Hello!
Anyone have experience of filming titles of a computerscreen? Could You trust the (internal) light meter? Is it possible to shoot at 18 fps or schould one aim for higher or lower speed to avoid interference with the screen update rate? Would one expect to see the pixels? I have a fairly new HD tv and thought that it would be quicker to film titles and pictures of the screen insted of printing them.
Take care!
Gabriel
Titles of computerscreen
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gabrielborner
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Charlie Blackfield
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Re: Titles of computerscreen
It depends what your computer screen is like. I guess it's an LCD screen, so you shouldn't have trouble with the frame rate. As for trusting the internal light meter - well, you probably can, but make sure the titles have good contrast. Also, a computer screen tends to be quite dim, so I found it necessary to add additional lighting - which then makes it tricky, as the picture gets easily overcast (or loses contrast).
I filmed off a computer screen on two occasions (in PAL country - i.e. computer screen running at 25'fps' if you want to call it that). On the first occasion, I was using a CRT monitor. This created horizontal lines across the screen. I filmed a gradually changing title in stop-frame animation, so the horizontal lines were more or less randomly distributed from frame to frame. In a continuous recording, they would probably slowly move from top to bottom of the screen. You can see the result of my own endeavour when you go to http://www.charlieblackfield.com/media.htm and click on the link for 'Clockwork Mouse Strikes Back'. The computer screen scene is towards the end of the 75-second movie.
The other time I shot off my laptop LCD monitor with a Standard 8 camera running at 8fps. No issues with horizontal lines there. On the other hand, it wasn't a title I was recording, but a moving digital video clip as a background picture to a short scene in 'Clockwork Mouse Can't Get Enough' (on the same page mentioned above). Lighting proved extremely tricky, and I had to do a lot of adjustment in post-production to increase contrast levels. It's the scene where Clockwork Mouse sits on the vintage car, says 'I want my money faster, faster, faster!', and in the background there's sort of a fence (actually my boiler cupboard door, filmed at a 90 degree angle with a digital camcorder). Now obviously the fact that I had a plastic mouse in the picture in front of the screen made it a lot more complex. If you only want to shoot the screen itself, things are much easier.
I'm not usually a fan of lots of takes, but in this case, I would recommend to go with three takes: first the one where you trust your internal light meter, then another couple of takes where you tweak the exposure slightly either way. In any case, the most important thing is to have as much contrast between titles and background as possible.
Good luck!
I filmed off a computer screen on two occasions (in PAL country - i.e. computer screen running at 25'fps' if you want to call it that). On the first occasion, I was using a CRT monitor. This created horizontal lines across the screen. I filmed a gradually changing title in stop-frame animation, so the horizontal lines were more or less randomly distributed from frame to frame. In a continuous recording, they would probably slowly move from top to bottom of the screen. You can see the result of my own endeavour when you go to http://www.charlieblackfield.com/media.htm and click on the link for 'Clockwork Mouse Strikes Back'. The computer screen scene is towards the end of the 75-second movie.
The other time I shot off my laptop LCD monitor with a Standard 8 camera running at 8fps. No issues with horizontal lines there. On the other hand, it wasn't a title I was recording, but a moving digital video clip as a background picture to a short scene in 'Clockwork Mouse Can't Get Enough' (on the same page mentioned above). Lighting proved extremely tricky, and I had to do a lot of adjustment in post-production to increase contrast levels. It's the scene where Clockwork Mouse sits on the vintage car, says 'I want my money faster, faster, faster!', and in the background there's sort of a fence (actually my boiler cupboard door, filmed at a 90 degree angle with a digital camcorder). Now obviously the fact that I had a plastic mouse in the picture in front of the screen made it a lot more complex. If you only want to shoot the screen itself, things are much easier.
I'm not usually a fan of lots of takes, but in this case, I would recommend to go with three takes: first the one where you trust your internal light meter, then another couple of takes where you tweak the exposure slightly either way. In any case, the most important thing is to have as much contrast between titles and background as possible.
Good luck!
Re: Titles of computerscreen
The first few seconds of this film was shot of my PowerBook G4 monitor. It was a still computer image. Came out very cold and with a hotspot. Internal monitoring ment wide open. Was scanned by Andreas.
michael
michael
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gabrielborner
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Re: Titles of computerscreen
Hello again!
Should the camera be in daylight or tungsten mode?
,g
Should the camera be in daylight or tungsten mode?
,g
Re: Titles of computerscreen
Computerscreens are extreme cold, so definately daylight. You even have to compensate more.
michael
michael