ACS 'Key Day'

Yesterday i had the opportunity to attend an ACS workshop on keying and greenscreen techniques, presented by Ross Emery ACS and Mike Seymour of FXGuide.com, out at the Film Australia studio in Sydney's north. Certainly a very useful and informative day, and an excellent example of can be acheived when organisations like the ACS (Australian Cinematographers Society for the uninitiated) and FXguide get together. (http://www.fxguide.com/)

Ross Emery whose credits include 2nd unit on the 'Matrix' trilogy and 'Superman Returns' took us through the first half of the day, shooting a test subject (with wispy blonde hair of course) against green with various cameras and lighting setups to match the intended backgrounds that were selected from stills. Ross tips on lighting and levels on the screen, and his techniques for creating believable lighting on the FG subject were invaluable. With Ross was Angus and his team from post VFX house Animal Logic, who provided very interesting insights on what the compositor prefers to receive, and what they can 'make do' with if they have to - quite different! Ross says he often has to push it a bit in terms of an ideal greenscreen shot but stresses the importance of clear communication with the VFX team before the shoot to establish the boundaries of what's possible and what isn't.

Cameras tested shooting the green were the new Sony F23 HDCAM SR, the Sony F900R, the Panasonic HVX202 P2, the Sony 970 DigiBeta for SD, and the Sony V1 HDV. In the afternoon we could see a rough composite by the Animal guys on the Flame and Shake tools, and clearly the F23 provided the best key, with the HDV camera not suprisingly the worst - basically unusable, at least in this situation.

FXguide were filming the workshop and will be putting together a training video presentation of the day for their website audience.