Bluescreening in Super 8?

[yu230857]

Has anyone had experience with bluescreening using Super 8 color film? I'm thinking it might not be wise because of the high grain nature of S8 but I'd love to know if anyone has had experience with this.

[crimsonson]

You also need very good registration. You will need excellent even lighting.

I also suggest using a format that does 4:2:2 color res. Though DV is a great format, its very involved to get a decent BS/GS out of it.

[kbrady]

I've seen posts on this list saying that S-8 registration on a quality S-8 camera is steady enough for blue screen (beaulieu, nizo, canon). You might want to scroll back through the archives to see that post (it was within the past 3 months I think). Steady registration will be the biggest potential S-8 drawback, but all other blue screen concerns (even backdrop lighting, avoiding light spill, etc) are very important to get right as well.

[blackangus1]

Bluescreen work on S8 is going to be quite challenging, mainly because of the grain. Ultimatte, the masters of compositing, tried using Kodachrome on 16mm, and came to the following conclusion:
"We do not recommend shooting 16mm film for
compositing. There is currently no way to stabilize a 16mm image in a Rank Cintel telecine, and the grain in 16mm negative stocks is much more noticeable than it is with 35mm film."
(complete article is at http://www.ultimatte.com/ShootingOnFilm.txt )

The grain in Super8 is, of course, about 4x more prevalent. Furthermore, if the Super8 footage is transferred to DV for editing, the 4:1:1 color sampling of NTSC DV will make it EXTREMELY difficult to get a clean key.

Effective bluescreen work relies on stable images, high resolution, relatively grain-free footage, and high color sampling rates (4:2:2 or better), none of which typically apply to S8.

Of course, none of this is to discourage you, just to let you know what you might be up against.

[Mr_Floppy]

I got acceptable results with Primatte and Composite wizard. Anyway, to get a decent matte in any medium, you need a scanned film. It doesn't mind if you are doing it on 35, 16 or super8. You need a scanned image, mainly as much resolution and color space as you can get from the medium.

My experience was with a secuenque scanned by modopticals.com. If you end with a 10bit rgb semi 2k image, you indeed can get quite a nice matte, with some work...

But if you cannot afford film scanning and are using telecined video, I would heavily reccomend to use a 3ccd video camera for the mattes and use some cinelook or filmlook to mix it with the super8.

I'm searching the files. I hope to be able to post some frame grabs soon.

Hope this helps,

Mr_Floppy

[StopMoWorks]

When you mean good Super 8 registration, does that refer to the composited elements not weaving or breathing against each other in the final composite? I would think that would be more apparent in locked down/static scenes. I am guessing, if it's a "moving shot" where both composited elements are in random motion.....something like in Return of the Jedi's, bike speed-racer sequences in the forest, that the weaving/breathing of final composites would not be as noticable, again, because everything is "moving" and the shots are edited/cut real short (before you notice anything).

[Basstruc]

Just saw today a few S8 pro-video clip shot with blue screen effects ( I'm now working in a pro telecine service using Quadra Vision & poggle for S8 ,S16 & S35 ) & there was no problems at all. Shot in K40 in the late 80's & begining 90's. Plus, i'm not a fan of blue screen but admit that those were wonderfull with the K40 grain.
Matt