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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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 Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject: Rebuilding Ricky Ep. 3 |
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Went out to the Cheltenham Badlands last weekend for the location scenes of Ricky episode 3. This marks the first time an episode of Ricky has had a shooting crew. Big thanks to Brian, Devin, Justin and Rob for spending 5 hours in the cold winds with me.
There was so much noise from cars, planes and wind that I'm sure none of the location sound is any good and all the dialogue will have to be re-recorded in post. That will be a first for me. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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Just want to say a few more things about the Badlands, since it's such a cool looking place.
It had rained the day before we shot there, so it was a little bit muddy. Not the kind of mud you sink in, but the kind of mud that sticks to the mud that's stuck on your shoes, that sticks to the mud that sticks to the mud that's stuck on your shoes. We could feel our feet getting heavier with every step we took. There would literally be up to two inches of mud stuck on the bottom of our shoes.
When I had scouted the location a few months earlier is had been scorching hot and bone dry.
Anyway... Cool place to shoot. Just beware that it's windy, there's always cars driving by and planes flying overhead, and tourist wreaking your shots.
Here's a map if you want to check it out:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=43.7735,+-79.9448&ie=UTF8&ll=43.773495,-79.944806&spn=0.010799,0.014827&t=k&z=16&iwloc=addr&om=1 |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:44 pm Post subject: Failure, the not so fun kind of learning |
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Lessons that stem from failures are just as valuable as those that come from successes. So I present to you one of my failures...
I was so eager to use my new spring loaded green screen that I set it up for the first time under very bad conditions. Due to the cramp quarters of the bathroom, I was unable to get enough light on the green screen. As you can see, it's quite dark near the bottom. So dark in fact that my keyer couldn't tell the difference between the dark parts of the screen and the dark parts of my foreground subject.
I exaggerated the poor results in the above image to make it more apparent, but you get the idea. My matte was full of holes. I ended up reshooting the scene without the green screen and used good ol' rotoscoping. Sigh... it seems that you can never avoid it. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:36 pm Post subject: Lighting or lack there of |
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Let's talk about lighting. But first we need to get something straight... I'm not very good at it. I just hope that you may learn something about it by watching me struggle with it (or better yet, you could give me some pointers).
In my own defense (because I'd hate to admit that I just totally suck) I'll point out that I only have defused lights, creating rather flat lighting. If I had some focusable lights I could have created harder edge shadows which would help define shapes better and give more depth to the image.
What is sorely missing from this shot is a rim light; a light behind the actors creating a highlight on the edge of their bodies. The main reason I don't have one is that there isn't anywhere to put it without the camera seeing it (rim lights need to point TOWARDS the camera, which makes them hard to hide). The cramped quarters of the room made hiding the lights rather difficult. Also, you usually want to get your lights up high and I only have one “real” professional light that allows me to do this (# 5 in the above picture).
Enough excuses, here's what I did with what I had.
Light #1: This is a work light bought at a hardware store. It contains two 250 watt bulbs. It's acting as the key light. It's sitting on top of a cabinet to get it as high as possible.
Light #2: Another work light with two 500 watt bulbs. These lights are aimed at the walls and ceiling to create a diffused bounce light to increase the ambient amount of light in the room. They create nasty hot spots, but not anywhere that the camera can see.
Light #3: This is a strange light that I rescued from the garbage. It was meant to be used as part of a trade show booth. The easiest way to use it was to hang it upside down with a couple of clamps from a light stand, which why you probably can't figure out exactly what it is. It is hiding in the kitchen and is pointed up a the ceiling of the foyer. It is there because the lights in the foyer aren't bright enough by themselves. It creates a nasty hot spot on the ceiling, but since I add a letterbox to my shots in post, this nastiness will not be seen. This light is 300 watts.
Light #4: This light is in the bedroom pointing at Lloyd and William on the right side of the frame. They are pretty far away from the key light (#1) and were fading into shadows. It is established in other shots that the lights are on in the bedroom, so it makes since that there would be a light source hitting them from this side. The light is from a copy stand and is 250 watts. I clamped it to a camera tripod. Now that I look at it, I should have moved it closer to Lloyd and William, they could use more light.
Light #5: My only “professional” light. It's acting as the fill, but also provides a fair amount of ambient light. It's 500 watts. That's a bit bright for a fill light, but it's farther away from the talent, making it essentially dimmer than the key light.
So, by my math I have a total of 2550 watts of light in this shot. (Not including the kitchen and the real foyer lights.)
Why so friggin' much?
Just because video cameras a capable of shooting in low light, doesn't mean you should. Video cameras extend their exposure range in low light situations by using “gain”. This is an amplification of an under exposed picture to make it look brighter, but it is still technically under exposed and lacks dynamic range (the difference between the darkest part of your shot and the brightest).
I needed this much light to get enough exposure so that my camera wouldn't have to use any gain. My camera has 3 chips which require more light than a single chip camera, because the light in a 3 chip camera is split into red, green and blue. This produces a better picture than a single chip camera, but some exposure is lost in the process.
Anyway, this is by no means an ideal way to light a scene, but I hope it gets you thinking about lighting. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: Delays |
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I was kind of lazy last week, had a cold this week and will be on vacation out of the country next week, so I haven't done anything on Ricky 3 for a while.
I'll get back on track after my vacation...
See you then. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject: More excuses |
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I was lazy for a week.
I was sick for a week.
I was on vacation for a week.
I was watching all the shows I recorded while away for a week.
And for continuity reasons, I may have to wait another week for my sunburn to go away.
