How to get this IPhone Tutorial Look?? Please Help!!

Y

yabyum

Well-known member
Hey I'm creating some short videos for this company and for their product they want me to make something similar to this IPhone Tutorial Look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVtlvA-yZlk&feature=related

Basically the phone straight on and then a person's finger using it.

Things I'm having trouble with:

-how should I set this up? I getting black/white/bright green fabric. I have a suspicion that painting something and greenscreening might be better?

-how do I light this to get it nice and even? Here are the available lights I can use:

Kino Flo Diva kit - Dimmable 2ft 4-bank fixture with stand. Daylight & Tungsten bulbs included $80

Arri 1k Open Face kit - (4) open-face 1k heads with stands $50

Arri 650/300 kit - (2) 650 Watt Fresnel, (2) 300 Watt Fresnel with stands $50

Arri Softbank kit - (1) 1k open-face w/speed ring & Chimera, (2) 650 Watt Fresnel, (1) 300 Watt Fresnel with stands $65

Lowel Omni / Tota kit - (2) Omni, (2) Tota with stands $40

One of those Kits. Right now I'm leaning towards the 1k Arri Softbank Kit.. gives me 4 lights to play around with, and a 1k to use as a key. I'll be doing this is a room in a house so it'll be lit all by the lights. Would it be better to try and use sunlight?

Also, for the angle of it... I don't have a way to get my camera all the pointing down so I think I'm going to velcro the phone up so the camera will be pointing straight at it.

I'd really appreciate all your help!!!
 
Ok, that is a green screen and given your options I would take the lowel kit, I've used w totas with umbrellas on several occasions to light a screen evenly but the other two omnis really won't be enough light. A good backlight really makes keying easier.

What I would do to make those two omnis into three lights on the cheap is use one as a back light, one as a key and then find a big sheet of old cardboard and mount tinfoil on it for a fill light. Shouldn't really cost you anything and will do the job well enough.

For the pointing down shot, you could try taping the phone/what ever it is to the wall and just putting that in frame and positioning your actor so only his hand comes into frame. I'd run a test or so to do so.

Another way to do this is to just get black fabric and tape/mount it to the wall if you don't want to key it out and light it as evenly as you can. It would probably eliminate the need for a backlight but I've never tried it.
 
So I'm confused... If I'm taping/mounting to a wall how would I get a backlight on it? From the side? And the large cardboard/tinfoil thing would be reflecting light from the Tota's?

Sorry for the questions.. I'm not too experienced with lighting and just really want this to look nice.
 
No the cardboard thing would be reflecting light from the key omni. You do not want the totas to light to be hitting your talent at all. You need a relatively big space to set up a green screen the right way. As for the back light, you'd want to get it as high as possible. If the screen is on a stands and you have the room just put it behind the screen and aim downward but be careful of lighting spill on the screen.
 
Soooo.... I'm going to rent the Omni/Tota's... but I'm doing this in a small room LOL!

If I had the space I'd definitely try to go green screen but I just don't. So right now what I've got is black cloth mounted on a wall... The phone is going to be up on that. The camera is about 10 feet away... lights can go that far too... I wish farther but not happening. I'm getting the lights tomorrow and will have em till Thursday luckily. I think I'm going to have to play around with this a bunch. The important thing is to just get even lighting and no shadows... and make the cloth look black. Anyone shot successfully in a small room like this?

I really appreciate the help so far, thanks James Fox!

edit: I think dimmers are a must? The kit is Tota's are 650w and the Omni's are 500w. 2 of each.
 
Your going to want as much output as you can get, if not try gels/scrims. If there is sunlight in the room your going to want to gel the lights 1/2 CTB, keep in mind though that the totas get pretty hot and could burn the gels creating a fire if they are too close to the light, always safety first. You may not need a backlight, thats up to. Black Velvet would be the best material for the wall as, from my experience, it doesn't bounce light back at you as much.

Use the totats in umbrellas to get the wall as even as you can. Do you have a light meter?
 
I don't have a light meter but I am going to a rental company tomorrow and am sure they can send me out with one. So I'll make sure to do that. Use it to spot out all the spots and get the same reading right?

Oh dumb beginner question but I'll be fine using the house outlets right? I'll make sure to unplug all the other stuff in that room as well.

Something that I'm worried about is reflection from the phone itself? Hmmm gonna do a search about shooting glass and not getting reflection.
 
