By: Andrew Seltz

Our ability to perceive motion when viewing a sequence of still images is due to a phenomenon called ‘persitence of vision.’ There is a threshhold of frames per second (fps) where the human mind stops distinguishing between individual frames and begins to see motion (around 16 fps.) Film and video do not record and play back at the same number of frames per second.

More on Film And Video Frame Rates

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by: Andrew Seltz

A common dream among independant filmmakers shooting digitally is to deliver a movie that looks like it was shot on 35mm with a huge budget. We want to impress people and there is a certain look that says, ‘you are a real filmmaker!’

More on Make Your Video Look Like Film

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By: Andrew Seltz

This is not the right way to shoot a green screen, but I needed to work in a hurry.

I found an opportunity to convince some business folks on the benefits of an in-house studio space with a built-in pre-lit green screen. I wanted to make sure the execs knew that we already had the technical capacity to shoot and composite green screen work and that we only needed dedicated space to make an efficient system.

The photo shows my basic screen setup inside the office I use for my editing/equipment storage room. The main screen is a Photoflex Flexdrop collapsible blue/green screen. Since I needed to grab a full body shot, I clipped on the vinyl green screen that shipped with my copy of Serious Magic Visual Communicator Studio to the bottom of the backdrop and stretched it out onto the floor.

The first big problem with this whole setup is that there is not enough room to evenly light the screen and talent. All of the lights would have to be placed too close. When setting up a green screen you want to place as much distance between your subject and the screen as possible. This prevents both light from the screen hitting your subject and shadows from your subject hitting your screen. Both will make pulling clean keys difficult. You also want your lights far enough from the screen to minimize hotspots and provide even illumination over the whole screen.

The second problem (which you can’t see) is that I had to place the camera in the hallway to properly frame the wide shots. While I set everything up, people kept asking permission to pass (and then wandered in front of the camera whenever I tried to shoot. ) The end result of this is my on-camera performance is less than stellar.

The set-up was not ideal, but it was my best solution for this quick test shoot. I used Serious Magic Ultra 2 to do the compositing, so I figured this would also test its capacity for pulling keys from sub-par set-ups.

The second image shows the lighting setup. I used a Lowel Rifa Light for my foreground key light and a silver reflector to bounce fill from the opposite side.

The screen is lit by a Lowel Tota light shining through some tough spun diffusion material. Spill from this light was controlled by clipping some blackwrap to the light to flag it off from the rest of the room.

Hidden from view is a Litepanel LED light that I hung overhead to create a backlight. This is a great little light that you can stick just about anywhere. It dims without color shift and works on battery. I hang it from a boom arm when I want to drop a little light in without having to run cables. It also runs cool.

I recorded the footage with a Sony Z1U HDV camcorder in 1080i mode. The footage was transferred to my Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 edit suite and saved to disk. The HDV footage was loaded into Ultra 2 for compositing.

Ultra 2 is a pretty cool little software package. It comes with virtual sets and background stills that you can drop behind your subjects.

Ultra 2 uses technology called vector keying to extract the subject from the background. You shoot a bit of footage of the screen without the talent, and then use that to let the program define the key. The program is looking for differences between this background and the image with the subject. It is sort of like screen correction in the Ultimatte process, but not exactly. This is supposed to compensate for unevenly lit screens and allow the software to still create a great key. The big limitation is you cannot move the camera. Ultra compensates for this by creating virtual camera movements to liven things up.

I found the key definition process in Ultra to be counter-intuitive. I have some experience pulling keys in After Effects and missed the ability to view the matte and fine tune my settings. The one click settings didn’t key out 100% of the background and I spent a lot of time tweaking the various sliders to try and figure out how to correct the problem. Most of the time my subject ended up partially transparent and I had to place a busy background behind it to determine when I had gotten the settings right. I know I need to spend more time learning the nuances of this software if I want to get the most out of it.

One of my full body shots just wasn’t working in Ultra. I used the Keylight plugin in After Effects to quickly create a key and then comped it over a pure green background. I output the results as an uncompressed file and reloaded it into Ultra to insert in a virtual set.

I was surprised that this clip, with the smoothest and most even green background, was hardest to key in Ultra. I don’t know why it was so much trouble. I had to use a lot of matte choking to get it to work. Ultra shrunk the clip down to fit in the virtual set, so you do not notice much.

For head and shoulder shots, this type of setup works fine. For full body you really need more room to seperate the talent from the screen and to get the lights further away too. You can see my results below. It is not bad - not perfect either.

Ultra isn’t quite the instant virtual set dream I had hoped for. It does a fine job, but I think I’ll be more happy pulling most of my comps together in After Effects. The virtual sets look very computer generated. There is also no way to bring in your own 3D scenes. And, I just want more control over my final results (image sharpening, color balancing, and other effects.) Ultra is a more push-button tool for people with simple needs rather than a framework tool for power users.

If Serious Magic builds a suite of tools that let you design and create your own 3D sets (or integrate scenes from popular 3D packages), animate camera moves, and then seamlessly pull that together with your green screen shots, then they’ll be on to something. As is, I have an easier time getting what I want using 3D layers and compositing in After Effects.

