Behind the Scenes: Apple Park (and Other Apple Sites) Krazy Ken Episode

Here's some behind the scenes shots of the latest Krazy Ken episode. Above is the setup I used to film the a-roll narration. Normally I would refer to this as a "talking head" shoot, but you don't see my head, so it's like a… "talking chest" shoot???

The green screen setup is decent, but NOT perfect. To do it right, I would need a $h!t-ton more light. Why? To achieve a good chroma key (the process of selecting and removing color for compositing) you need a sharp image with no motion blur. Any type of blurriness hinders the keying effectiveness, and it's messy! Remember, depth-of-field and motion blur can always be artificially created in post-production, but if your shot contains those traits, it's VERY difficult to remove them.

How does one fix this? Shooting with a low shutter angle (high shutter speed) and a closed iris (high f-stop) results in sharp motion picture. However, when you close the iris and narrow the shutter angle, less light hits the camera sensor. To compensate this, you need a lot of light! I currently don't have a suitable amount. Maybe one day ; )

The background in the green screen composite (or "plate") was shot on-location in the Apple Park Visitor Center olive grove. I literally plopped the camera on a table and rolled. The shotgun mic recording the natural sound. The ambience you hear during the Krazy Ken narration is not stock sound effects; it was recorded on-site in the olive grove. It's genuine!

An Apple employee photographed me with iPhone (using Portrait Mode). This shot was taken on Visitor Center rooftop.

I had to travel light! Here's all the gear I brought with me while I "backpacked" around Cupertino and Los Altos.

I hope you enjoyed the new episode! If you haven't seen it yet, please click here! Thanks again for your support; it helped make this trip possible. If you have any questions about how I shoot, please ask!