Grey or Blue Shirts?

[Jaime Valles]

Hello, all! Quick question: If you had a choice between having the actors wear light grey or light blue polo-shirts for the filming of a MiniDV feature, which do you think would look better? I'll be using a Panasonic DVX100, and most of the action takes place in a school with fluorescent lighting. Should I go with light blue shirts or light grey? Which do you think will read better on MiniDV?

Thoughts? Anyone?

[Stylianos Moschapidakis]

I can't tell you which shirt would look better because that depends on a number of things; however, I'd like to ask you, "Why does your character wear a light grey shirt, or a blue one? Isn't there any significance to what color his/her shirt is?" You know what I mean?

[K. Forman]

I would go with the grey shirt. Some colors can come out funky on video, red and blue are two that I've noticed the most, if they are extremely bright. Flourescent lights don't help matters either.

[Harry Settle]

whatever you do, avoid red like the plague.

[Jaime Valles]

<<<-- Originally posted by Stylianos Moschapidakis : I can't tell you which shirt would look better because that depends on a number of things; however, I'd like to ask you, "Why does your character wear a light grey shirt, or a blue one? Isn't there any significance to what color his/her shirt is?" You know what I mean? -->>>

Well, the thing is, I'm getting the shirts as a "school uniform" for the actors. They're students in the plot. So, it's not a question of character or motivation, or anything like that. I'm just wondering which color will read better on MiniDV, if any.

And yes, I'll definitely avoid red like the plague.

Thanks all.

[Alex Knappenberger]

Why avoid red? I've heard this before myself, but i've found that red shirts look good, because it's quite saturated...atleast with my camera.

I'd probably go with blue myself, since theres more color to it then just plain old grey, and your DVX100 won't have a problem handling it.

[Chris Hurd]

Red bleeds, especially when it reaches VHS.

[Dylan Couper]

You'll always have less problems with grey than any other colour.
As long as there aren't any funky patterns in it.

[Jaime Valles]

Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll end up using the light blue ones, because most of this thing will be shot inside a school, which has very drab colors to begin with. So at least the blue will give the scenes some color.

Plus, very few people look bad in blue.

Thanks for the input!

[Harry Settle]

Definitely get some color going for you. I just did a wedding that was conducted at a National Guard Armory. Grey concrete floors, wall were off-white, fluorescent lighting, the basic color theme for the wedding was black and white. I have been trying to edit this for a week and am so sick of "no color" I could puke. Every once in a while I pop in a church wedding just to see what color looks like.

[Robert J. Wolff]

As these colors are neither advancing nor recessional, I would suggest that a light color "set lighting" be used, to separate the subjects from the back ground. Other wise, they will blend into the back ground.

Another way to handle it, is to do the National Geographic scenic way. They have been using it since colour photography first became commericially practical, some time in the '20's.

Have your actor's wear a discreet bright red symbol (scarf, flower, etc.), to have them stand out from the base colour of the set. If you need additional colours, for a good guy/bad guy situation, try yellow. It works.

[Garret Ambrosio]

I thought this wasa civil war post ;P Red gets noise as well, right? A bright red especially, I notice it gets video noise when I use the 3CCD video conference cam at work.

[Robert J. Wolff]

General,

March to the colour of Your Guns (RGB)!!!