More Face Care, Less Place Care

This might be a sort of longish post but bear with me – there’s some pretty good info at the end.

I just returned from capturing a video interview in Portland, Oregon in 4K (as opposed to the more standard 1080p – also too, h/t to the day’s Director of Photography, Luke Buckley). I was applying some pretty heavy concealer on the speaker’s prominent cheekbone where Luke was seeing some over-exposed patches in the viewfinder. As I sponged on the pancake, I was constantly checking with Luke to find that perfect “sweet spot” where the shine was gone but the man’s face wasn’t smothered in cake.

And that’s the thing. Shooting in 4K can render amazingly sharp and detailed images, but that also means it picks up every inflamed blemish, enlarged pore, and loose collar thread. Or makeup spackled on carelessly. You have been warned.

It wasn’t always like that. A couple of months ago the fam took an all-too-brief Seattle vacation where we checked out the Museum of Pop Culture. On display were fragile and aging sets from the original Star Trek series, cardboard and plywood held together by gaffers tape and a lot of wishful thinking. For the technologies of the day, of course, that was sufficient. But not a thing you’re going to get away with today. At the same time, today’s large-sensor 4K cameras mean that we can create a look where the main focus of the image is in sharp relief but the background is super blurry. It’s a very popular look at the moment:

So here’s your takeaway – take extreme care with the images that will be in sharp focus: get a haircut; shave cleanly, be sure you’re wearing crisp, freshly-pressed clothing. Worry less about the details of the background: the pictures on the wall, the furniture stacked against the wall, the dark smear on the back wall.

Shooting in green-screen

I was on a job last week where we were tasked with setting up a green-screen configuration to capture multiple “Video Data Sheet” – incidentally, a great way to generate lots of video assets at a low per-unit cost.

What I want you to see is how much space is required for the set up, and how much gear is involved – be sure to allow plenty of time for setup and take-down (this needed three hours to set up, two to “strike” and load out).

Shooting in green-screen is not hugely complex or difficult, but it does have to be done precisely right – if not, plan on hour after hour of extra editing trying to fix a poor quality chroma key (the “key” is the critical zone where the speaker is composited onto the background). And, in the end, likely failing anyway.

But done carefully, the result can be an almost seamless composite of speaker and background. Here’s a sample of the final product where the “key” is so clean and crisp the individual hairs on the top of the speaker’s head stand out:

Multimedia Club Promo

This is a promotional video my son, Andy, made for his Multimedia Club at the High School he attends. Great Job, Andy. What may not be obvious, is Andy played both of the main acting parts in this movie, as well as directing and editing it.

My Makeup Kit For Video

Ever wonder what’s in my video makeup kit? Wonder no more: