Underwater Lighting?

jermz

jermz

Active member
Hey guys,

I'm going to be shooting an underwater scene for my 15 min film, "The Hands We're Dealt", but in this shot, I want it to appear as if the subject I'm filming will have underwater movements, but appear to be above water. (Fortunately for me, I have a friend that is going to lend me his underwater housing.)

To simplify things, I am having the scene take place in a white room, meaning that I want my subject to appear to be floating in infinite white space. No walls. No floor. Just white space.

So I had this idea to throw a whitescreen behind the subject in a swimming pool. I haven't actually shot the footage yet, but one of my producer's concerns was the possibility that white may look different underwater, thus nulling my desired effect. We could try to do a bluescreen/greenscreen underwater and matte out the foreground, but I fear that blue and green may appear too similar to the water color.

So I guess the first question goes out to anyone who's done underwater bluescreening... what color background do you use?

Secondly, I would like to know how to light an underwater scene. Since it's going to be a surreal scene, I don't mind going all out with the underwater look (water reflections and a high, intense light source -- the sun). But just so I have some options, what can I do to minimize the "underwater" feel? And secondly, what can I do to maximize it? Again, just so I have options to play with in post.

Any tips or advice will be greatly appreciated.
 
For the background, it seems like the white backdrop would definitely turn out white if you made sure that it was overexposed.
 
This is an interesting problem. Some random thoughts:

Instead of chroma keying you might want to consider luma keying.

Will your subject be fairly static or in motion? Things like the resistance of the water and any resultant turbulence would seem to be serious concerns.

Breathing? How long is this shot?

Seems like you need to do a few test shots to see how this all works out.

Best of luck and if you have the time, post the results of this shot. I would be interested to learn how it turns out.
 
i'm not familiar with luma keying. could you explain that for me?

the shots are going to be composed of many quick takes. so yeah, i took breathing into consideration. there's no dialogue for this character, so that's also something that takes care of itself.

there will be some moving, but the turbulence and water resistance then would be intentional.

i did intend on shooting this fairly soon, so hopefully i'll have something rough by the end of the month. mainly it depends on when i can get the location straightened out.

thanks guys for the feedback! anyone else have any suggestions? i know this is a very unique problem, and i'd like to get as many opinions as possible before i actually do my test shoot, so that i'd have options to play with when on location.

thx again,
jeremiah tayao
 
Owen said:
For the background, it seems like the white backdrop would definitely turn out white if you made sure that it was overexposed.
Click to expand...

I certainly hope you're right. As of right now, I don't have a backup plan :(

Keep the suggestions comin'! I could use all the help I can get!
 
Moderators, do you have any suggestions for my dilemma? I will be shooting this in a few weeks, most likely and would like to be as prepared as possible. :)
 
It's amazing what typing into Google will bring up (Magic Keywords - underwater greenscreen)

http://www.hydroflex.com/

http://www.hydroflex.com/site/helphints/bluescreen.html

Google is your friend. Now please refrain from spamming the board

Try not and electrocute yourselves. :beer:

wet3uc.jpg

http://img288.imageshack.us/img288/7826/wet3uc.jpg
 
Thanks for the link, John.

Yikes, though! I'm not sure how all of that will play out since I'm shooting on no budget. Guh.

Again, John thanks. Sorry bout spamming the board.

Please accept this gift, as a token of my appreciation (I found it on Google ^_^):

041119.gif
 
Are those Spam Sandals?

Just shoot HIGH NOON in BROAD DAYLIGHT using a Bluescreen. Lock the camera down. You'll be fine.
 
Spam musubis, actually. Never really thought of them as spam sandals, but now that you brought it up, I can really see the resemblence. It's really popular in Hawaii. Think sushi minus the vinegar rice + SPAM... Mmm... Doesn't that just make your mouth water? :-D

Anyway, back on topic...

John (or anyone for that matter), what do you think about shooting with a whitescreen rather than a bluescreen?

As mentioned in the first post of this thread, the desired look is for my protagonist to be floating underwater in a vacant white nothingness. Although it would seem very feasible for me to bluescreen the thing in high noon and broad daylight (thanks again John for googling it up for me), I would ultimately like my female lead to let her hair out, so that we could capture each hair strand dancing underwater.

The problem with shooting bluescreen with that is obvious, I think.

I have also talked it over with my crew. In all likelihood, we'll probably shoot both and test how each works out (the bluescreen shot with her hair tied up).

For those of you interested in how this all turns out, I will hopefully have something posted in the coming weeks. One for bluescreen, the other for whitescreen.

Khmuse, I'll try that luma keying thing you were talking about. I'm somewhat of an amateur filmmaker. I've done a handful of student films, but I'm going into the deep end with this film, so to speak, by experimenting with a lot of new special effects I've never actually dealt with before.

Once again, thank you all for your help!
 
I'm totally interested in seeing the results. Definately show us when done.

I always liked SPAM. Of course I was beat as a child so what do I know. SPAM was like Thanksgiving at my house.

Back on topic. I would think Bluescreen is the way to go and then key out white
 
I've done a lot of underwater ACing and as long as you have enough light down there, and you get a good white balance you can always get a pure white.
 
Not quite on topic, but does anyone know anything about the "Dry for Wet" technique? In the Lord of the Rings dvd, Peter Jackson said they used that for the shots of Sean Aston drowning at the end of "The Fellowship of the Ring." I couldn't find anything on Google.
 
Quick update: I just had a talk with my special effects professor.

He says that greenscreen is hard to capture on DV because of compression quality, regardless of whether I have my lead tie her hair back or not. So we are likely going to go with the whitescreen.

Also, for those of you with underwater photography experience, if I were to have my lead wear white in front of a white background, what are some of the tricks I can use to have her "stand out", or appear separate from it?
 
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