Do you have questions about green screens and virtual sets that I didn’t answer? Drop me a note with your question and I’ll get you an answer.

Andrew Seltz, The Go-To Guy

If you like what you’ve read, buy me a latte and help fuel my late night writing sessions.

By: Andrew Seltz

Bad shooting habits are easy to start and hard to break. Slating your shots is a habit you need to make yourself learn to love.

Slating refers to the process of shooting a short segment at the beginning of a take where the camera is focussed on a board (the slate) that has information written on it that uniquely identifies the take.

Slates used to be small chalkboards, but can be plastic boards with washable markers or even a small whiteboard and marker purchased at the local office supply store. Any surface that allows you to write and erase will do.

A Typical Shooting Routine

Many indie filmmakers make their first films by grabbing the camera and shooting a few things. A short while later they sit down at the computer and digitize all those cool clips they just shot and edit away. They watch the results, get excited, and decide they can make a movie - no problem!

Using the same techniques, they shoot hours of footage over the course of days and months with little or no thought to how they will find the shots they need later in the editing room.

Later, when it comes time to edit, they spend countless hours hunting through this pile of footage trying to find a take they need to make a scene work. They can’t speed through the footage either. They must watch it in realtime to listen for the breaks between different takes and hoping to find what they were looking for.

A Better Way To Work

It is easy to avoid this scenario - slate every take. Make sure you have the scene number, shot number, and take number recorded for every one. It is also helpful to record the name of the production, the director’s name and the cinematographer’s name along with the date. You never know when you’ll be asking others to help you edit your masterpiece.

Create a shooting rythm that includes slating. Use it every time and it will become a habit.

Tips

Taking good notes during the shoot will also speed your editing work. When you have a good take (or a bad take with portions you think might be good) write down the information from the slate and include notes to help you remember why you liked the shot. This will help you identify the shots to look for later and save you lots of time.

Sometimes you will need to roll quickly to catch a shot that is happening now. Working with animals and kids is often like this. If you don’t have a chance to slate the beginning of the shot, slate the end and hold the slate upside down to indicate that the take is ‘tail slated.’

If you are recording audio, be sure to speak the scene, shot, and take number into the microphone as well. This will create an ‘audio slate’ that can be used to identify your audio should it get seperated from the video during post production.

Andrew Seltz

If you like what you’ve read, buy me a latte and help fuel my late night writing sessions.

By: Andrew Seltz

You have found the perfect house to be your ‘beach cottage.’ One problem - it is nowhere near the beach.

Are you doomed… No!

1+1=498

One of the coolest aspects of filmmaking is that adding two shots together can suggest a reality to the audience the is greater than the sum of the parts. When you do this to make two different locations appear to be one it is called cheating a location.

How Do You Cheat a Location?

Cheating a location requires finding two places that can be plausibly connected (a house that opens up to an underground cavern is a tough sell.) In the case of our opening example it is a house and a beach.

For this to work well, the houses lawn and the beach must look like they can be connected. (It is possible to build a partial lawn on the beach or beach on the lawn to help with the transition, but try to find locations that have similar characteristics.)

Steps to cheat a location:

• Move a character through both spaces
• Create a Visual Anchor
• Match the lighting closely
• Pay attention to screen direction and wardrobe details

Moving a Character Through The Space

To link the locations together we will show a character walk out of the front of the house and toward the camera. Then, in the next shot, we will turn the camera 180 degrees to face the beach and show the character walking away from the camera toward the water. When edited together, the character will appear to walk out of the house and down to the beach in one continuous location.

Creating a Visual Anchor

To firmly link the two locations together in the audience’s mind you must create a visual anchor which will subconciously make them believe that the two places are one. The anchor is an object that is present at both locations.
If you place a pile of children’s toys in the yard that the character walks past and include it in both shots, the audience will connect them in their minds. It will distract their attention away from any inconsistancies in the transition. You could also choose a picket fence, a lamp post, or anything else you can include at both locations.

Watch Your Light

It is very important that you carefully match the lighting direction and quality. If it is high noon in the first shot and sunset in the next, the illusion will be broken. The same will happen if one location is shot on a clear day and the other is overcast.

If you are linking interiors, take notes about your lighting setup at the first location (some digital camera still shots are good too) and recreate it at the second location as closely as possible.

Don’t Forget Wardrobe and Screen Direction

Since you are likely to be shooting the locations on different days, it is easy to forget a costume detail or the exact direction you had a character walking or looking during the first shoot. This is another instance where taking digital stills is very helpful. Careful notes and visual reference material will help insure that you don’t accidentally get something wrong and spoil the illusion.

If you can, have a copy of the first location’s footage available to review.

Summary

It is exciting to realize all the ways in which you can invent new realities when making movies. A few datails and a little creativity are all that is required to create your illusions.

The first time I cheated a location it was a rush. Everytime I watched the sequence playback on the screen I knew that making movies was what I wanted to do.

If you like what you’ve read, buy me a latte and help fuel my late night writing sessions.