358 Video Digital Communication & Production
Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc.
Lighting for Compositing
With the power of today’s
postproduction software, compositing is
used increasingly.
Compositing
is the process of video recording
subjects against flat, single-color backgrounds, and
then digitally replacing the background with other
visuals during postproduction.
The more even the background color,
the more perfectly it can be replaced; so the
challenge is to keep the background lighting
absolutely uniform. To do this, you try to
light background and subjects separately,
Figure 16-43.
Lighting the Background
You can achieve very even background
lighting with a pair of softlights (or spots with
heavy diffusion), placed one at each side.
Experiment with light positions and throws to
create a near-perfect wash of light.
Lighting the Foreground
Place the subjects as far forward of the
background as possible. Classic spotlight
lighting is easiest to use because the light
paths are controllable. To keep foreground
light off the background screen, position
the lights relatively high and to the side
(as far as 8:00 or 8:30) to keep hot spots
and shadows below and to the sides of
the frame.
Today’s editing software can compensate to some
extent for shadows on the compositing screen.
Be sure to look at the background footage
to determine the quality and direction of its
own lighting. If your setup allows, key this
footage into the image in place of the composite
screen. Adjust subject lighting until it matches
the composited background.
In some production setups, you can feed the
background image to the on-set monitor as a
reference for lighting the foreground subject.
Manfrotto, USA
Spotlights with diffusion evenly
wash the background g
An alternative setup: soft lighting on
both subject and background j g
Figure 16-43. Lighting for compositing.
Subject is as far in front of the
background as practical g p