MIKE SEYMOUR: And Sam, in terms of lighting on set--
so let's say I've got a volume that's, as we described it,
like a four-walled kind of LED volume.
You mentioned already that your system facilitates having
traditional lighting intermixed with that.
But if I leave that traditional lighting off for a second,
you can also use the LED walls as a new form of lighting.
Like you could put up a white card on the LED screen.
It would act like an area light.
How much is that something that DOPs are embracing,
or do you find that still a bit less explored in terms
of implementation?
SAM NICHOLSON: Well this is a very powerful Director
of Photography tool because--
a lot of reasons why traditional visual effects don't look great
is because the DP couldn't see the composite.
I can adjust any of us on green screen
if I can see exactly what I'm going to get here.
I know exactly how much light to put through.
LED screens are very bright, and they do a lovely job
at ambient film.
LEDs do not put out hard light, they
don't put out hard shadows.
So in fact, we are projecting light with projectors
to get hard-cut, ambient sunlight coming
through these windows.
And the other thing--
anybody who's been in compositing at all,
if you're doing a green screen comp,
you get the background to look perfect,
and then you adjust the foreground
separately from the background.
You get just the right amount of black contamination atmosphere
in those trees to give them just the right amount of depth,
and then you adjust me separately.
We're doing the same thing on set.
We're getting the perfect exposure
on the screen and the perfect tracking on the screen
that we want.
And then, we can adjust the lighting, which
is linked to the background.
You're getting a certain amount of ambient,
but you can also pick up a hard backlight on me
and have sunlight come through the window, kinetic light.
I believe that's one of the big misnomers of these big LED
volumes is everybody's saying hey
we don't even have an electrical department anymore.
We don't need any lighting we can just walk on,
and it's going to be magic.
Right?
Well it's not going to be magic.
And in fact, there are a lot of LED volumes being
built that have no truss and no ability
to hang a light from the rafters.
Right?
How do you--
A DP walks into that and says, where
am I going to put my lighting.
Right?
So we're not taking tools away.
Again, if you're going to do a game show or a news show,
fantastic.
It's going to be the same lighting every week.
You can set it up.
But a dramatic show, every setup is different.
Every lighting setup is different
depending on the actress and her age
and, you know, if you have zombies then
you light them differently than you light a 16-year-old girl.
I mean it's just not one--
FELIX JORGE: This is the kind of stuff
that I feel like, when green screen came in,
we started losing.
These sets got smaller and smaller,
and it's like what does this set decorator
and the DP do at that point.
Which kind of is unfortunate because I
know many DPs that are just-- or they're absolutely brilliant.
SAM NICHOLSON: And let's keep in mind that the--
I mean, I've been around long enough to go from film
to color video taps were like a shock
because the DPs thought, oh my god, people are
going to be judging our color.
And then digital came in, and this
should be an empowering technology, the way it's
developed to empower people rather than
take away who they are.
And I've had DPs come up to me on set
and say, well why should I worry about the lighting
on green screen because you guys are
going to change it all anyway.
Right?
And that's like-- no, no, no, and that's
because it's a post process.
If it's real time, and you say do you
like what you see on the monitor?
Right?
And they go, oh, and then, we need more backlight.
OK, well then go do it.
Right?
MIKE SEYMOUR: Well, you must also
see it with the actors, the actors just being
given a bit more to work with because now--
SAM NICHOLSON: When the actors have eye lines,
and they can see it--
On Run we spent 12 weeks on a train, in a silver tube.
And if that was green screen, I think
everybody would have been in the hospital.
But it's real time.
You're looking, you see it.
It's easier on the actors, way easier to block your scenes,
the DP can light it, all the producers at Video Village
can sleep at night because they've
been looking at images that look great
rather than a green screen with some guy saying,
trust me it's going to look great in a month.
FELIX JORGE: Some people will say,
but what if there's a person standing in front of the LED
screen, and it's not photo real?
Put a green box around him.
Your human is lit.
You have real lighting.
That same set, with the proper preparation,
is going to be used by VFX.
And because of Unreal now offering
photo-realistic lighting, then you
will have accurate lighting that you
know that V-Ray can replicate, RenderMan can replicate.
So, then you could go and use it--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MATT MADDEN: --point, Felix, there's actually
shows that are working with that process in mind
because they know some of these assets
aren't going to be ready.
But they're fantastical worlds, and they really
need believable lighting on the actors in the set.
And so they're OK with something that's close but not
final because it's going to get them so much further along.
And Sam, as you mentioned, that is not trivial.
Making those changes on the actor
in the physical set in post, with all of the comp,
you get it to look right.
SAM NICHOLSON: I mean, if you don't like what you see,
what you see is what you get on set.
Now, if you're on green screen, you
can put it off and make all sorts of decisions later.
So that's why I'm saying, if the director knows what he wants,
you've had enough time to prepare the materials,
you've tested things, and you've already proven it,
so that by the time you get on set--
like what we did with the Akira test--
you know what you're going to get.
It's fantastic.
But if the studio is not behind it,
and the director doesn't know what they want,
and maybe we want to change this or that,
you definitely are better off on green screen.
However, the business model--
you know, it's cheap to put up a green rag and shoot, right?
It's really easy, and you spend your money in post.
It's pretty expensive to get a 100 foot LED wall out
there with all the technology to run it
and all these fabulous pre-vis tools and things.
That's a lot of pre-production expenses,
and the producer will look at you
like you're crazy if you say, well we're
going to spend all this money, and we're
going to spend all this money on set,
and then we're going to throw all that out,
and you're going to spend just as much money in post.
I mean, some people can afford to do that,
but most shows that we've dealt with cannot afford that.
So there is a financial equation to this.
We need to be responsible to be able to say
this is the wisest way to spend the money.
And you can have fantastic pre-vis.
You can have pre-comps on set or finished material on set.
But don't throw away your post money,
because you're going to use it.