How'd they do this? White seamless BG, or green screen?

[Steve Tenuto]

Hey guys- just looking for your input here before I start to mess with re-creating this look for a shoot. In the screenshots below, did they green-screen the live action, or shoot a seamless white background, with say, a feathered edge and apply a luma matte for the composite?

What would you do?

Video link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlDXW94E3Sc&list=UUEsBG5HS3yodOTc30QWsW_A


Sample screens:

Thank you!

 

[Matt Ryan]

White cyc... Green screen would be reflected in that white shiny table.

A white cyc is what you would want for this.

As Shot (With whites at around 80-85IRE)

Colored (With whites brought up to 95IRE)

 

[Björn Benckert]

If you can shoot against white and somewhat even background. Make sure to cover as much of the white as possible with preferably black. All you need is white around the girl and the table the black covering together with a good exposure where the white is at high levels but never so it burns will give you good edges where the white does not "flare" in over the edges of the girl. I would put the highlights at about 80% of the histogram at 800 iso and the blacks should not cause any noise bar.

Then as the girl is fairly still in frame the camera is fixed and the table has quite easy edges etc. It's easy to spline away the black fill.and then grade the white so it goes perfectly up to legal wihte. The graphics you then luma key in behind the girl and make a spline holdout matte for the table etc.

 

[Björn Benckert]

White cyc... Green screen would be reflected in that white shiny table.

A white cyc is what you would want for this.

Possibly but you do not want so much white only directly behind the girl and table. So this I would say would be quite an excess that would mostly have to be covered up to make it look good. A studio with white wall with (don't know the english term for it) skate ramp corner between the back wall and floor is more than enough.... I would not be worried to shoot that with 2 rolls of 6 feet wide paper rolls...

Edit: and even for huge sets against white those 3 wall ramped studios actually kind of suck. To make it well you need to build a platform in the middle of it where you can hide lamps behind. That way you can get the floor and the wall to capture much more even exposure. With the round walls it does not matter how many space lamps you hand the corner will still be darker than the floor and wall. If the radius of the ramp is not equal to the distance to your space lights.. But that would mean the studio is like an big egg which does not leave much room to act on.

The platform in the middle on the other hand works kind of like an infinity pool it's easy to set the same exposure for the floor as for the wall and the difference in between the two get far less.

 

[Matt Ryan]

Possibly but you do not want so much white only directly behind the girl and table. So this I would say would be quite an excess that would mostly have to be covered up to make it look good. A studio with white wall with (don't know the english term for it) skate ramp corner between the back wall and floor is more than enough.... I would not be worried to shoot that with 2 rolls of 6 feet wide paper rolls...

Edit: and even for huge sets against white those 3 wall ramped studios actually kind of suck. To make it well you need to build a platform in the middle of it where you can hide lamps behind. That way you can get the floor and the wall to capture much more even exposure. With the round walls it does not matter how many space lamps you hand the corner will still be darker than the floor and wall. If the radius of the ramp is not equal to the distance to your space lights.. But that would mean the studio is like an big egg which does not leave much room to act on.

The platform in the middle on the other hand works kind of like an infinity pool it's easy to set the same exposure for the floor as for the wall and the difference in between the two get far less.

This is why you hire a DP who knows how to light

Getting it even from top to bottom isn't hard, the hard part is cutting shadows from the talent onto the white floor.

My images above were shot on a 3 wall cyc. I could go back and remove the faint shadows but the client liked them.

In that original video sample in the first post, I'm pretty sure she's on a 3 wall cyc as it looks like shes getting bounce on her front and back from the walls.

 

[Andrey B]

I've created a simple mask so you can catch the idea.

 

[Glen Powell]

I have to agree - the sample was shot in a white cyc studio.

 

[Björn Benckert]

This is why you hire a DP who knows how to light

Getting it even from top to bottom isn't hard, the hard part is cutting shadows from the talent onto the white floor.

My images above were shot on a 3 wall cyc. I could go back and remove the faint shadows but the client liked them.

In that original video sample in the first post, I'm pretty sure she's on a 3 wall cyc as it looks like shes getting bounce on her front and back from the walls.

This is shot the other way... no cyc studio. Gives good clean white in all directions.

The more white you block out the better contrast and dynamic skintones you get.. I did not come up with that idea myself I been told so by DP's I hired through the years.

The cyc studio is really good when shooting things that needs the refection from all sides. In gothenburg we use to have a 360 cyclo studio where the camera is basically shooting trough a hole in the back wall. It was built and used to shoot SAAB Scania trucks. So for such things it's really good but for a girl sitting by a table I would say it might be a bit more than needed. If you have one, yes shoot there if you have a normal studio then a white drop folding paper will do.


We shot this against a white paper backdrop, the director wanted to see the texture of the back drop. But if not I would sugested the elevated floor as that alows the back wall to be lit from underneath so it catch the same amount of light as the floor and does not show the "skate ramp" shadow in the corner that needs to be pushed quite a bit to get even with the floor and wall in post which then eats range and affect other highlights.

 

[Glen Powell]

Four minutes using search on Vimeo produces lots-O-BTS and spots shot on a white cyc...