The New And Improved Studio 5E

In retrospect I should have caught it. When built and installed the studio camera and lighting were mostly eyeballed in. I was learning. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. It worked, so I never went back.

Me holding an HD chip chart. This ‘photo’ is actually a frame of video. The colors look crisp and bright. All the grays are distinguishable. The chroma key is clean.

I made a presentation for a potential client last week and was very disappointed they were disappointed with my studio’s video.

They were right. In retrospect I should have caught it.

When built and installed the studio camera and lighting were mostly eyeballed in. I was learning. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

It worked, so I never went back.

Me and Larry Fitzgerald on the patio.

This weekend it was time to get everything in spec. Larry Fitzgerald, friend from his Channel 8 New Haven days came by. Larry’s an editor based in Burbank. He cuts packages for Miss USA and Miss Universe every year and does a lot of reality shows. A lot.

At Channel 8 he was our production director in charge of all studio activities. He was the perfect assistant (and by assistant I mean I did everything he told me to do).

All these adjustments control the keyer. We’re attempting to remove a specific shade of green, but at many different brightness levels. It’s magic.

We moved the camera forward, the lights back and removed some diffusing paper. For those counting I’m getting around 29 lux on my face while standing on my mark.

With a “chip chart” we calibrated the camera. We checked the colors on a vectorscope to make sure the phase was correctly set. White is now white! What a concept.

There’s additional light hitting the green wall with the diffusing paper off. That meant starting from scratch resetting the chroma key. This process lets me stand in front of a blank green wall and look like I’m in front of a map.

My TriCaster’s keyer likes the additional light. It’s delivering the cleanest key I’ve gotten.

OMFG — the waveform monitors are showing exactly what they’re supposed to show!

As you can tell from the photo, Larry’s pretty pleased. Me too. My gear is capable of looking as good as any HD studio. It’s my fault it didn’t look that way last week. It does now.

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