Is this Arri kit enough for green screen + talent?

[Torr]

I'm looking into buying this ARRI kit:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/72161-REG/Arri_571984_Softbank_I_Tungsten_Light.html

It comes with two 300's, a 650, and a 1K, plus softbox, scrims, filters... the works.

Although I am aware this is an awesome kit, I would like to know if you think it would take care of lighting a 15' x 24' green screen AND one talent.

Do you think I can get homogeneous lighting of the green screen with the two 300's, then use the 1K and 650 for talent? Or some other combination?

Or would I be better off buying individual lights for green screen (2 Lowell tota) and individual lights for talent (chimera, fresnel, omni, flos, etc)?

Thanks for your help!

[wgzn]

no way. not enough lights. unless youre just doing a tight head and shoulders shot - and probably not even then. you need to think of green screen work as two independent and different light setups. one full source for screen, one full source for talent (and then some)

if you are using tungsten heads, youre likely gonna need 4. all of equal power, 2 per side (no less than 500w each) - i prefer two 4' 4 bank kinoflows.

then light your talent as you would normally but add at least 1 (250w min) added gelled for spill supression.

chroma shots are not some place to use "get by" light setups

not that this kit is by any means a "get by" kit. its a very fine kit for lighting a single subject and a non-chroma backdrop

[mrWr0ng]

agreed. I've done a couple of green screen setups and I've done the two 4 bank kinos, one on each side, light meter around to make sure they're hitting equally, then light the subject. last time I did a 5 light setup on the actor, one back light from each side of the screen, a side light and two front lights. I try to go high with the keys and point down to make sure that neither shadow nor light spill hits the green screen to take away from the evenness of the kinos.

[puredrifting]

I agree with wgzn and Wrong. For just from the waist up spokesperson shots, I often use two 1ks just for the green screen, then I would be using another 1k for a key, a 650 or 300 as a fill and a 150/300 for a hair light.

You need more wattage and some larger instruments. Another option is the ChromaFlex system, it consists of a LED ringlight and a special screen, no extra lights needed. I have shot hundreds of broadcast and documentary interviews with it and it's really excellent, much easier than traditional green screen. The only downsides are that it is expensive, about $2,500.00 with a small 8' square screen, you cannot use it with a teleprompter and when your talent wears glasses, you will get the reflection of the green or blue LED ringlight in the reflection of the glasses. It can be keyed out to just look like lights but it's a pain.

Other than those limitations, I never use traditional greenscreen anymore, it's a pain.

Best,

Dan

[wgzn]

another thinig to consider is distance. you need about (at least) 8 to 10 feet between the chroma background and the talent. otherwise youre gonna have all kinds of spill and light conflict issues.

[wgzn]

not to get off track dan, but i used a similar setup a few times - the reflecmedia product. i hated it. i mean it worked fine in tighter quarters or when time didnt allow traditional setup. but i found that:

1. the cost of the reflective material was WAY to high and it was way too DELICATE. i saw more than one get makeup on it and became more or less useless.
2. the green light ring cast a fairly hard silhouette shadow of the talent on the reflective screen and i had to bring in other lights to offset it.
3. that green ring made more than a few people dizzy after a few minutes

i guess some of this could have been due to the fact that i only used it a couple of times. and never got super well-versed in the ins and outs. but still - point #1 from above made it a non-starter for me as i dont tend to baby my kit.

sure does look snazzy though!

[puredrifting]

not to get off track dan, but i used a similar setup a few times - the reflecmedia product. i hated it. i mean it worked fine in tighter quarters or when time didnt allow traditional setup. but i found that:

1. the cost of the reflective material was WAY to high and it was way too DELICATE. i saw more than one get makeup on it and became more or less useless.
2. the green light ring cast a fairly hard silhouette shadow of the talent on the reflective screen and i had to bring in other lights to offset it.
3. that green ring made more than a few people dizzy after a few minutes

i guess some of this could have been due to the fact that i only used it a couple of times. and never got super well-versed in the ins and outs. but still - point #1 from above made it a non-starter for me as i dont tend to baby my kit.

sure does look snazzy though!

Hi wgzn:

1. Agreed. Ridiculously overpriced. But for shooting green screen alone in small locations, really the only way possible. I used one for two years on the road but I baby my gear. It was shipped via air all over the world in a simple U-Haul mirror shipping cardboard box. The cardboard box was good for about 6 flights, then chuck it and buy a new one.

2. Never had a problem with the LED light interfering with my lighting. Not sure why you did?

3. Made people dizzy? That's weird, I never had that issue. I did notice that raising the ambient light on the set near the camera helps though. If you had the green ring light in blackness, it was distracting. Raising the ambient light level around the camera helped make the green ringlight not be so distracting.

