The P3 Update Magazine Blog

By Gordon Meyer

P3GizmoGuy@gmail.com

One of the pleasures I get from writing for P3 Update is interviewing a wide variety of artists, both above and below the line, and hearing their experiences.  Due to space limitations, often only a fraction of what we discuss ends up in the print version of the magazine, even though I have lots of great material that “never made it past the cutting room floor.”

I’ve decided to share some of these stories here, beginning with sound man MacCaulay Flynt, who I interviewed recently for a P3 Update article you’ll see in an upcoming issue.  One of the things that struck me about Flynt is the way he works with actors on-set.  On the one hand, he keeps things very professional.  “After all, we both have jobs to do,” he told me.  At the same time, he also makes it a point to make and maintain a very human connection with his co-workers, whether they’re fellow below-the-line members of the crew, A-list stars and everyone in between.

Flynt makes it a point to work around the actor’s needs so they have maximum freedom of movement and comfort.   “I want to make them feel like they’re not even wearing a mic. You have to make the actor feel right from the get go that there’s nothing you want to do but get good sound. You’re a person; I’m a person.  We’re both here to do a job.” 

Flynt likes to get to know the actors before he begins working with them, often making small talk to help them feel more comfortable.  On an indie film he worked on earlier this year, he worked with rocker Meatloaf, who’s been going back and forth between acting gigs like his iconic appearance in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and the recording studio and concert venues.

“I treat them like regular people and get them comfortable with me.  With Meatloaf, it got to be that when he saw me coming, he’d just put up his arms so I could put the mic on him through his top button and down through his tie.” Flynt used omnidirectional mics on Meatloaf.  “Since the knot of the tie never moved that much, and even when it does, the mic moves with the knot because it’s taped to it.” 

Like so many pros working on low budget projects, Flynt learned how to improvise on-set as well.  For “Roost,” a low budget film produced by John Lithgow and Neil Labute, Flynt had to record dialog during a croquet game on what turned out to be one of the windiest days in years for this western Massachusetts location.  The scene was critical to the story and they wanted the dialog live.  Because of the intense winds, a normal windscreen for his boom mic just wouldn’t cut it. “All I had was a standard Rycote windscreen (www.rycote.com).  Then I had a brainstorm.  I sent a PA out to get some unlubricated latex condoms.  I put a condom over the mic, then the Rycote over that.”  He then took a fleece and bongo-tied it to the mic.  “We got perfect sound on the shot.” 

Ya gotta wonder what that PA was thinking when he went off to get those condoms.  Here’s to the genius of technical improvisation!

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By Sally Kemper

FujiFilm partnered up with FotoKem, Otto Nemenz, Iron Mountain and Raleigh Studios to host the 2010 Sundance Indie Moguls party. The oxygen bar, fabulous food and music were a big hit again this year. To spice things up, stripper poles and pole professionals were added. As the night went on and the drinks flowed, a few amateurs took a stab at climbing the beams. Larry from FotoKem took us on a detailed tour of the venue, and we wrapped up the fun-filled day with a deep tissue massage from a Park City masseur in the massage lounge.

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• Light the green or blue chromo screen backdrop and the foreground talent separately.
• Before you begin lighting a green or blue chromo screen sequence, you need to know exactly what the backdrop will become. If possible, have an editing system on set so that you can simulate your composites, so that you are able to see if your foreground lighting fits in with the backdrop image that will replace the chromo background.
• Make sure the shadows of the key light fall in the same direction as the backdrop, and that the quality of the lighting, color temperature and the angle of the lighting are in harmony. If your chromo will eventually be replaced with a muted soft landscape, your foreground subject needs soft lighting. If your backdrop will become a harsh desert, you foreground subjects need hard lighting. There is no bigger give away that the backdrop was fake, then if your foreground subject shadows and background subject shadows are moving in polar opposite directions to each other.
• Green or blue chromo screens are not exactly conducive to motivating actor imagination that they are on an exotic location, so do try show talent the intended backdrop image, so that their performance is motivated to the intended location.
• Use a green or blue chromo screen location with the largest backdrop surface your budget allows. I understand you may not have the “Iron Man” green screen budget, but remember that small chromo screens equal big problems, as small chromo screen restrict lensing options, ie how wide you can shot before your talent is not juxtaposed against a chromo backdrop, and as a result you end up shooting off your set.
• The green or blue chromo backdrop should be lit with a shadow-less, even as possible quality.
• Do not over light the green or blue screen. The more light you have on the chromo, the more chance you have for the green or blue color of the backdrop reflecting spill light onto the actors, thus compromising a clean composite.
• It is preferable to underexpose your green screen up to one stop darker to avoid green spill light. With blue screen you have to be carefull as underexposed blue goes black. So rule of thumb for me is green screen 1 stop under the camera exposure, blue screen at camera exposure.
• Keep the talent as far away from the green or blue screen backdrop as possible, this again will help ensure that you have the least amount of unnecessary chromo spill light seeping onto the reflection angles of the talents faces or bodies.
• I either use space lights or tungsten nine lights through 1/4 grid cloth to light green screens evenly.
• I primarily use four -point lighting approach for the foreground talent for chroma screen work, key light, fill light, and two back light cross keys to ensure the cleanest composites and separation from the chroma screen. I position the cross key back lights at 45% angle from both sides. I keep the backlights anywhere from a 1/2 a stop under exposure to a 1/2 a stop over exposure.
• Another great trick is to use 1/8 magenta gels on your backlight for green screen and 1/8 yellow gel for blue screens, as these are the respective complementary colors of the potential chroma color spill.
• Another good reason to keep talent as far away from the chromo screen backdrop as possible, is to avoid the talent casting shadows on the chromo screen.
• If you have to paint your chroma color on the floor, keep it as spotless as possible by not having crew walking on the floor unnecessarily, or if they have to, provide surgical socks for crew to walk in.
• Is green or blue better for composites? Because green has a brighter color channel then blue, and blue when underexposed tends to have more noise then green, green is the color of my chose if possible for green/blue screen work. That being said, blonde hair is easier to key against blue screen backdrops. However, with today’s software composite packages, either green or blue will do the job. Therefore, a second important criteria to consider in your decision is wardrobe. If you are dealing with primarily blue wardrobe the of course a green screen backdrop makes more sense and visa versa.
• If you’re shooting in a 16:9 aspect ratio, you could set the camera to a 4:3 aspect ratio for chromo screen work, unless your framing something that will fill the entire frame horizontally. This will ensure you have the most resolution possible. Also feel free to crop in a little tighter then the final frame will be, as you will always benefit in resolution if you gather more information and are able to reduce the size in the composite.
• Another trick to squeeze the maximum amount of resolution into your cameras gathering of information process, is to tilt the camera 90 degrees for shots of standing people, thus utilizing a lot more horizontal information into your subject, that you will later be able to reduce in size in the composite.
• Color temperature i.e. shooting green screen with Tungsten or HMI is not a huge consideration. Again what is of most important is to treat the background and subject separately.
• Do not forget to add some effects and texture to sell the trick. If the background is garden, have for example a cucalorous which is organic wooden shaped cut-out in front of your key light source, to simulate the effect of the sun moving through branches and leaves.
• A good green paint for excellent composites is Rosco’s Ultimate Chroma Key, but today’s software is so sophisticated you will be able to extract good composites with almost any chromo paint.
• Ensure that you do not have reflective and shiny props like jewelry or earrings when you doing chromo screen work, or you will need to become a rotoscope export in post.

·       With compositing, shoot progressive [frames] rather than interlaced [fields] to get the cleanest edge and highest resolution.Weather you go green or blue, I trust these tips will get you though your chromo day very successfully. If you have further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me personally through my site at www.daronkeet.com

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June 2, 2009 By Daron Keet

I recently finished shooting MerriMe, my latest web series feature comedy that is available at www.merrime.com on a computer near you.

It stars the Web Series co writers / creators/ actors Kaily Smith and David Weidoff, also starring Tom Arnold “True Lies”, Ryan Eggold “Beverley Hills 90210”, Tia & Tamera Darvette Mowry “Sister, Sister”.

The show plot centers around 20 something Merri Weisman threatened to be cut off her father’s trust fund if she does not find a real job. In a state of panic, she concludes that a husband not a job could save her. She signs up to every online dating website in her frantic race for suitable bachelor, setting into motion an hysterical online fun and games rollercoaster ride to the 21st Century alter, like the web has never seen.

This was my first collaboration with the projects talented, young, up and coming director Sherwin Shilati. When you share common cinematic sensibilities and passion with a director, for sure you try hanging onto those collaborative opportunities for dear life. I am always interested in utilizing every technique possible to enhance stories visually, thus elevating the audience’s emotional experience and a result, personal connection to the subject. As much as I use technique, my work strives to propel the story in an honest manner, without allowing the camera to draw attention away from the story itself. 

