suggestions on this booger of a shot

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter_Gaudry
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Peter_Gaudry

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Ok, I know I screwed up this shot. I should have used a bounce board to get some light on her face (any other ideas?). My question is, now that I've messed it up, can anyone suggest what to do in FCP, or similar to get it looking better?

Criticize the pants out of this one, I should have known better than to cut corners!

352115543.jpg
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

Adding light where there isn't would be pretty tough in post. You could do some masking or layering, but it would be very messy.

I'm not a big fan of people right in the middle of the screen, but some shots to call for that..depends on the style of what's going on the and rest of the production, I suppose.

The plain white wall in the background should have given you another sign to work at finding a more interesting angle.

Hope that helps! Good for you to ask for critique!
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

I hate to say this peter but you have to re-shoot. It's a lot harder to shoot low lit shots and then expect to brighten it in post. There's not a whole lot you can do. Trying to Lighten the picture is only going to add extra unwated noise. You can do it with the right plugins I guess. If you start gettting noise, you can get a plugin called grain surgery and that will help get rid of some the grain. It's a lot of work and rendering. My best bet if possible is to try to re-shoot this scene. If not its definetly a lesson learned.
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

Thankyou very much for the honest and direct feedback.
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

It isn't impossible, if you're pretty familiar with After Effects or any other program that can handle masking pretty well. In AE, you'd just need to stick an adjustment level mask over her face, make sure the edges are feathered to something like 100 or 150, so the blending is somewhat normal looking, then play with the levels, the brightness and contrast, and the saturation, and you'd be able to bring it up some, fairly easily. Might not look 100% perfect, not like if you'd lit the thing the way you'd wanted, but it'll fix it plenty.

Just have to make sure, once you go into correcting things, that your other shots match up. Can't have her face brightly lit in a closeup and then cut back out and she's dark again.
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

being honest, sure its dark but its not THAT bad..trust me. It can be fixed somehow, keep toying with your tools. If you can, re-shoot if not..dont worry too much. Trial and error in post
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

If you don't want to re-shoot, use the color corrector three way or levels or something.  It won't look properly lit, but it should like acceptable.

heh.jpg


Ignore the weird pattern across it...long story.  Anyhow, that was with no masking, just filters.  (In photoshop, but the same can be done in FCP with a little more work.)  Looks acceptable but not great, imo.
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

Heck you don't even need to use a mask really. Just use curves and pull up the bottom end slightly. You'll loose dark shadows but you will get a lighter picture in just the places it needs it.

Of course, reshooting is best as has been mentioned!
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

If a reshoot is impossible, then use curves or a masking layer like others suggested. Almost anything is possible in post. It just takes ALOT of time to get the look you want.
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

thank you very much! So in FCP I'd just be using the color corrector? I'm pretty handy with FCP but am curious if its just the corrector or other filters. I tried using some of nattress' filters which helped quite a bit/ Thanks again! :D
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

Yeah, but look at all the grain in the corrected shot. That would really show in a moving image...
 
Re: suggestions on this booger of a shot

[quote author=Pooh link=board=Clips;num=1103400462;start=0#1 date=12/18/04 at 12:30:08]I'm not a big fan of people right in the middle of the screen, but some shots to call for that..depends on the style of what's going on the and rest of the production, I suppose.

The plain white wall in the background should have given you another sign to work at finding a more interesting angle.[/quote]

Center-punching definitely has its time and place, especially with symmetrical compositions like this one. I think that this was a good choice in this instance. Even the white wall doesn't bother me, as it lends a clean and stark quality to the shot. However, you need to pay attention to the small details--if you are going to use a white background, it needs to be pure white, not with wall plugs and other things in the edge of frame (may not have shown up in the viewfinder due to overscanning...?).

If I was lighting this image from scratch for a stylized look, I might have gone with a ringlight-type effect (soft light source as direct as possible from camera). A micro-flo with colored gel up inside the hair dryer would create some interest (and could be also done on the cheap with Christmas tree lights taped up inside). In general, lighting from eye height or below eye height would have been the way to go due to the hair dryer blocking light from above.
 
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