Shooting titles with a......LABTOP

[Vespasian]

I have a labtop with a liquid plasma screen. I go to MicroSoft Paint and put up white letters on a black background my font choice of course. Imagine the possiblities. Does anyone do this?, is it possible?.......hmmmmmmm.

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[#Pedro]

works perfectly, but a tube screen is better (more light output). I?ve made many titles that way, even animations.
Use a tube screen, set contrast and brightness to max setting, camera with conversion filter to single shot at lowest framerate possible. This way, the exposure time per frame is long as possible and there are no sync problems.
To set exposure, use a test screen with a mixed color pattern before starting. Never try to shoot continuously, only single-frame mode is possible.

When concerning only simple, prof looking titles, you best make printouts with white letters on black background, using good inkjet paper. This paper you put onto a glass and a halogen lamp (ca. 20 Watts) under the glass. Then shoot it without conversion filter and stop to 4...5,6. (white overexposed by two stops)
The results are astonishing good! Deep black and clear white letters, nearly no costs!

Pedro

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[Vespasian]

Pedro man you are awsome. Thankyou for the input.

So if I have a labtop with a liquid plasma screen it will work!!!! I can set the brightness very high, and I also have a gama setting as well. What is a tube screen?

If it works oh my god, the things I can do!!!! The fonts I can use!!!!

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[Vespasian]

I didn't read your your whole reply I was too excited. I got you, so I use my inkjet which I have, and print out the white letters on black background put it on glass and shine a light from the back. MAN THAT IS BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!

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[Matt Pacini]

Actually, I use that technique in Lost Tribes for titles, of backlighting the white letters, but canned the footage and did something else, because I found that tended to make the white letters flare a little, and not appear as sharp.
What I ended up doing, worked perfectly!
I printed out 8.5 x 11 laser prints, like you said, white letters, black background, and taped them to a wall outside on a sunny day. (not direct sunlight though).
Then I jsut shot them from the front, like you normally would.
They looked great. Much better than the backlit ones.

Matt Pacini

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[Vespasian]

I know what you mean by the flare up but I think that would be a cool effect to use sometimes. What wattage bulb did you use? If it is too strong I would think it would flare up. But say a really low watt like a 20 or 15 watt bulb I think would work really good. Have you seen those new bulbs that they have come out with they suppose to produce perfect clear light no dull yellowness at all. I don't know who makes them but if they came in a 15 or 20w bulb I best that would be ideal for titleing.

I came up with a pretty neat design:

You take a card borad box, cut out a hole big enough for a piece of 8 x 11 paper; put the a lamp with a low watt bulb inside the box, and there you go. I'm sure this design will cut down on light coming in from other directions, you don't even need the glass.

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[#Pedro]

My last titles I made this way. A shoe card box with a 10 W HALOGEN bulb (to get neutral white), a glass from a foto frame, some adhesive tape. Better would have been a second glass to keep the paper in plan position. I used 24 fps and stop 4 (Beaulieu). The result was perfect. Playing with the distance of the lamp and it?s power, you can achieve differnt results. What also looks good, are colored letters on black background, depending on the application.

Pedro

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[Levi]

Why not just create titles in your computer and not print them out and shoot them. If it will be on video what's the diff? That's what i do.

Levi

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[mattias]

> Why not just create titles in your computer and not print them out and shoot them. If it will be on video what's the diff?

well, first of all, why do you assume it will be on video? second of all, video titles look like video titles, film titles look like film titles. there's definately a "diff."

/matt