Rick Wise
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Thank you, Dennis. Rick is now returning to second grade where he hopes to perfect his spelling.
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 -
Shiny surfaces are you enemy when it comes to green screen. The reason? The surfaces reflect some of the green, and your key shows up in those reflections. So you would want your table surface to be mat, not shiny, and preferably across the color wheel from green (reds, oranges, magenta, purple.)
But your ipods and computers will all have hard, reflective surfaces. Have some dulling spray and spray them well. (But beware of finger marks now showing up….)
Place your table and objects as far forward of the screen as physically possible. Note that you do not need to have the green screen cover to the edges of the frame unless you enter/exit during the shot, or your hands/arms cross to the edges. Block off with mat black (dubetine) as much of the green screen as you can on left, right, top, bottom. That will reduce the reflective possibilities. In post you can add in green (“garbage mat”) the black parts, and then pull a clean key.
Give yourself and your objects a very soft, wide back light with some 1/4 or 1/8 minus-green (magenta.) Or else, place two 3/4 backlights (soft w/light magenta) on each side.
Beware of a shiny floor. It could kick green into the underside of your objects. Lay dubetine all over the floor behind you.
Since you are shooting yourself, you have a particularly difficult problem: no one to ride herd on the image and warn you of bad reflections.
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 -
[Bob Cole] “When you receive a response in the forum, a lot of other people are looking at it, and if it’s stupid,”
Doesn’t really happen except in the rarest of cases when the original poster doesn’t like the answers. There are many solutions to almost every problem, which is part of the fun. 99.9% of the posters here chime in with great generosity and good faith. That fact makes this forum, and others in the barn, so valuable.
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 -
If I had to jettison one of those lenses for talking heads, it would be the 50. The 85 is a good portrait lens. The second one to cut would be the 35. And, rather than 100mm, I would go for something longer. It’s too close to the 85.
There is potentially a problem with cutting the 50. If you are shooting in tight quarters, the 85 may be too long. If you see that as a possibility, I’d just cut the 35.
Another way to skin this cat is to keep the extremes: 21, 50, 100. Then later, when there are more funds, add some additional lenses.
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 -
These units will almost certainly have a green spike. If they are the only source of light, then manual white balance will take care of that problem. Otherwise, if they are used with daylight (and bulbed to daylight) and/or tungsten units (and bulbed to tungsten,) it will probably be a good idea to add 1/8 or 1/4 or more minus green. Otherwise, areas covered by these units will have a green cast while the rest of the scene looks normal. Or, if you manually white balance to an area lit only by these units, the rest of the scene will look majenta. Trying to selectively clean that difference up in post will be a nightmare.
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 -
Anna, go to BHPhotovideo and search for on-camera LED. Set the order, from low to high. And work your way through. Check user reviews for your best candidates. Note battery use, amount of light, daylight-tungsten conversions. If you want “cheap” you will end up with a not very useful unit, I fear.
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 -
Neat idea. You could not fix the mirror flat to the ceiling and shoot “straight” down or you would see yourself. But you could cock it slightly and make it appear you are shooting down. Problems: Rig the mirror at the correct angle and make it stable — no shakes; also, quality of mirror. Ideally you would want a front-faced mirror, but those cost a fortune.
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 nice improvement, Todd. Slick! I don’t think you can do 360º because sooner or later you’ll see your self. But decidedly this rig will have more options to it.
One additional word: BE CAREFUL. If you go for either version, do not try this alone. You need at least one body on each ladder. That means at least 3 people in addition to yourself. When shooting, it is nearly impossible to really know whether or not you are starting to tip over until it is too late. With the rig I suggested there is a real danger you could topple forward and do yourself serious and possibly fatal harm, as well as seriously injure someone below. SAFETY FIRST. No shot is worth risking your life for.
Safety first is the rule for every shot, on every shoot.
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 will need:
–3 ladders
–sand bags
–straps
–8-12′ 2×6 or several 2×4
–wooden boxBorrow or rent a high-hat that hold the tripod’s head. Take 2 ladders tall enough to get high enough (see following). Spread the ladders apart. Put weights (sand bags) on the base of the ladders or figure out some way to anchor them. Run a 2 x 6 or similar plank(s) between them. Strap an apple box or some kind of box to the plank in the middle. Attach with screws or straps the high hat to the front of the box. Attach the tripod head to the high hat. In a “normal” position you should be pointed straight down. Attach the camera (very carefully) to the head. For safety, run a rope or strap through the handle of the camera to something overhead that will support the weight should the camera come loose. You will have to stand on a third ladder to operate. The actors should be directly below. You will be able to “rotate” (pan) somewhat.
An alternative is to find some kind of lift that can position you where you want to be. Do the box plus high-hat trick.
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 -
Could be a terrific workshop, could be a dud. That they advertise themselves by stealing clips from beautifully shot movies which they did not shoot (I presume, perhaps falsely) makes me doubt them a lot. Note that one workshop will not make you a great lighting DP. I teach graduate students three hours a week for 15 weeks, and in spite of my examples, words, exhortations, almost none of them can at the end of the class “see” light. (Of course, maybe the fault lies with me and not with them….) They are still using formulas, not looking at what is there and what might make what is there better (or worse.) It takes years of practice to learn to see.
At the start, copying older masters is probably one decent way to learn for yourself, and you can learn a bunch of “tricks” (as one student put it to me.) As you keep working at it, your eye will develop, provided you have some innate talent. I doubt everyone has that talent, but a lot do have the potential and a very few actually put it to good work.
If you end up taking this workshop, let us know how it worked out for you and for others.
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