Green screen and a car

C

ColorBalance

Active member
Thinking of shooting actors in a car in a garage by placing green screen outside the windows, and replacing the green screen by stock footage. To make it realistic, I can do it hand-held and vary the amount of lights falling on the actors. Am I making any sense?

Shooting in a moving car creates too many haedaches including lighting as the outside is either too bright or too dark.
 
Sure that's one way to do it. Don't go too nuts with the handheld though or you'll have a hell of a tracking job in post trying to match the stock footage to the interior. But ahem, what's the question? :Drogar-Dum(DBG):

Noah
 
I saw it done once with a static camera. They had a couple people who passed a couple different color lights across the frame at random intervals (simulate passing lights/cars) and one guy was at the side/back of the car (out of frame) and would occassionally shake the car to simulate road movement.
 
Big budget guys have resources, crew, permits, fire trucks, and what not. Just wondering how little people achieve this stuff (other than sitting in the car and pointing the camera; never works out). So, is this (green screen) an acceptable way of doing it, or are there some more tricks that I am not aware of? I do know of the car-mounts.
 
If you do handheld you should put tracking dots on the green screen, that way you can match the movement with tracking software. Just make them a different shade of green. If it's at night on a rural road, you can get away with just black outside and headlights sweeping the actors.On Transformers, on the special features, you can see them filming a scene with Shia and Megan in his car on a canyon road during the day. They just shot it with the car static from a low angle handheld so all you saw in the background was sky, a simple cheat.
 
Personally I don't think it's that tricky to shoot in a real moving vehicle, depending on where you live. It's a lot more straightforward then setting up a big green screen and trying to comp in background plates, unless you want a sort of cheesy look. It looks bad even on major TV shows and movies. The main issue is safety and permits- in L.A. you're required to hire off duty police vehicles as escorts which can cost a fortune.

The only show I think does this perfectly is 24. But that's not green screen, it's rear projection using digital projectors and screens with cars(and occasionally aircraft) carefully lit on a stage. And also it's precise editing and lens choice to help distract away from the effect.

If you have to shoot green screen be very careful about how you set it up- shoot some tests and thoughfully storyboard the sequence. It's important to know what shots will go with which plates and that the screens are lit properly. I found it much easier to lock off the camera and shake the vehicle, but again it doesn't quite look 100% real. In my case it worked great because we wanted to fake the look of 1950's style rear screen projection but if I had wanted a more realistic look probably not so much.

-Noah
 
I have to shoot on green screen in a driving scene, because we don't want to have issues shooting near a prison we're we don't have a permit to be buy. Here is a pretty decent effect and one I'm using myself:
http://www.videocopilot.net/products/seriousfx/
And its andrew kramer, so its better than alot of other movies. Oh yeah fringe is the shiznit. And life and times of Tim and Little Britain USA. That is all.
 
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