Shooting Chroma Key on DV

[Anonymous]

Dear Fxguide users,

I was just wondering if anyone had any information regarding green/blue screen shooting on a 3 CCD DV camera. Should I am to shoot at a certain stop? Are there any tips for treating the video prior to pulling a key? I know I need to light my screen evenly, and keep it within a stop of my subject. Are there any other bits that might be helpful in pulling the cleanest possible matte? (DV sucks, but surely I can make it look alright!)

Thank you all in advance for your comments!

-Peter Anderson

[Isaac]

millymojo wrote:

(DV sucks, but surely I can make it look alright!)

you may want to rethink that. it’s not just a matter of a bit extra elbow grease when it comes to cutting mattes, the signal is HIGHLY DEGRADED. some would say UNACCEPTABLE. i would seriously rethink shooting on mini DV, unless your final comps will be HEAVILY layered and treated with other FX. Your edges will boil and crawl a lot and if you have any diagonals in your composition, say the neck of an electric guitar, the edges will look like a long flight of stairs. if you don’t believe it, go here: http://www.fxguide.com/article164.html

have you seen the panasonic P2 camera that records straight to a little memory stick – just used it and it ROCKS. bypasses all that awful miniDV compression.

just say no to Chroma Key on mini DV

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[John Jenkins]

Some friendly advise…You will lose your “Mojo” if you intend to use DV for chroma keying. Don’t do it!

[Bruce Ingram]

Thank you for your responses!

Yes, I have keyed with DV before and it does look horrendous. Trying to key with practically no color information is less than fun. I actually did use the HVX 200 to pull a key, while also using the Chroma-Ring rig which fixes to the lens. The key came out beautifully using Primatte within Shake.

And I’ll never lose my mojo!

-Peter

[Niccolò]

Yes, there is more then issues with DV and keying but it all depends on the need and available funds = money.

Try to have your background (key) max 1-1.5 f-stop lower then main subject. That should give you extra 10% more.
I didn’t have that good experience with Rings but you can try do.

Kristijan

[Author]

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