[Todd Terry]

Blaise beat me to it… but I have the same advice.

DON’T go buying a bunch of gear. Consult with the cinematographer.

No offense, but you don’t seem like an expert in this area (which is fine, not everyone should be an expert at everything), but he or she will be and will tell you what you need. They may even already have some of the gear themselves (in fact, that’s likely). At minimum they probably already have relationships with vendors or rental houses that will be helpful.

Honestly, if I was hired (or inquired about) as a DP and went in and was told this is how it’s going to work and this is what I’ve bought and this is the gear you’ll need for this shot or that shot… I’d probably say “Thanks, but I’m not the right guy for you.”

Talk to the DP first.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Dunno what size bit… but if pads vary greatly in thickness (and I couldn’t really attest to that, I own three pads and they are all identical) you could do parallel grooves close together of different widths… three or four of them.

That way you’d always be likely to have one that fits, no matter whose pad you stick in there.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I don’t want to be one of those “I don’t know the answer but I’ll open my big mouth and chime in anyway” guys (don’t you love those?), but in this case I will anyway.

I can’t say with 100% certainty (I suppose anything is possible), but I would seriously seriously doubt that there is any possible hack to make the camera record in one single continuous file.

Those are pretty low-end consumer-grade cameras, and those typically aren’t too tweakable or hackable… pretty much what you have is what you’ll get.

That being said though… multi-camera editing doesn’t have to be a pain in the #&(@… it really should be a piece of cake (I don’t do it all the time, but frequently enough). Just make sure each camera is recording an audio track (just for syncing purposes, doesn’t have to sound great) and it’s a cinch to sync ’em up. I think it would take me less than two minutes to sync up an hour’s worth of eight-camera tracks just by eyeballing the wav files on the timeline (which is the way I do it)… or use Plural Eyes (which many people use, I don’t) to sync them all pretty much automatically.

If you do find a hack for recording longer AVCHD files, pass it along.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Cool…. I’m willing to bet one of those colors will work much much better.

Good luck!

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

You could give bleaching a try, but I wouldn’t have high hopes for great results. Most of those garments are made of nylon, lycra, spandex, or other completely man-made fibers … those are very difficult (if not impossible) to dye, so I’d think the reverse would be true, too.

But I would think “charcoal” would give much better results.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

You have indeed given yourself a photographically tough situation there…

You’re not alone, nor doing anything wrong on the technical side though, it’s just a difficult situation that many of us deal with all the time. Whenever we have to have actors provide any of their own wardrobe, our usual speech (right after “Bring several options”) is “No pure blacks, pure whites, or busy patterns.” I more or less forbid pure blacks as major costume pieces. Something small (a man’s tie) is ok… something big (an entire suit or dress) is not.

Even then with the lecturing, we still run into it. Many people (especially women) think they absolutely look best in black, and show up in it anyway… despite the fact that they might indeed look their best in black in person, they probably don’t on camera. And on the other end of the luminence spectrum, if you have lots of healthcare clients like we do, you learn to dread white lab coats (which is why if you ever go on the set of a medical TV show, say, Grey’s Anatomy, you’ll find all the doctor’s coats are actually gray, not white).

But I digress…

There are a few things you can do…

Yes, a higher-end camera can have a wider exposure lattitude, and that might keep the blacks from being crushed (especially a high-end and high-lattitude camera, Arri Alexa, etc.). That being said though, the 5D does have a pretty wide range, so I’d expect only limited improvement.

I’m not a DSLR guy (don’t let me get on my soapbox about using still cameras for motion work when you should be using a cine camera), so I’m not sure what profile settings are available on the 5D… but there may be some tweaks you can make to the picture profile to improve the situation. If you were using a cine camera, I’d say “Adjust the pedestal setting.” Is there something comparable in your camera?

Lighting… your lighting plot doesn’t look bad at all, but it might not be the right design for this scene. Try more backlighting. And I dont’ mean a little… but a lot. Really pour it on… at least as bright as your key light, if not substantially brighter. Maybe even some sidelighting instead of (or in addition to) lots of backlighting.

But I think you will get by far the best results with what is by far the very easiest tweak: DON’T PUT THEM IN BLACK. Is there any reason that your talent has to have a black wardrobe? Maybe there is, but if not simply put them in something else. If you are wanting a monochromatic look, even a fairly dark gray will probably give the impression of a black wardrobe, but still allowing some details to read… and definitely not crush like the real pure black does.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well, at that rate you are giving it away for next to nothing.

I understand you had some issues, and in a way this was a learning exercise. Think of it this way, if you were completely up to speed and fully proficient… how long would it take you? Three hours? Four? More? Less? I would charge for this project based on that.

Plus you said this was as a “favor”… is it a good friend or colleague? You can factor that in.

And rates are different everywhere… but here in our shop I’d say this was about a 750 to thousand-buck project, if done as a regular paying job.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Normally I light a greenscreen (or any other flat background) from both the sides and the ceiling. I’ll usually put vertical 4′ flos on stands at the sides, and have horizontal 4′ flos in the grid to wash from the ceiling as well (in rare instances I’ve lit from below, too… but I’d say that’s not usual practice with me).

BUT… you have a pretty small space and not that much area to try to light. You might be able to (probably can) get away with lighting from the sides only. It would definitely be worth running a test before you go to the expense and trouble of lighting from above if there is not already a grid there.

Then again, the opposite might be true… since the space is small you might prefer not to give up any of your floor real estate to stands and lighting instruments, and lighting from the ceiling only is a better idea.

I’d try it from the sides first, though, and see how that goes.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I was going to ask a couple of questions that Rich touched on….

How many hours did it take you? I don’t have any concept of how long it took you to customize that template… 30 minutes or 10 hours or what… but that’s important.

Is there any certain reason you don’t want to do just an hourly-based price on this?

And… did you do this for a client before giving them a cost? Or at least an estimate??

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

We don’t charge for non-shoot time that is unusable because we are sleepy or mentally hung over from a night shoot.

BUT…

We do have different hourly rates for such, that make up the difference.

We have a base shoot rate, which is the one we usually quote to clients… but that is considering all shooting to be within 9-to-5 and Monday through Friday. Anything outside those perimeters gets a higher rate.

For night stuff, we’d usually go time-and-a-half from 5pm-to-8pm… after that it’s double time. Same for early mornings, which is also time-and-a-half unless it’s really early (say before 6am) which would be double time.

Same for any Saturday or Sunday shooting, which starts at double.

The vast vast majority of our location shooting is 9-5 M-F, but every now and then something outside that can’t be helped… such as when nighttime exteriors are needed. Another frequent culprit is doctors, such as a plastic surgeons group that we work with… they are far too busy shoveling money during regular biz hours to take a break, so we shoot them on very early Sunday mornings. They pay the max premium for that (I think we might charge them triple time for that, not really sure), but I haven’t noticed any of their children going without shoes over it.

So… we’ve found the easiest way is to just charge appropriate higher hourly rates for off-hours shooting, and that’s what I’d recommend.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com