How To Work A Green Screen?

3 Schmoes said:
Moral of the story: Green screens are a pain in the buttox. Personally, I try to avoid them whenever possible. Same thing goes for sharks, vegetables, and clingy women.
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Personally I would rather be suck in a tank with a Hungry shark while tied up to a clingy woman eating vegetables.
 
This is all very interesting, I use green screen for the backdrop...I have a VERY low budget setup which I used to just start up. I light the green screen from left and right moving the lights until it is all evenly lit. I now actually do a test before recording the video by taking a few seconds and trying to use the Chroma Key, if it all goes away evenly, we have one less problem.

Since I play horror video games, my challenge is to light the screen, then my face...with minimum light. Otherwise the "playing alone in the dark" effect is lost somewhat. This means standing quite a good distance from the screen...which means making the screen bigger.

Any experience on what WATT rate is recommended for the green screen lights?

Cheers
CT
 
What is the specific effect you are trying to achieve with greenscreen? I've done it a lot (not always perfectly, but getting better), and I can tell you what I know.

Here's the basics: Make sure your screen is non-reflective and not wrinkled. Light it well, and make sure to seperate yourself from the greenscreen by at least 5-6 feet. Light yourself seperately with a basic 3-point setup. A keylight about 45 degrees to your left or right and shining down at about 45 degrees. A fill light 45 degrees from you at eye level on the opposite side of your keylight. A backlight above and behind you to light your shoulders and hair. This will help seperate you from the screen and give you a good chromakey cutout. Don't light your greenscreen too much, especially if it's reflective. It will leave green edges around you.

If you need more info, let me know what your questions are. I will be glad to help.
 
I suffer from the green bleeding effect you mention, I think the lights for the screen are too powerful, they must be > 80Watts each...
 
count_teribil said:
I suffer from the green bleeding effect you mention, I think the lights for the screen are too powerful, they must be > 80Watts each...
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Hmm well you can either stand further away or you can get 2 100 watt lights and shine them on your back one on your right and left.. this should help break you away from the green.
 
Xsplit most definitely has chroma key, in the color settings of any object on your slide. I've used it before. Just google Chroma Key Xsplit.
 
JohnKenShow said:
Hmm well you can either stand further away or you can get 2 100 watt lights and shine them on your back one on your right and left.. this should help break you away from the green.
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Thanks, I'll try first getting further away (running out of space) and then with a couple of lights behind.

CT
 
Another helpful hint: Make sure that all of your lighting is the same colour temperature (example: 5500k). If you use lighting of different colour temperatures, you may have trouble when trying to key out the greenscreen.
 
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