But I promise you production will resume in March. ...Honestly. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:53 pm Post subject: What's up with that? |
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I'm sick again! I don't believe this. I usually only get sick once every few years, but I've been sick twice within a month.
Good news is that I'm towards the end of whatever nasty bug my nephew gave me, so hopefully, finally, I'll get back to shooting Ricky 3. Yeesh. This is taking way longer than is should. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 8:56 pm Post subject: Just my luck |
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The weekend before last, I was setting up to finally start shooting again, when I bashed my knuckles against something sharp and tore off large(ish) chunks of flesh. I guess I could have shot is such a way as to not reveal my bandaged hand, but the lingering pain put me off shooting anything.
Good news is I actually shot some new footage last weekend!
I'm back in business, baby! |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:23 pm Post subject: Things are advancy... Honestly! |
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I haven't reported much in the last few weeks, but that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. In fact, there is only one scene left to do! But due to the nature of the show and how many characters there are on screen at a time, it's taking longer and longer to shoot each scene. This shot only has one line a dialogue, but it took an hour to shoot (including lighting) and three hours to composite. Yeesh!
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 12:34 pm Post subject: Suppression of colour in the media. |
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For the first time I've used green screen to do some split screens in Ricky's home. The main reason I've avoided it in the past is that the green tends to get reflected in the glass cabinet and the surface of the table. Also, in cramped quarters it's hard to find somewhere to put the screen where it doesn't interfere with the lighting of the scene. The puzzle room scenes from episode 2 where in a completely virtual environment so there was nothing to cause problems.
There are a couple of reasons why I chose to use green screen this time. One, because this scene is comprised of tight shots I only needed a small green screen (it's craft paper taped to the shelves). Two, there are some rapid hand gestures. It's easier to deal with motion blur on green screen than with rotoscoping.
Here are the two images I'm compositing:
You can see some motion blur in the green screen plate.
Most people probably think this is a problem because you tend to get something like this:
The green outline around the hand is due to motion blur. When something is moving fast, it's colour mixes with the background it's moving in front of; in this case the hand is moving in front of the green screen and becoming mixed with it. This results is a colour that isn't quite the same as the rest of the green screen so it doesn't key out, leaving a greenish out line.
Beginners tend to deal with this by shrinking/choking the matte until all of the green is gone. Like this:
But what this does is remove the motion blur. A motion without blur strobes and looks unnatural. It's one of the “gives” that a composite can have. Shrinking the matte this much also removes small details like hair, and rounds off sharp corners, which also looks unnatural.
What you want to do is keep the blur, but make it so it isn't green. The is done using a tool called colour suppression. It's bound to be known by different names by different programs (some call it spill suppression), but dig around and you should find something.
What it does is takes green and near green colours and swings them towards a different colour. In this case I made the green reddish brown because that is closer to flesh tone. Here's what it does to the green screen:
And here's the difference it makes in the composite:
The green outline is still there, it just isn't green anymore.
Compare this method to shrinking the matte:
You can see that it's far more natural. It not only keeps the motion blur, but it also keeps some of the wispy hairs near the top of the frame.
Semi-transparent objects are much the same as blurred objects. They're both a mix of the object itself and the background behind them, so they can benefit from the use of colour suppression as well.
Anyway, check it out for yourself. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:44 pm Post subject: Bad news |
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Episode 3 has hit a major set back. The drive containing all the footage died. These are the risks we take when try to harness the awesome power of digital technology.
On the bright side, I get to test my backup methodology.
Video editing is hard on hard drives. If any drive is going to die on your system, it's probably going to be the one with your video footage on it. So it's a good idea to only keep video on it and nothing else. This is the case with my dead drive. All the data on it can be restored from video tape. Well... if you used a capture program that logs your shots.
I use the video capture program that comes with Vegas. At first I wondered why it would ask me if I wanted to save my capture session after I was done capturing. I figured my video was now on my hard drive, so what is there to save? The data is already saved. Then I clued in that what I was saving was info about the clips I captured and what I named them. Editing programs use the file names to locate your clips. If you ever lose your data and recapture it later, you need to name it EXACTLY the way it was before or your editing program will not be able to find it. You also need to recapture the EXACT same in and out points of each clip as well. Good luck trying to do that from memory! Well, don't worry. I did save my capture session. So now my computer is automatically recapturing all my footage.
If all goes well, I should be able to load up my last edit and everything will fall into place. Actually, I know for a fact that it will not be that easy. This should restore all the edits made with the raw footage, but it will not restore all the renders I did with Combustion.
Anyway, one thing at a time. I'll get back to you and let you know how well the recapture goes first before I go onto other things. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:53 pm Post subject: Its working |
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The restore of all the raw footage for Ricky 3 went smoothly. I loaded up my last edit and everything fell into place. Well, everything except my VFX renders. But I expected that. The renders didn't come from tape, so there is no way for them to be automatically restored.
I'm going to spend a few days exporting the elements for each VFX shot from Vegas, rendering them through Combustion and then dropping them back into Vegas. I'd be done by now if there weren't so many VFX shots!
So, the data loss was annoying, but because all my project settings were saved on a different drive (and cloned on my laptop as well), nothing had to be redone from scratch. |
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EricM
Joined: 14 Nov 2006
Posts: 63
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| Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 12:32 am Post subject: Things take time |
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The transition to my new day job has been taking up a good chunk of my time lately. But I keep picking away a Ricky whenever I get the a chance.
The project is now back to where it was before the data loss. Hazzah!
That was an annoying detour...
Only a handfull of shots and a title sequence left to shoot. That should only take the rest of the year.  |
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