Well, I wouldn't sweat it
too terribly much... since you are shooting film it's going to be easier to pull a good key...
I would say just light it the way you would
normally light this scene, as if you had a practical background. In this case that would probably mean having pretty strong back/side lighting in order to catch the flying drops in action. In fact, you might do some experimentation with back lighting, tryiing to light the drops
first before you even worry about lighting the talent, and then add that lighting after you have the water looking the way you like.
You also might try multiple takes... over greenscreen, over bluescreen, and over dead black. It could be in the end that one of those choices gives a better matte than the other.
Do some tests with either a digital still camera or a video camera with the shutter speed set to 1/300th or higher to test your lighting plot.
Also, keep in mind that for shooting 250 at 150fps you are going to need a fair bit of lighting... don't skimp, especially on the backlighting. The SR3 of course has a variable shutter, but I would keep it wide open at 180˚ so you don't cheat yourself on any exposure.
On a completely different (and obvious) note.... do you own this camera? If you do, then you know what it will do and ignore the rest of this. But if you are renting it for the shot, make sure they give you the right equipment. The usual SR3 has a max shutter speed of 75fps... you'll need one of the ones with high-speed movement that have been modified to go up to 150fps (and they are not quite as commonly seen as high-speed SR1 or SR2 bodies).
Let us know how it turns out....
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