It has been a great tool for me and let me shoot greenscreens in places that were technically impossible to shoot them in so I loved it.

Dan

[JonathanLB]

We use Arri lights too, three kits and a 2K. I think we have two 150s, two 300s, three 600s, four 1Ks, and the 2K. If we need some extra power we have Britek lights, cheap lights, two 1Ks, two 600s, and two 300s.

[Torr]

wgzn - thanks for the insight. I can see that a green screen that's 15' wide will need pretty high wattage on each side to create smooth and even lighting.

mrwrong - thanks for the tips, the keys placed higher up make sense re interaction with the green screen

puredrifting - I remember a very useful thread you began re the Chimera as a great light for beginners. I now think that best would be to make my own setup (maybe Chimera, a 650, 300, 150, plus stands, sandbags, etc) and then buying lights for the green screen. Do you have recommendations for the green screen lights?

I am a bit reluctant of going Reflecmedia or Chromaflex since it is a very expensive system. I wonder if the blue or green LED lights tint the overall lighting scheme?

Martin

[puredrifting]

puredrifting - I remember a very useful thread you began re the Chimera as a great light for beginners. I now think that best would be to make my own setup (maybe Chimera, a 650, 300, 150, plus stands, sandbags, etc) and then buying lights for the green screen. Do you have recommendations for the green screen lights?

I am a bit reluctant of going Reflecmedia or Chromaflex since it is a very expensive system. I wonder if the blue or green LED lights tint the overall lighting scheme?

Martin

Hi:

You will need quite a bit of light to light a 15' wide greenscreen. You not only need to light it, you need to light it evenly. That is the tricky part. For the most part, broad source soft lights like fluoros are really good as are egg crate or zip lights. You must light the green screen to your desired level and then you need to take your light meter and check the levels all over the screen. I try to make sure that the levels don't deviate more that 1/4 stop all over the screen. Broad source lights are what you need to light your green screen effectively. By the time you are done, you could easily exceed the price of a ChromaFlex system to evenly light such a large screen. Will your talent be going to all of the areas of the green screen? If not, just use a much smaller one and garbage matte the rest of the area without the green, you may not need to light up a 15' wide area. Is your talent running, walking or locomoting across the entire width? Why so wide (not that 15' is really wide, I just mean wide for a small, low budget setup).

Dan

[Arson]

you will need a couple 4x4' Kinoflos to light the greenscreen.

[Torr]

Dan, I understand your point. The talent will have to move within the 15' width (ie, not static). There will be shots of the talent walking, and full-body shots as well.

Based on your and everyone's recommendations, I will compare a budget of lights vs cost of Reflecmedia or Chromaflex. I agree, it's likely that 4 large fluoro sources will exceed the cost of the Reflecmedia.

Thanks to all for your input.

[puredrifting]

Don't let yor jaw drop when you price out a 15' ReflecMedia screen either. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like there is a cheap way to do what you are intendeing to do.

Good luck,

Dan

[wgzn]

i would NEVER think of standing on the chromaflex material!!! contact with dirt, oil and a variety of other assailants will render it USELESS immediately.

[wgzn]

sure there is a cheap way to do this. RENT time at a green screen set or RENT kinos.
i do this all the time. better to drop $500-$1000 for a single project, bill it to a client. than to drop $3000-$10000 or more out of pocket and hope you have enough ongoing chroma work to pay for it...

[puredrifting]

sure there is a cheap way to do this. RENT time at a green screen set or RENT kinos.
i do this all the time. better to drop $500-$1000 for a single project, bill it to a client. than to drop $3000-$10000 or more out of pocket and hope you have enough ongoing chroma work to pay for it...

Yes, that's true. I was amazed to find a dearth of inexpensive green screen stages in LA though for a small project I produced for Disney. We ended up booking a great small stage on Victory in Burbank. I then received a call the night before the shoot telling me that the production company had just gone under that day and the doors were chained!

Fun time. We ended up booking emergency at Quixote Stages over off of the 5, but it ended up costing me about $7,000.00. There was nothing I could do, it would have cost more to postpone the shoot. I will say that we had set pieces and dolly shots though and we needed a much bigger stage than what the OP is looking for. If you can find a suitable green screen stage that is pre-lit, THAT is certainly the best, easiest and most convenient way to do it. They do exist but are not as common as one would think or at least here in LA they aren't. I think I called just about every stage in the LA411 and there were only about 6-8 pre lit green screen stages in all of LA. And many of them were massive 50k to 80k square feet facilities, obviously overkill for my needs.

Good advice wgzn.