Okay so this is what I'm thinking re: reflections... what I've got to worry about is light bouncing around and lighting things that are behind the camera and the camera itself. So my plan is to drop the camera about 6 inches and tilt it up so that it still looks pretty much face on. Hopefully that will be help with seeing the camera in the glass.
 
That will help. A polarizer will also help reduce glare but you'll lose 1-2 stops of light. Most house hold circuits can run around 20-amps of power, which is, for all intensive purposes, 2,000 watts. Be sure to have a few extension cords just to be safe. Post some stills after your done shooting. I'd love to see what you wound up shooting.
 
vlcsnap-18855.jpg


here's from the first day of shooting. the pic is not great quality as the video actually is... but its representative of the exposure. im happy with the way the background turned out (it looks much better in the uncompressed video). i ended up using just the 2 totas... albeit each with different umbrellas (one silver one white). that wasn't my ideal situation but i think it worked. i put them roughly 7 feet back and very close to the camera, that way the shadow was much less. i'd still rather have there be no shadows at all but i couldn't figure it out.

problems im running into are keeping the screen clean.. as smudge marks on it reflect the light back and make them very very noticeable.

i also kind of messed up one of the lights and that's weighing on my mind right now. a bulb on the tota with the silver umbrella got too hot and ended up burning the back aluminum type part of the light... melted through it but there's actual damage to the light as a functioning unit. you just see the string or whatever that's behind there. i really hope i don't get charged but i bet i will. should i just call the rental place and ask them how much it's going to be? or just hope they don't see it...

anyway any and all feedback is once again much appreciated.
 
First off- thats looks pretty close to the iphone thing you posted so great job! As for the light, I'm not 100% sure what to tell you, I own my light kit(s) so I have never rented lights from a rental house as of yet. I would say call just becuase you want to have a good reputatino with them in the future, meaning you'll want to keep renting stuff and as long as you had/have production/gear insurance you should be okay but someone else with more knowledge on this subject should comment.
 
The first shot I posted was not with black velvet actually. We re-shot it with black velvet and it turned out even better!

This was all with a crappy costco $400 HD handycam. Really bad actually. I just got my GH1 and we're going to re-shoot this. The company actually spent $15,000 to have something like this done "professionally" except it looked like crap except for the fact that they used an HVX which obv is gonna look nicer than my $400 camera. But I got a GH1 now and am planning to blow em away and show 'em that for 1/10 of the price they can get a nicer result :)

The pro shoot they paid for took place on a soundstage. Ours was in someone's basement.

I've realized that I want DOF and don't want to put the phone up against the wall this time, it just looks nicer. The problem is that I don't have enough space in that basement. So I was thinking to take it outside! Free 200,000K lighting :)

So my idea is to prop up two c-stands in a goal post. Then hang up some black velvet on that goal post like a curtain. Then put a c-stand behind that curtain and have the arm poking out of the velvet (probably cut a hole in the velvet).

Then attach the phone to end of the c-stand arm rod. This may be more difficult than I imagine, but I think putting painters tape on the phone for safety. Then putting mounting tape on the back, then onto the rod might work. If not I'll use some more heavy duty adhesives to put the mounting tape onto the rod.

My main concern is the GLARE!!! Any phone outside, even in the shade is reflecting some glare back. I really think my set-up is a no go because of this. I'm not sure what to do... Any thoughts?

Because of this I think we'd have to rent expensive soundstage time to get the right look.
 
Not necessarily, it could be done in the shade (or manufactured shade) outside with reflectors on a super low budget if that's what you want. Of course, when its done professionally outside, they do it with a silk overhead to make the shade and then fill in with large wattage HMIs like 4Ks and above so the budget is higher on that. At that point, yes I would rent a studio and do it in more controlled circumstances with a higher budget available. A lot of it also depends upon if theres a good reason to do it outside and it just is more natural that way for the subject matter.
 
cool thanks for the input. as far as look goes, it's a phone so... outdoors or not doesn't really matter, tho there's no extra reason to have it outdoors. here's an image of the footage from the last shoot that had black velvet and was done in the basement with the phone up against the background. black velvet is amazing imo! too bad the camera is terrible.

withvelvetiphone.jpg
 
I still have hope for my outdoor setup. I think it'll look good for a really low price. Tomorrow I'm getting my ND's and polarizer so I'll test out how the phone looks with those on... I suspect it's not going to cut down on the glare enough. If we shot at magic hour it might work?
 
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