News and events from snapfactory

I found some still from a couple of years ago that showed the progress of our set build out.  I thought it would be fun to put them together in a video for a behind the scenes look.  I hope you enjoy it.

Valentines Day Set Build Out: 2005 from Mark Wallace on Vimeo.

This weekend I shot a couple of videos of students talking about their experience with the 8 week Digital Photography 101 course.  Eventually I’ll have a bunch of videos that will all be edited and posted on our website.

I’ve had a few people ask about the process of shooting on a green screen and so I thought I’d create a short video that shows the editing process.

Here’s the lighting setup.  I have a portable green screen that’s lit by two Arri 650 Plus fresnels.  The subject is lit by an Arri 1000 watt Arrilite with small Chimera softbox.  There’s also a 650 fresnel that I use as a separation light – that’s the light high above the green screen.

There’s a silver reflector opposite the softbox for some fill light.  There are also two flags to keep light from spilling into the lens.  One large flag to block the separation light and one small flag to block the light coming from the rear of the softbox.

Here’s another view with our former student, Craig, in the shot.

After the video is shot with our Canon XH-A1 it’s imported into Adobe Premier Pro CS3.  I use a Matrox RT.X2 video capture card for real-time HD editing.  The basic steps shown in the video are:

1. Add Chroma Key to reveal stock background animation.  You can buy these from Digital Juice, they’re called Jump Backs HD.
2. Add left matte to eliminate the green screen stand.
3. Clean up the audio in Adobe Audition.
4. Add some stock music from Digital Juice.
5. Add the right matte
6. Adjust the color
7. Move Craig to the right to make room for text.
8. Add some text.
9. Fade everything out.

From Green to Finished from Mark Wallace on Vimeo.

Great to see Joanna in the studio again! Here’s one of her new headshots. Aside from being an incredible model to shoot with and a successful actress (look for Joanna on the big screen next year!) and a long-time friend, she holds what I’m sure amounts to a unique (if not dubious) distinction: this is the only session ever to be done in our new studio before it was painted. Fortunately, Joanna looks radiant against any color background.

Daniel spent much of the day with us yesterday helping to build some of our Ikea furniture. Along the way he introduced us to some new music (A Fine Frenzy) and also fixed all of my furniture building issues. He took some snapshots along the way.  Today he sent me this Top 10 list and I just had to share it.

My ten key take-aways from an afternoon with the Wallace Duo.

1. Ikea Cafeteria = good grub
2. “Udden” apparently is a word.
3. Mark has the looks to ignite the flame of random cougars in the Ikea loading area. Boys, please control your single-mothers!
4. New studio location very nice!
5. New studio classroom awesome.
6. Sorting fasteners and cross-member orientation both require keen attention to detail. AKA: Re-work sucks.
7. Mark has no soft spot in his heart for bugs.
8. It feels very gratifying to build something, even if it just requires assembly of a box of parts.
9. A Fine Frenzy is instantly likeable for a variety of musical palates/backgrounds.
10. Hitchcock-inspired snapshots require a steadier hand and better composition/cropping than currently available.

Daniel and Mark after a snack at Ikea (Photo by Diane).

Daniel’s “Hitchcock” shot.  Yep, number 10 was right on the money.

We’re still putting the finishing touches on the studio. Diane spent all day Friday painting the walls and yesterday we picked up the first two truck loads of new furniture for the classroom.  We still have more chairs and shelves to pick up and install, but things are getting closer to being finished.  Our fist class in the new studio is Tuesday so we’re working hard to be ready.

We had some help yesterday from our friends Bill and Daniel.  We’re fortunate that Bill has a nice truck because we loaded it to the gills with tables and chairs yesterday.  Bill helped build all the tables and chairs and then Daniel showed up to help us with the second half of the day.  We really appreciate the help.

Here are a couple of iPhone snapshots from the last two days.

Diane painting the walls.

New wall color!

Taking a break at Ikea where we spent a LOT of time yesterday.

Our friend Daniel who helped us build the coffee station.

The new coffee/tea/water/snack station.  The black thing is a refrigerator and we’ll be installing shelves and cup holders on the wall later this week.

I can’t believe I didn’t snap any pictures of the tables and chairs. I guess I was just too busy assembling to remember to take any pictures.  I’ll make sure to get some shots today so you can see how the classroom is coming along.