dark swimming pools?

[Patryk_Rebisz]

Anyone has shot greenscreen in a pool or with a body of water that i could ask some questions?
I need to have a guy jump into a dirty river at night. That shot will be combined with another shot of a few people standing on the river edge. Filming the guys on the river edge is easy. How to properly film the guy jumping into river will be more tricky. What concerns me is that no mater what the water will reflect crap load of the greenscreen and thus much of the water will be keyed out. Should i be concerned (technically it's at night so the water is dark anyway)?

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Anyone has shot greenscreen in a pool or with a body of water that i could ask some questions?
I need to have a guy jump into a dirty river at night. That shot will be combined with another shot of a few people standing on the river edge. Filming the guys on the river edge is easy. How to properly film the guy jumping into river will be more tricky. What concerns me is that no mater what the water will reflect crap load of the greenscreen and thus much of the water will be keyed out. Should i be concerned (technically it's at night so the water is dark anyway)?

The Wife use to shoot 'underwater' shots in pools. For the most part we used a 'black' backdrop shot at night and with 'strobes' lining the pool side. We fabricated the black backdrop via several large black king size flat bedsheets, and had 'pockets' sewn along the bottom to put weights into have the backdrop 'fall' to the bottom of the pool... otherwise the cloth would just float around.

During the shoot, we had 2-3 spotters to assist the subject, should they 'run into trouble', being clothed in a wedding dress. Fortunately no mishaps occurred, either with the subjects or 'electrical equipment' falling into the pool. But it did require some amount of time setting things up for the shot.

The biggest 'problem' technically other than safety, was the clarity of the water. Most pools are pretty crappy, and the particulate is often so great that the subject was 'fuzzy' not matter what. The pool requirements are sort of 'low chlorine (but still 'safe')', cool water, and really good filter system.

I have seen a few people do shots in lakes or ocean, but unless the water is exceptional, most of the time they just come out murky.

We were limited to ISO 800 film, so perhaps with better 'high/verhigh' ISO's on some digital cameras the results would be better.

Anyway, the black backdrop and dark night shot did not have much in the way of reflection other than the subject, which led to some 'artistic' representations.

We also did some 'day time' shoots, again with the black back drop, but because of the general over all sky light source, some of the edges and shading were not as 'dramatic' as with the night and essentially 'single' light source (banks of up to 4 2400 W second strobes).

 

[Patryk_Rebisz]

The Wife use to shoot 'underwater' shots in pools. For the most part we used a 'black' backdrop shot at night and with 'strobes' lining the pool side. We fabricated the black backdrop via several large black king size flat bedsheets, and had 'pockets' sewn along the bottom to put weights into have the backdrop 'fall' to the bottom of the pool... otherwise the cloth would just float around.

During the shoot, we had 2-3 spotters to assist the subject, should they 'run into trouble', being clothed in a wedding dress. Fortunately no mishaps occurred, either with the subjects or 'electrical equipment' falling into the pool. But it did require some amount of time setting things up for the shot.

The biggest 'problem' technically other than safety, was the clarity of the water. Most pools are pretty crappy, and the particulate is often so great that the subject was 'fuzzy' not matter what. The pool requirements are sort of 'low chlorine (but still 'safe')', cool water, and really good filter system.

I have seen a few people do shots in lakes or ocean, but unless the water is exceptional, most of the time they just come out murky.

We were limited to ISO 800 film, so perhaps with better 'high/verhigh' ISO's on some digital cameras the results would be better.

Anyway, the black backdrop and dark night shot did not have much in the way of reflection other than the subject, which led to some 'artistic' representations.

We also did some 'day time' shoots, again with the black back drop, but because of the general over all sky light source, some of the edges and shading were not as 'dramatic' as with the night and essentially 'single' light source (banks of up to 4 2400 W second strobes).

Any way to see those images?

 

[Allan Black]

Get an underwater housing and shoot the guy at water level as he enters the water, close up.

Cheers.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

Any way to see those images?

Go to:

http://www.gigiclark.com/

And select 'Fine Art & Posters'

Due to health issues the Wife has not been very active of late, so this website is pretty dormant for the moment. We are discussion how to restart her portrait work now that her knees have been 'fixed', and she can more easily get around.

 

[David Jimerson]

Anyone has shot greenscreen in a pool or with a body of water that i could ask some questions?
I need to have a guy jump into a dirty river at night. That shot will be combined with another shot of a few people standing on the river edge. Filming the guys on the river edge is easy. How to properly film the guy jumping into river will be more tricky. What concerns me is that no mater what the water will reflect crap load of the greenscreen and thus much of the water will be keyed out. Should i be concerned (technically it's at night so the water is dark anyway)?

Are you planning to have the greenscreen right up against the water's edge? If not, there's no problem; you can use a mask and separate the water from the greenscreen when you key. The mask edge can be in the river bank between the greenscreen and the water, which then should not show as long as the CC, etc., is consistent between the two. Then, you just key the greenscreen and the water won't be affected.

You'll have to do something about the green reflection in the water, but at least it won't be keyed out.

 

[danjenkins]

I don't exactly understand your shot, but avoid having the green screen reflected in water at all costs. Even if it means you have to roto the shot instead of key it, that'll be way way easier than trying to remove a bunch of green reflections. You can try tons of different tricks to recolor those reflections, from desaturating to recoloring to keying and replacing but it'll only be a total pain and look like crap. Shoot it with a black background and just roto the actor (in this case the black would just be to give a reasonable edge for the roto artist to follow). You'd be amazed (and depressed) at how many big budget film and tv greenscreen shots are actually roto'd in the end. It's a fact of visual effects.