Full-Body White Background Test Shot

We took a few hours to test out a full-body white background video made famous by the "I'm a Mac" commercials right after I graduated from film school.

Jonathan has also procured some new giant LED lights and wanted to test them out for an upcoming full-body white video shoot a client wants him to do.

Was it possible?

We setup in my living room (about 10'x15' and shot from the attached dining area, giving us about 25' lengthwise). Without moving any of the furniture, we were able to get a full body shot of me -- who is tall -- and garbage matte out the couch and cabinet. Granted, it would have been much nicer to have more than two feet of shooting space to stand in, but it worked out.

Seamless White Background Test Shot

Profession shoots like this take place on a sound stage with a built-in sloped corner and preset lights and lots of headroom, I'd say we did pretty well with a wrinkled backdrop and chairs in the way of where we wanted to setup lights.

We found Zack Arias's Lighting White Seamless video to be really helpful!

I used DaVinci Resolve to garbage matte things out (e.g. simply cut out the other stuff in the background). Because my toes went over the edge of the white sheet, and I didn't want to take more time on this, you can see that my socks get kinda chopped off at the bottom. Six more inches and we wouldn't have had an issue.

Pretty cool.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor

How to Make a Quick Corporate Video

My friend Kat was asked by her work to "make a quick video" to use on social media. She called me up and explained the project:

15 videos, 2-5 minutes each, shot over a couple days.

How much would it cost to make it? And if it would be too much, what could they do to make it.

Paying someone (like me or my friends) was going to be way outside the budget. But I told Kat I would be happy to teach her how to do it herself, but that it would likely take 8 hours per video (at least at the start). If you have no experience shooting or editing video, it'll likely take a lot longer because there is so much to learn.

Enjoy this a mini-workshop on how to shoot a quick corporate video.

Please note: To make the video 30 instead of 40 minutes long, I just included small portions of Kat talking.

Hope this helps!

If you have questions, as always, I'd be happy to do what I can to help.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor