[Todd Terry]

Rick’s questions are good ones.

I’ll add one or two more….

What look are you going for? With that room and the windows, there might be some scenes that are perfectly good (and look the way you want) shooting nothing but available light. Or maybe a single medium big instrument (maybe a 1200w HMI) blasting at the white ceiling, giving you a nice even wash.

Or, the lighting plot could be infinitely more complicated… if you were wanting a moody or stylized or particular look.

So… what look are you going for? It’s infinitely helpful to see the shots of the room, maybe you could add a shot or two (screen grabs from movies or whatever) that’s the mood/look/feel that you are trying to achieve. That would give us a good starting point.

Also… what kind of lighting instruments do you already have available? Not to be a smartass about it, buy your $250 budget might as well be zero as it’s not really enough to think about adding any rental inventory, so knowing what you have on hand will help.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I generally roll my eyes a little quietly to myself when someone chimes in out of the blue in an old thread… but now I’m going to be that guy.

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m one of those cranky oldschool guys that has a hard time being convinced about new stuff… heck, the fridge at work is still full of 35mm filmstock (not that we’ve used any in a while). And I like a few other people can’t really stand 3D… give me 2D any day.

BUT….

I just finished directing a corporate project for a ginormous multinational company that uses VR in industrial applications, where users can see and walk through and interact with virtual versions of factories, plants, ships, industrial complexes, etc. Their applications specifically use the Microsoft HoloLens (which is the slightly lighter headgear) and the Daqri (which is the full bigass helmet). I’m not overly-impressed often, but the first time I put the gear on my own noggin and saw (and could walk around) objects in the room that weren’t really there (but sure looked like they were… like they really really were), it was indeed a very trippy experience.

I have a feeling that many opinions on this will change once people have to opportunity to actually don the really high-end gear and see it in action. Although I have to admit, I do hate wearing 3D glasses… and putting on the HoloLens headgear or Daqri helmet was like that 10x. Hard to envision a way around that, though.

How will this all relate to our business…. who knows? But it will be interesting.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Ah… had time to read for a sec…

Panavision says it uses the 8k RED sensor. So specs-wise I imagine it is sorta like having a Dragon but with a Panavision lens mount. I’m sure there are lots of other things, too, but that seems to be the basis.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Very interesting… I’ll need to read up on it when I have time. I’m wondering who really makes it for (or with) Panavision. Specs look RED-ish but the body looks ARRI-ish.

Panavision will say a camera is “by Panavision”… true for their film cameras but in the electronic camera realm that typically means re-branding. I.E., the Panavision Genesis might have been “by Panavision” but it was really a Sony F35 Cinealta with a couple of modified body panels and re-badging.

Interesting…..

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

OUCH!!!!

I was anticipating him falling down during that dancing or gyrating…. but that was even more dramatic.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I personally want nothing for free (you get what you pay for, ya know), nor was I asking for it. I do want a good and fair value, though… was interested in what others are doing.

I’m all for decent health coverage available to everyone… but I also don’t like people abusing the system. I know someone, roughly middle aged like me, who never “believed” in health insurance (well, he believed in it, as in acknowledging that it exists). This, despite his father being a life-long insurance guy. Instead he preferred to put aside money for himself and his wife in a little “health fund” and paying out of pocket, with enough left to hopefully cover emergencies. Well, he finds himself in his mid-50s and suddenly needing two knee replacements, a very expensive surgery that he can’t even remotely afford. But now, under new pre-existing condition rules, he was able to sign up for insurance despite having two bum knees and immediately get his surgery paid for (despite having never paid a penny in premiums in the past, and becoming what I’m sure was a huge loss to the insurance company). That is abusing the system, because basically I (and everyone else) paid for it, by dutifully paying our own premiums though the years. That’s one situation that rubbed me the wrong way.

But again… I wasn’t asking for anything for free, or looking for a handout. I think it behooves all of us as businessmen to look closely at any vendor that year after year charges us fees with multiple zeros in the number.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I’m not sure if the extra expense of that fabric will solve the issues that you have, you might be fine with what you’ve got.

The “nappy” surface of that fabric does make for good greenscreening… because it helps it light evenly and reduces shadows from wrinkles and folds, helping you get a good key. You don’t sound like you are having an issue with that, though.

It doesn’t, though, do much to cut reflectivity, which you say is your problem.

