastic mirrors at Wall Mart or Home Depot. Grab some of the sunlight coming into the window and bounce that into the second mirror which is placed so that you get some decent fill. Buy some plastic shower curtain at the same outlets. Hang the curtain so that it filters the bounced sunlight. You might want to go with two layers, each separated from the other by at least a foot.
An alternative method: bounce the first mirror into a 4 x 8 sheet of foamcore placed for best effect. Then you only need one mirror. But get the shower curtain anyway — the foamcore may be too hard. You want a very large, soft source of fill.
If the outside is dark enough, you could rig your shower curtain outside the window so that the camera does not see it, but the sun is softened. Again, 2 layers might be good. This method has the benefit of reducing the sunlight’s intensity, reducing the amount of light you need to add inside the room. I would still get the large mirror for the double bounce as above.
As for the tungsten units, you want to gel them with 1/2 CTB. Since you don’t know what gels you have, buy some. Use for accents on the background.
Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com