Update

Unfortunately we made a mistake in filming a few scripts. ummm someone forgot to record to ah video as well as the audio. oh dear. So we had so setup a snap shoot without the KinoFlos that had to go back. The results were less than desirable. There are many many reasons why good lighting is a must – especially for green/blue screen, and I came up along side one of them. Man alive it is difficult to light a blue screen scene with 3 x 150W DedoLights and 2 make shift lights that are used for effect and creating loud humming noises. ha ha ha. all part of the experience gulp. Fortunately, if it is that, only 3 scenes in the same script had to be re-shot.

Saturday, 13th September 2008

Me, Keith and Morgan

A early start as Morgan stretches his face

The, ahh, day of the shoot. Decided to Film with -7 detail level with the aim to add sharpening in post and used the Panasonic’s progressive mode. Capture was straight to the MBP which felt a whole lot quicker than the process of SxS eject, insert, copy, eject, insert, format/delete of the Sony EX1 at a quality loss. What I would give for a AJA IO HD and an HD camera with 4:2:2 or even better 4:4:4 that I could capture live.

Anyway the shoot went a whole lot smoother and faster than before. But I don’t think that we are stepping up to any new level here, especially with the use of a DV camera, hmmm.

The lighting was great, but I still struggle lighting the screen for a full body shot. I reckon that I will be rotoscoping the legs a lot (dark blue jeans will be an issue).

Friday, 12th September 2008

Picked up the lights today; 2 4ft-4bank KinoFlos and a Diva400. That together with the 3 150W DedoLights should be sufficient in lighting the blue screen and our presenter Morgan. We are going to stick to the script tomorrow which will pretty much be full, medium and close shots, but if we have time and opportunity I would like to attempt a few choreographed takes for some interaction with with CGI elements. Otherwise it is going to be an early 7am start for me cos I know for a fact that we will need to take time in getting the lights sorted out.

Thursday, 11th September 2008

No time for anything today, other than finishing off Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens – a very cool book about leveraging Popular Culture in the Church to reach real people in a relevant way. And it is sooo awesome that I am part of something like that, I mean hey – Saturday is Blue Screen Filming for Church. Anyway it has been decided that for budgetary reasons we are going to stick with DVX100BE and some KinoFlos to go with the DedoLights we have. Just so long as we evenly illuminate the screen and do proper molding of Morgan then it will all be good. We got Keith coming in to help with the Lights, what a relief. And with Morgan organizing and scripting and presenting all will be perfect. All about God, for His glory and to reach those in need of Him.

Wednesday, 10th September 2008

Just read through the scripts and made some comments and recommendations. Informed the key people on timings etc. Also really thinking of sticking with the Panasonic AG-DVX100BE of mine to film the Blue Screen hmmm. Otherwise I had Community Group tonight so my priorities were elsewhere. Besides that it was mine and Kathy’s Anniversary, Yayyyyyyyy. Flowers, Voucher for a facial – major brownie points. But tomorrow night its date night, nice.

Tuesday, 9th September 2008

Many things happening today or things that should have happen. Like I should have gotten something for my Wife because it is our Anniversary tomorrow, maybe I did – more on that tomorrow in case she reads this, hint hint. And it’s Apple’s Lets Rock event – probably only iPod nano updates, not Phenomenon or new Apple Cinema Displays pity. Anyway onto the topic on hand – it seems that we will be revising the scripts for our shoot, hmmm. Have still to confirm the camera rental – really holding out for a change in fortune :O.  How awesome it would be to film on a RED One 4:4:4, man alive – imagine that, some day, some day soon. Otherwise I think that I will spend some time reviewing lessons leartn from other shoots and see where we can improve for the weekend. Interesting times.

Monday, 8th September 2008

That’s right, I am going to use a blue screen, a 20ft x 20ft one. Hard to imagine what I will do with all that material but it is going to be fun. Unfortunately the camera I wanted to hire; Panasonic HVX200, is not available this weekend so I will have to use the Sony EX1 again. Not that the Sony is a bad choice, just that I wanted to see if the HVX200′s 4:2:2 (DVCPRO50) is any different – which the Sony only has is going out as SDI . And so it is 4:2:0 all over again, mind you the 720p was a winner. Maybe this time I’ll try the 1080 option. But I will ultimately be outputting to a projector that has a native resolution just under 1280×720.

And sooooo, what I am going to do is give a daily update on the progress and planning as we get to the shoot, the shoot itself and all the editing that follows.