Green Wavey Thing - will it work?

garo wrote on 6/10/2005, 10:25 PM

I will be shooting a music video tommorrow - a girl has wrtitten and sings a song called "Butterflies" I was thinking of her holding up - with arms outsteatched a deep green cloth while twiriling, or walking or what-ever THEN this could be keyed-out at diffrent levels etc to get a real "spacey" look.

Would any of you use time experimenting with this theoretical idea?

//Garo

Comments

Grazie wrote on 6/10/2005, 10:26 PM

Yes. - G

busterkeaton wrote on 6/10/2005, 10:50 PM

I would try to shoot it both ways.

I would describe the color you want not as deep green but as bright green.
Bluescreens and greenscreens tend to incredibly unatural shades of blue or green.

You could also try with her wearing a bright green shirt and key that out for effects.

farss wrote on 6/11/2005, 1:07 AM

If I was going to try and pull this off I'd be shooting her in black limbo, and have very low key lighting for a good distance around her. Without that as the green ribbon twirls its levels are going to be all over the place making the key impossible. Having the ribbon against black should help. Of course you'll also need her dressed in say blue, else the ribbon may appear to cut her in half.
No doubt a lot of what I'm worrying about can be fixed by having the CK generate a mask and then fuddging that, still best to avoid as much work as possible.
Bob.

vicmilt wrote on 6/11/2005, 3:53 AM

whoops...
I'd never do a "shoot" and experiment of the scope that you are suggesting.
Is there ANY chance you can slip in a quickee experiment to test your theory before the shoot?
It might be brilliant - it might be crap - it might just need a little "tweaking" to make it work. It's always best to "pre-try" experiments, before you actually get on a set with talent.
OR...
do you have a laptop? if so, download a trial of ULTRA (in my opinion the greatest greenscreen software around), and you can do a live test... right there on the set. But even this is a time burner.

If it were me, I'd get the shoot done with techniiques you already know and ask the girl if she'd be up for a second day, with an idea you've got. Then I'd test out the idea with a friend, first.

Here's the point. If you shoot what you know, you're going to deliver a job, on time and on budget. It will have enough problems of it's own, but you will come back with the goods, and everybody will be happy.
If your experiment doesn't work, you've blown a minimum of one hour (or more), lost some great shots and generally looked like a guy who has no idea of what's going on (which essentially is true).
Good luck, and let us know how it all turns out.
v

JohnnyRoy wrote on 6/11/2005, 7:34 AM

> ...if so, download a trial of ULTRA (in my opinion the greatest greenscreen software around), and you can do a live test... right there on the set.

In case you’ve never used Ultra and don’t appreciate what Vic is suggesting; Ultra has an option called “Live Input”. It allows you to SEE your key LIVE so you can adjust lights for spill, brighten a badly lit screen, straighten a wrinkled background, etc.

Ultra would be great for your testing because you can try different things live and know how well they key instead of guessing and not finding out until you are back in the edit bay. I agree with Vic, Ultra the greatest greenscreen software around.

~jr