Dan

[Torr]

I have been looking into green screen studios for rent here in the Boston area. I found only 2 (Boston's no L.A. ......), and apparently they seem to be in the "overkill" category for this short I want to produce. Anyway, I will see if I can visit the facilities and make a decision.

Wgzn, your comment further supports my thought that Chromaflex works only in specific situations.

One still has to be carefull with cleanliness of standard green screen material (eg, eefx.com material) but I have read that the Chromaflex is delicate and have no idea how to clean it if there's a smudge. They make those special squares for use as floor material, but they're very expensive.

If a rental does not pan out, I may have to rewrite a few scenes and re-do storyboards so as to make the shots feasible with a smaller screen. That shouldn't be the end of the world....

[xtremepix]

Remember too, you only need to light enough green to safely fill whats seen outside around the edges/behind the actor talent. ie. garbage matte. What green is needed needs to be lit even to make it easier in post. But if lighting an entire 15' BG, more lights than an arri kit is a must.

4X4 Kinos work great! A soft even light source for BG. And try DigiGreen for your screen. It's soooo easy to key compared to chroma green. And is lighter in color so it essentially takes less light to light it.

HVX can be noisy so backlighting is essential to seperate talent hair, etc. from green. Obviously the farther away from the green you can put actor, the better.

But for most other HD work the arri kit is handy, so if price is right go for it.

[NeverColdCall]

Where is DigiGreen available? I'm not having much luck finding it via Google....

[wgzn]

most good gear rental houses will have both digi and chroma

[Zander]

I don't understand how the ChromaFlex system works. Could someone fill me in? Thanks.

[mjdorris]

Hey Torr--

If you need an extra hand doing something like this in Boston, let me know--I can get my hands on a few 1ks, and would love the experience of working with a green screen. Shoot me a PM.

Thanks-

[puredrifting]

I don't understand how the ChromaFlex system works. Could someone fill me in? Thanks.

Pretty basic. Colored LED ringlight goes on the camera, setup screen behind talent. Turn it on. Perect keys. No extra lights needed. No worries about spill, edges, etc.

Downsides are cost, screen is fragile if you thrash it, doesn't work with teleprompters and you get the reflection of the colored LED light ring in the glasses of your talent, if they wear glasses. It can be keyed out to end up being just white like light reflections but it's a pain to do.

Other than that, ChromaFlex is outstanding, I have shot around 200 to 300 interviews with it, it's the only way to do greenscreen in small spaces.

Dan

[J P]

As others have noted, you should either

1) Rent enough lights to light a green screen that large (Kinos are probably the way to go), or

2) Rent a pre-lit green screen stage, so you just need to light the talent.

Either way, the Arri kit is not going to cut it.

[Zander]

Pretty basic. Colored LED ringlight goes on the camera, setup screen behind talent. Turn it on. Perect keys. No extra lights needed. No worries about spill, edges, etc.

Downsides are cost, screen is fragile if you thrash it, doesn't work with teleprompters and you get the reflection of the colored LED light ring in the glasses of your talent, if they wear glasses. It can be keyed out to end up being just white like light reflections but it's a pain to do.

Other than that, ChromaFlex is outstanding, I have shot around 200 to 300 interviews with it, it's the only way to do greenscreen in small spaces.

Dan
Sorry if I sound like an idiot but if the light is on the camera, won't it shine green all over the subject?

[puredrifting]

Sorry if I sound like an idiot but if the light is on the camera, won't it shine green all over the subject?


Hi:

That's a logical question actually. For some reason, it does not affect the lighting on the talent. Not sure if it's a special wavelength or what but no, interviews end up unaffected.

Dan

[Zander]

Hi:

That's a logical question actually. For some reason, it does not affect the lighting on the talent. Not sure if it's a special wavelength or what but no, interviews end up unaffected.

Dan

Ok, now see. That's very weird, I'd love to learn the science behind.

[Justyn]

The other thing that I keep in mind is that you don't need a ton of light for the greenscreen... just an even throw and that it's all relative. What I've done in the past with good success it to use photoflood bulbs on stands positioned around the screenscreen, usually up high and shinging down. Then using the spot meter or a light meeter, just judge how they line up and evenly light the gs with no shadows. You can pick up the fixture for maybe 10 bucks and the bulb for 5.. so for 15 bucks plus a stand you are set. I usually will have 8 or so of these around the set and then I use my arri kit and the kinos to light the talent. works well and it's really cheap solution

[puredrifting]

Ok, now see. That's very weird, I'd love to learn the science behind.

Perhaps it says somewhere on their website? http://www.reflecmedia.com/content.aspx?Content=chromaflex.htm

Dan