The mission: To pull a clean key with the Canon XH-A1 in High Definition. The subject: Film maker and willing participant, Paul David Anthony. He was good enough to sit down and answer a few questions in front of the green screen. The end result? View it here.
Overall, things keyed out pretty nicely. I even shot it at 24F. The major problem was that I had the camera in a custom preset geared toward outdoor shooting. Skin tones as you can see came out very red, even with some color correction. I'm still trying to work the bugs out of my HD edit workflow, cuz the raw shots aren't as bad, but once I drop them on an FCP timeline, they go red.
Also, in some sections of the video, you can see right thru the DVD he is holding, leading me to belive that the reflection from the key light somehow became keyable footage. I used the new Keylight 1.2 plug in in After Effects, which I am most happy with. I probably could have done some more finessing to get even better. Not terrible for a first try. I'm looking forward to shooting some more footage now that I know what can be done.
Editing HD in Final Cut Pro can be a daunting task, but when things work out, I'm pretty stoked.
Well, I might as well use this space to rant about some issues. That's what I do best. Anyways, everybody is concerned these days with the environment and "going green" and so on and so forth. That brings me to my love/hate relationship with B&H Photo in New York.
Let me set the stage: I ordered some various supplies from them this week. A few Rosco gels and a mini DV case holder. The order arrived no problem, but the boxes were stuffed with a ridiculous amount of packing supplies:
The gels were in a huge cardboard box stuffed with those Styrofoam peanuts. The tape case was surrounded by 27 (count 'em) of those plastic air pillow thingys.
I'm all for packing high-ticket items accordingly, but c'mon. Just stick those gels in a tube. And the tape case would have been fine with about 5 of those pillow thingys. Let's keep things simple. I've got enough garbage I have to throw out already. Plus, wouldn't it cut down on the company's overhead? Or do they somehow make money by using an obscene amount of Styrofoam peanuts?
Just asking.
Testing, one two three. Welcome to the blog page for Frosch-Frog Productions. Just a place to post some random notes, pictures and stories.
What's going on this month? Our annual horror movie is in it's infant stages right now. The gang got together to start brainstorming ideas for "B". (working title) I'll be posting updates (no spoilers) from time to time. In the meantime, I'm writing the script based on our meeting. Shooting hopefully to start real soon. I'll keep you updated.
