Green Screen lighting for a house.

[Shaun Roemich]

Paulo: you can likely post a msg on his YouTube channel. I believe he checks it frequently. Tell him I sent you.

[Paulo Teixeira]

In case anybody's interested, you can see the music video here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasoni...musicians.html

[James Ratliff]

Originally Posted by Paulo Teixeira

Currently I'm thinking about about getting the 3 light kid for $390 and perhaps the 2 light kit for $210 for a total of 5 lights. Results for Lighting:Cool Fluorescent Kits:EZ Softbox Kits

Still, I'm wondering if it would be much better to get a 4 florescent bold light such as this as a key light: Cool Flo - 1200 Watt 4 Bank Single Light Kit by TubeTape
And then use a 1 bulb light as a fill light instead of having a key light and a fill light with 1 bulb each.

Which kit did you use?

How did it perform and would you use something else?

BTW,

The video turned out good!
Bet the kids loved it.

Thanks,
James

[Paulo Teixeira]

Cool Flo - 900 Watt EZ Softbox 3 Light Kit w/Boom by TubeTape
+
Cool Flo - 600 Watt EZ Softbox Dual (2) Light Kit by TubeTape

When the parents bought it, it was on one of those days that you get 20% off which ended up making up for the shipping price.

I didn't say all the details in the past but it's basically for the kid to use from now on or any other project I might do with them. Previously he was using construction lights with surprisingly extremely good keys even though the set up wasn't ideal. I was thinking if he's that good working with what he got, how good will he be working with a decent light kit? A bit later in the future, I ended up having raw footage from one of his green screen projects by accident that he did for a school assignment and I said to myself, I should do something with it and see what I can come up with. This got me to touch the Ultra Key feature for the very first time and that's when I realized that since he likes green screen and since I started practicing a few times with green screen footage in Premiere just for fun, I told the family we should make a video with green screen.

Once the lights came in we ended up shooting this video with it just to see how the lights would work.
*CONTEST* Show Us Your Talents! - YouTube
Michael is the one who ended up editing this video and he used Final Cut.
I realized later that they were a little bit too close to the screen and the lights could have been in a better spot but at least he did good with the keys regardless.

It wasn't until August that we ended up shooting the music video and this gave me time to practice a little bit more. In the end they did ended up liking the video since I allowed them to perform anyway they wanted. The performance, swimming and trampoline scenes were all shot on the same day. All the S95 scenes were shot by them on other days. The flying scenes was edited by Michael and I then received it by email to put into the video. It's good that he ended up editing something for the video.

The lights were obviously in better spots than the contest video but still not perfect because of the tight space but I'm glad it didn't turn out bad regardless although I do wish I would have done something differently when I lighted up the drum scene or did something that could have not made the cymbals reflect the green and ironically, on that day, Michael actually said that the cymbals might be an issue. Then again, I've seen other people having issues with cymbals with their own projects.

Just for the heck of it, here's a music video that the family put together on their own back in 2009.
Michael & Marisa - The Fear (parody) [Lily Allen Cover] - YouTube
Basically for the scenes that the boy wasn't in, he's the one using the Canon HV30 and for the scenes that he's in, he's directing his mother what to shoot. He was also the one who edited it in iMovie. I was obviously shocked hearing that story when I first met the family.

Since the lighting is mostly going to be used by the kids, I'm not sure if we could have gotten anything else. Their are cheaper lighting that isn't florescent but with all the heat it gives out and the electricity it takes, florescent is better for a house. Also, their are soft-box lights with multiple florescent bulbs but I think 1 bulb is safer when it's being moved by kids in case an accident were to ever occur. Now if people were to look at this video and ask me to do something similar for them, here are lights that I might consider for myself if I can't afford anything better. 5100 Watt Cool Flo - 5 Point Studio Lighting Kit by TubeTape
They just got released.

As for how the lights did. It was decent although it might not be powerful enough for some situations like if the lights were much further away or if you want to close up the Aperture a bit since it puts out an equivalent of around 300 each I believe. This is why I'd get a multi bulb kit. While shooting, I used an ISO of 160 and aperture of 2.8. If I wanted to close the lens even more, I would have had to increase the ISO.

[James Ratliff]

Thanks for the tips!