Filmmaking in essence is the art of story-telling through pictures and sound. Great stories are about “big ideas”. I have extrapolating this “big idea” concept into the personal approach of my cinematography work. On each new job, I throw myself into absorbing the script, the storyboards, the director’s treatment and the locations in an effort to figure out which “big idea” approach to incorporate, in my quest for crafting exceptionally work.

One of the biggest contributions I am able to make on each project I am attached, is ensuring we have the appropriate locations to stage scenes against. If I think a location is inappropriate, it is my responsibility as the cinematographer to let the director and producer know. Once locations are locked, another huge contribution I can make is picking the best time of day or night to shoot. Often schedules are dictated around actor availability, but in preproduction I am forever suggesting, cajoling or trying to influence my 1st ADs schedule around the sun’s schedule, as nothing can save money, speed up or enhance aesthetics quiet like taking advantage of perfect God–given light, or lack of light if required.

MerriMe was fortunate to be staged primarily in furnished luxurious Beverly Hills home, set against a spectacular Los Angeles city backdrop. My “big idea” approach for MerriMe was exposure efficiency. I figured that by using the fastest prime lenses available [Zeis T1.3] shooting wide open at T1.3 exposure, although challenging for focus, would require smaller lighting units, less electric cables, no generators, and most efficient use of crew. Lighting at very low light levels for big night scenes on MerriMe, not only speeded up lighting time required, but gave us wonderful opportunities to showcase the dimly exposed Los Angeles city that our location was juxtipositioned against.

MerriMe was shot on the Red One. I shot on both the daylight and tungsten modes, even though tungsten mode has a tendency to at times introduce digital grain, as the blue channel in that mode is not activated. I used many filters in order to control exposure and enhance in camera images as desired. I used a polarizer to saturate skies or control reflections when shooting at angles through glass or water. I used graduated neutral-density (ND) filters to control exposure. I used straight neutral-density (ND) filters to ensure I could shoot at T1.3, thus creating the shallowest depth of field possible. I also used a Tru-Cut IR-750 filter, which corrects the potential for color shift from the digital Red Camera’s chip.

Having chosen a small lighting package without big HMI’s, my next efficiency challenge was day exterior shooting. My solution was simple; shoot split days from 11 in the morning to 11 at night. Because we were shooting 3 scenes a day, split days ensured that only 1 scene would face the difficult challenges of harsh lighting when the sun is very high in the sky. The 2 scenes would because of the schedule planning be shot in low sun, magic light. I am always trying to get what I call my “Days of Heaven” magic-naturalism-moments, like when the late, great cinematographer Nestor Almendros shot that entire best Academy Award for cinematography award feature in gorgeous magic light. We would then shoot the 3’rd scene at night, my absolute favorite. Night shooting gives you the fullest control of every aspect of exposure. By also breaking up our days into 3 parts, harsh light period / magic light period / night light period, we where able to have crew to pre light for each scene ahead of time, as the peramentors of the external / natural elements where very much predetermined.

I feel that the artificial movie lights we use on film sets needs to mimic the color temperature and quality of light believable in the reality of the world we have created in the place and time of our stories. On MerriMe I primarily used tungsten fresnals, as much of the settings where motivated candle light, HMI with a 1/4 cto was used for exterior shots. I always joke with production when they ask me what lights I want to order. I tell them I am shooting available light. The always repeat available light thinking to themselves oh my goodness this cinematographer is saving us so much money in not ordering lights, Then I reply, yes available lights, all the lights I have available. This joke is not to be clever, but highlight and reinforce the concept that to even create magic naturalism require great technique, and lights, the direction of lights, the quality of lights and the color temperature of lights have infinite value in transporting images to their fullest emotional realizations. 

Our big idea on utilizing smaller lights, great locations, steadicam and cranes when required, and primarily efficiency of daylight planning allowed us to shoot 54 scripted pages in 9 days. 8 of those 9 days where by the way completed in 10 hours, with only one day going into overtime, a 14 hour day. We where averaging 30 set ups a day, not bad going considering most of the wides where executed with dolly or jib moves, while close up’s where executed on a slider, to keep even traditionally static set ups pulsating with energy.

When you next have 8 precious online minutes, please check out an episode at www.MERRIme.com

I think that you will be pleasantly surprised by the production value, quality and performance created for series intended for the web.

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