Rick Wise
1
COW Coin
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The drop pictured is often called a “scumble drop.” It can be stretched flat, or, as it is more often, draped “artistically”. I would imagine you would use 3-point lighting for your talent, and your 4th light for the background, which can be lit from above, the side, or from below. The further away from the talent you set the drop, the more you can make it soft-focus, which always helps. (Try to shoot close to wide open by scrimming down your lights to just above the bare minimum. On the other hand, your lens may not be as sharp on the talent as you’d like in the wide open position.)
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Looks to me like both cameras show the effect, albeit in a slightly different way, more noticeably on pans than on tilts.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
This topic has been covered recently. For 3 K you have several options. Basically you can get a heavy, solid Arri kit, or a lighter Lowell kit. You can go for tungsten fresnels and open-faced units (and add 1/2 blue if you shoot with mixed daylight or daylight fluorescents,) or else spend the bucks on a Kino Flo or Lowell fluorescent kit or one of their cheaper rivals, possibly mixing in one or two small fresnel units. Don’t forget to get some 1/4 plus and some 1/4 minus green gel sheets to balance your lights to existing lights, as well as 1/2 CTO and 1/2 CTB. Add also some sheets of opal and 1/2 grid for diffusion. Also you will soon be wanting c-stands along with grip scrims and silks, but probably cannot afford them on this round.
With lighting, often less is more. Look at what’s already in place (the overheads, desk lamps, window light, etc.), then add only what you really need.
You are lucky to be fully employed.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.recessionvideo.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I would think that informing a potential client that stealing copywritten music and or video could lead to really expensive costs downstream would be enough to get them to listen to the alternatives you propose. You may feel a moral imperative. They will surely feel a financial one.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
The easiest and also most effective solution to your problem is first of all to locate a stereo rig at a rental house — phone around. That house will either have or know where to get two matching cameras that take primes and can genlock. Then you need a video engineer — you do NOT want to try to engineer this yourself, as you have very little experience and you will end up sinking the project in a hopeless mire. Again, the rental house may be able to help you.
With the help of these experts, you can then focus on what you need to do as the DP — design shots (but read up on designing shots for stereo vision vs. mono — a very different animal) and light in ways that best suit the story and the vision of your director.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Strobing, or visual stutter, happens when the movement from frame A to frame B is too extreme and when projected or viewed the eye sees the move as a jump from position 1 to position 2. This has zero to do with light levels jumping up and down.
Your reply indicates you have no knowledge about what it takes to shoot 3-D. And I am no longer expert on the topic. I suggest you do a lot, and I mean a great lot. of research before you even consider taking this project on.
The stereo rig I used about 7 years ago weighed with cameras about 175 pounds, so totally out of the question for steadicam. Many improvements and changes have taken place since. You have got to get online and start digging for yourself. Posting here is just the tiny tip of your iceberg.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I agree: stay in 4:3 since you’ve shot everything else that way. Then adjust in post.
What is it about your framing that you don’t like? Putting subjects too much in the middle? Not playing 1/3, “rule-of-thirds”? Too much head room?
If masking to 16:9 “cures” the framing, I suspect it’s the headroom issue. Just try to keep the same excessive headroom so that “fixing it in post” becomes more standard. Trying to adjust each shot up or down will be a big post burden.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Lots of opportunities and lots of perils in your post. First off, have you shot stereo before? It’s very, very tricky. (I’ve shot it once.) It takes a combination of software and hardware to get the two cameras at the correct distance apart and focused on the same subject. Using two cameras with zoom lenses is a recipe for near disaster because you have great trouble with the added complication of setting each one to the exact same focal length.
For 5K each, you are severely limited. Perhaps it would make much more sense to rent two cameras which take primes. That way you eliminate one obnoxious variable.
The only under 5K camera I would consider is the Sony HVR-Z5u, for about $4k each (but add costs for extra batteries, flash cards, flash card holders etc. — cheapest to stay with tape for now; the camera can record either way. But it has a fixed, built-in zoom, so you are back to square one.)
Rent. Then you could go with two Sony Ex3s which can gen lock and use primes, saving you tons of time in post.
But first you need the rig to hold these cameras in exactly the right place.
Your desire to shoot slo-mo adds a further complication. I don’t believe the Z5u does that, but the EX3 does. You will get a decidedly better looking slo-mo if you overcrank in-camera than if you slow down the footage in post. I’m not sure what is the max shooting rate for the Ex3 — I think it’s about 60 fps when shoot 24p. Then you can slow down more — or less — in post. Overcranking lets you capture more visual information to later manipulate.
Shooting interlaced is less likely to strobe than shooting 24p. For a rap video, strobing can be good.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
I’ll definitely have to pick up a sheet and measure it with my color-meter. That will identify the degree of minus green on the CC scale, and the degree of plus warmth on the Kelvin scale. I’m looking forward to trying it out. Thanks for the info.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com -
Richard, so far I have been blessed on my video shoots by having a great video engineer who brings camera(s) and monitor(s) and waveform monitor and vectorscope to the set. Were I to go out alone on a studio or controlled shoot, I’d be sure to bring along at least a waveform. That’s the only way I know of to make sure I’m exposing the way I want to. Judging exposure off a regular monitor is a dangerous game. Fortunately, some of the newer prosumer cameras have the option to display waveform, I believe (haven’t shot with them yet.)For doco work, I have to trust my eye and experience with the camera for ball-park exposure. So far that seems to work pretty well.
Rick Wise
director of photography
and custom lighting design
Oakland, CA
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com