All fabrics are going to be reflective (although yes, some more than others… black velvet, for example, will have little reflectivity). Think about it this way, if you can see the green fabric, it is by very definition reflective… it is reflecting light back to your eyeballs allowing you to see it. I don’t think the nappy fabric is going to be any less “reflective,” and even if it was, would that be what you’d want? You’d just have to pour more light on it to get a decent level, which is just increasing what is being reflected anyway.

The issues that you are having, which I’m guessing is getting a green glow or cast to your talent would, I doubt, not be lessened by changing to this fabric. And things like actual reflections in eyeglasses, reflective jewelry, etc., wouldn’t be changed at all.

The keys here are, as Mark said, to keep good distance between your subject and the backdrop… and, more importantly, not to “over green.” If you have nothing but a talking head, there’s no reason for them to be in a head-to-toe wraparound green room. You need no more green than will cover the frame. Actually, you need no more green than will cover the subject‘s edges, as anything else can be garbage-matted out. It’s that “extra green” that is giving you trouble.

If this is a continuing problem, I’d suggest a system (roller system, or other), that will allow you to “fully green” the space only when needed, and let you use much smaller greenscreens when you can get away with it. Or alternately, black curtains or flags that will let you block all of the greenscreen that isn’t needed for a particular shot.

Our most difficult key in a situation like this was a corporate shoot with an executive a couple of years ago. He wore eyeglasses with shiny tortoise-shell Rayban-style frames. We often seen reflective problems with glasses with the lenses, but in this case the arms of the glasses were so reflective that we knew would wouldn’t be able to pull good keys… they would key right out. we had to put two black flags on C-stands right slightly behind and right adjacent to the guy’s head. It worked, though, because we still had a good clean line of green around all the guy’s edges.

And by the way, if you are handy at all don’t bother with going to an alteration shop to grommets. If you can work a hammer you can do it yourself in five minutes with a five-buck grommet kit from the hardware store.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

I just realized I intended to respond to the original question (DSLR or camcorder), and didn’t…

I use both. I use a DSLR when I shoot stills, and a cine camera when I’m shooting footage. Just as the Good Lord intended.

A DSLR and a camcorder or cine camera are both great tools. But one’s a wrench and one’s a screwdriver. It just depends on what job you are doing and what tool you need.

I personally am well known for never having drank of the DSLR Kool-Aid. Many people have used them for shooting motion footage with great results, but I still contend they are rarely if ever the best tool for that job.

But that’s just me.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Straight from the “Nobody asked me, but…” department…

Just a few observations about that lens. It is interesting. I’d be interested in playing with it, but some immediate pros and cons pop out to me…

PROS

Price. It’s really quite inexpensive. It’s about the price of a single fairly good cine prime, and about half the price of a really really great cine prime. Pricewise it fares even better compared to real cine zooms, where it’s a fraction of the price you’d usually see.

Coatings. Sounds like it will match well with other Canon glass.

Size. It’s very small, comparatively.

CONS

Price. It’s really quite inexpensive. Why is that a bad thing? It might not be, but with glass you tend to get what you pay for. Of course there is such a thing as finding a really great lens that is also inexpensive, but it’s not necessarily the norm. Maybe it is great, time will tell. Consider this though, Canon’s existing “real” cine zooms are in the low-20s on the bottom end up to the mid-40s on the upper end. This lens is probably not going to be comparable to Canon’s lens that is almost $40,000 more than this one.

Speed. At T4.4, this lens is sloooow as molasses. If you are shooting with much faster lenses, this will definitely change the way you think about lighting shots, and your DoF needs. Not so much for exteriors, but indoors it will be a huge difference.

Range. This lens is fairly short on the high end. Someone use to, say, the classic Angenieux 12-120 zoom range might find it a bit limiting. 18mm is probably fine, but I’m betting a lot of users will find the 80mm on the other end to be a bit short. So while 18-80 is a good general-purpose range, it would likely not replace every lens in your case… you’d probably want to travel with some longer glass as well.

Just my random thoughts….

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Just wanted to let everyone know how this turned out…

Because I didn’t need really great great quality… I gave this a try. It’s a little USB dongle called EasyCap.

I bought it on eBay for about five bucks…

It actually works like a charm. It has composite and S-video inputs along with audio. Standard-def only but in my case that will be more than enough. Used the trial version of WireCast to encode, I’ll pay the ten bucks to lose the watermark when I really need it.

I just did a little testcast on YouTube streaming live camera from my C300 and it worked like a charm.

Not the highest of high-end, but I more than got my five bucks’ worth for this little project.

T2

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