BlueScreen Lighting

Hey there,

Basicly, I have a few questions regarding bluescreen lighting. I have a bluescreen set up on the wall in my garage, and I have two 500watt worklamps (one on each side) lighting it. They're set back about 4-5 feet, at an angle, and it looks lit evenly. I'm standing about, 5-6 feet from the bluescreen. The camera is sitting back about 12 feet from the wall, and I have a key light for myself.

My problem is, once my camera records it, it doesn't look lit evenly, and I don't really understand why, as there's plenty of light in there. I'm just shooting with a Standard-Def MiniDV camcorder, so there's of course artifacting, and whatnot. I don't expect the quality to be perfect, I was just wondering if there was a way I can improve it, or just "roll with the punches" for now. (I've white-balanced it, and I've locked the Iris for the bluescreen color)

[image=http://img33.picoodle.com/img/img33/4/6/15/kessno/f_bluescreenm_07872e3.jpg]


Thanks
-Kessno

 

Is your lighting diffused?

 

No, the worklamps are hitting it straight on...

 

Try 1000 watts on each side of the bluescreen.

I used 500 watts on each side, but it wasn't enough, so I got
more lights.

Hook up your camera to a monitor so you can see what the
bluescreen looks like on tv and adjust the lighting from there.

Are you sure bluescreen is better for your project than greenscreen?

 

That's a good idea, I've got a small TV I can stick out there to use for that.

Actually, I could probably use either one,(bluescreen or greenscreen) but since I went to all the trouble setting this one up, might be kinda nice to get it working right. Plus I'll be rather good with lighting once I figure this out. (At least, I hope)

 

If you can, add some fluorescents. Even the twisty-bulbs in a clamp light help. They give a better fill and a more diffuse light. For a bluescreen, "bright" is less important than "even."

 

I got good results with just work lights and some of these. They sell them at my neighborhood home depot.

I sawed one up into 4 pieces, and hung those from the wire-frame shield on the light-heads. Watch where you do the sawing, though, that stuff chips & cracks all over. An abrasive-wheel blade would have worked better than a regular circluar saw, but I was too lazy to swap in a new blade.

[image=http://www.lightingdiffusers.com/images/assets/wraps.gif]

You also need to make sure they never touch the housings of the lamps, or they get melty.

 

Light up the area around all the edges and corners of the
bluescreen to avoid having dark edges and corners.

You don't want a gradient of well-lit bluescreen in the middle to
darker near the edges and corners.

It's harder to key that way.

 

Yeah, it's a pain lol. Even with professionals I guess it takes alot of work, it's just not a 'point with color-dropper' and voila! I think I've found in After Effects that several Color Keys, and a Color Range work fairly well. With the aide of a garbage matte too. Hopefully there won't be much rotoscoping involved, although sometimes you have too I guess.

 

haha so true. We've even had one start to catch fire on us...