[Robin Walker]

Thanks for the response. Yes, kinda maybe. The clip they gave me is 30fps and the rest of my settings are 29.97. But I re-rendered it to 29.97 and I still had the problem. The boxes are rendering a half inch to the left of where I put them. The weirder part may be that I seemed to have solved my problem by rendering just their main clip from timeline and re-importing it. Now my boxes are off in the preview screen, which lets me shift them without having to guess. But I don’t understand why the original re-rendered clip didn’t work (and I’ve re-rendered it twice to 29.97). I may just have to be thankful that its working now.

[Robin Walker]

Full confession: that time I got muddy images with double filters I was also shooting Slog2, and slightly sun-facing. I’m new to working with Log footage, so others might have more insight. I couldn’t re-create the loss of detail on Slog2 compared to non-Slog footage, so I was left uncertain about how much of the problem was the double filter (which would make a lot of sense– double the quality loss at whatever level), the combination of Slog and double-filters, or whether Slog by itself worsens diffraction. But the problem was bad enough that I wouldn’t try it again except in a test situation. Even after sharpening and color-grading, I was unhappy giving that footage to the client. I do know, however, that others have combined filters and Slog and been happy wit the results.

I imagine you really wouldn’t have noticed any difference with the more expensive Schneider.

[Robin Walker]

The quality of variable ND filters is very dependent on the price. I use a Marumi that works quite well– no loss of detail or color shift that I’ve noticed. Cost as much as a bloody lens, though. In contrast, a recent shoot using (cheap) stacked ND filters produced a painful loss of detail and muddy skin tone. ND filters and log profiles do two different things– ND will bring everything down (letting you shoot with wider apertures), but your mid and dark tones will get darker, too. Log will reduce the dynamic range, so your darks won’t get crushed. I find that they solve two different problems.

[Robin Walker]

Real scrims can be a bit pricey; an inexpensive scrim option is to use your 5-in-1 reflector (inside scrim material). A reflector holder is cheaper than a scrim holder, too. Purists will say you don’t have the control or the even light distribution of the real thing, but the rest of us hacks find they work well. Those lights should serve you well, too, especially if you use a white card to color balance in post. Cheaper LEDs can have a slight hue, but it’s easily corrected.

[Robin Walker]

Did you try placing your three lights behind a scrim (or the interior scrim of a reflector) to one side? I responded to your other post– I think the key is bringing down the window light and getting the bounce in as close as possible.

[Robin Walker]

Hi Soumendra,
There are a few ways to get this look. The first thing I noticed is that the windows behind him aren’t blown out/all white. This means either his lights are super high powered (very unlikely), he used a very flat profile such as Slog 2, or he put a Neutral Density (ND) gel over the windows– which I think is the most likely. Search for “neutral density gel” on Amazon and you can find the product, which is pretty reasonably priced.

But that doesn’t answer your question about lights. Again, he could be using any number of lighting instruments, but it’s a relatively powerful light, daylight balanced (to match the windows), and mostly likely shooting through a scrim or softbox to create a larger surface area, and a gentler shadow on his face. His face is evenly divided into light and shadow, so the light is most likely straight to his left and just slightly behind him, with something as simple as a white reflector on the other side to bounce some light back. I would use an LED light for this (inexpensive, cool to the touch, and daylight balanced), with at least 60W of power, though with light more power is always better.

The real challenge is finding the balance between the window light, the room lamps, and the subject. This takes some experimentation. If you’re thinking about which lights to buy, I wouldn’t just buy one (even though that’s probably how he achieved this look). It’s just too restrictive. I use a 100W LED studio light, a 60W LED Fresnel, a (roughly) 60W LED panel, and a couple of small 160LED lights for highlighting background elements.

[Robin Walker]

Hi Adriano,

You should probably narrow your question a bit and provide a little more info on your resources ($$) and the type of filming you do. I’d also do a little research on models that interest you and ask for people’s experiences with them. Lighting is a huge subject. Studio lights, panels, Fresnels all have strengths and weaknesses and I’ve yet to find the “perfect” light. You should know that there’s no inherent flicker issue with LEDs. You may have been using cheap lights (though even those typically don’t cause flicker when shooting at 1/50th or 1/60th of a second). A three-light set up is traditional for interviews, but that also doesn’t take into consideration lighting your background.

[Robin Walker]

Have you tried using import media to bring the clips into Project Media? I’ve experienced crashes when dragging onto the timeline with SV13.

And does it happen with all your clips or just the AVIs from this project? Or do you have the same problem with other clips?

[Robin Walker]

Thanks Francis,

That doesn’t quite fit my hopes and dreams, either, I’m afraid. While it would make changing the edit easier (because the whole clip has been color corrected in AE), it’s more resource intensive on my frail little system. I was hoping for a way to just work on just the portion of the clip in the timeline, not the whole file. I believe Adobe Premiere has a way to send a timeline clip to AE and back as the original; thus, if you want to adjust the AE adjustments later, you can do so without exporting and importing again. If the clip is open in AE, you just make the edits and save. The results show up in NLE. My computer has trouble handling both SV and AE simultaneously, so it’s helpful to work with small clips rather than the full file.

[Robin Walker]

Thanks for the response. Both of these methods require rending the clip separately, then opening in AE, modifying and rending again, and then replacing the original clip in SV13. I was hoping for a more streamlined process where you don’t have to render it in SV for the export– or it “renders” behind the scenes in the same way an audio clip does in an external editor. Wondering if anyone else had found a simpler process….