Green screen made from back side of an 8' projection screen....?

S

sbrenner

Active member
I'd like to paint the back side of an 8' projection screen and use it for a green screen.
I'm wondering if conventional acrylic paint would be flexible enough for when the screen
roles back into its' enclosure? I'm concerned that the paint will crack with the flexing.
It might work ok since the green backside would be stretching (while the white reflective
side would be compressing). Is there a more rubberized type paint?
 
acrylic paint is great for painting cloth (I've used to paint dozens of t-shirts in my teens), but I don't think it will be good enough for your project

for a start, I don't think the result will be smooth enough (traces of the original cloth color are usually visible); plus, it works by getting into the fabric, and a projection screen may be plastic-like instead of cloth-like; if the paint doesn't go inside the cloth, but stays on top of it instead, it will definitely crack when rolled back; even if it can go in, mix the paint with a little bit of water (10% will do) or it may also crack

I think it will work better if you just buy some green cloth and clip it to the screen while it's open, store it separately when you want to roll the screen (the problem here would be avoiding wrinkles)
 
yeah, thats not going to work well. 1. the paint's probably going to crack 2. it really needs to be a certain type of green to be effective 3. it probably also wont be a consistent coverage, and that will give you bad results.

you can buy an 8x10 true chromagreen drop for + or - $100 or rent one for $25ish.

to paint a projector screen just seems like a lot of wasted time and effort for a lackuster end result
 
wgzn said:
yeah, thats not going to work well. 1. the paint's probably going to crack 2. it really needs to be a certain type of green to be effective 3. it probably also wont be a consistent coverage, and that will give you bad results.

you can buy an 8x10 true chromagreen drop for + or - $100 or rent one for $25ish.

to paint a projector screen just seems like a lot of wasted time and effort for a lackuster end result
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It does not need to be a "certain type of green" to be effective, it just needs to be a color and shade that isn't likely to turn out in your footage naturally. You can actually buy bright neon green wall paint. I helped a friend paint a wall in his studio with it, and it was a regular paint from home depot if I recall correctly... looked awesome when properly lit (which is VERY important- bad lighting will make a green screen nearly useless).
I agree that painting a projection screen might not be ideal. When I needed it for a client, I bought a giant green chroma-key cloth from B&H for about $60. In the end, it worked about as well as my DIY ones, so I'm not convinced an "official" product is necessary at all.
 
I like the rollup convenience since I have to use my living room for a studio.
Getting the right color shouldn't be a problem, getting the right paint is.
 
It does not need to be a "certain type of green" to be effective, it just needs to be a color and shade that isn't likely to turn out in your footage naturally.
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maybe it's just me. but i would call that a "certain type of green" ; )

my point is that ive seen a lot of people just go grab some random green color and it had either too much yellow or blue in it and it never worked well. so it is advisable to choose your green wisely
 
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wgzn said:
maybe it's just me. but i would call that a "certain type of green" ; )

my point is that ive seen a lot of people just go grab some random green color and it had either too much yellow or blue in it and it never worked well. so it is advisable to choose your green wisely
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LOL- ok, I don't want to hash this out, but I would strongly disagree with calling it a "certain type of green", since it is rather a very wide range of colors ("certain" implies a singularity, which would be false).

In fact, what works really well in one shot could be awful in another, depending on what is in the foreground. A green that has too much blue in it, for example, would be better suited for a subject with many shades of yellow. The "standard" chroma key backdrops pick a neon lowest-common-denominator color that is the least likely to show up in anything, but even that is not always the best choice.

But yes, choose your green wisely is good advice. Or blue. Or purple. I've used them all for different shoots (for example, flowers could not be shot on green because of the stems) and all performed splendidly when lit properly.
 
I did some research on the web and in local stores and I think I found a solution from a local paint store in Eugene, OR (Miller Paint).
They had a brand from Pittsburgh Paint that is extremely flexible. Apparently it was quite difficult to obtain an exact copy of Behr Green Acres or Pantone 354.
He was able to do so but had to limit a certain ingredient that allows for good coverage. That made painting the black back of the screen problematic.
I've got an extra screen so I can paint the white reflective side. I'd prefer the outer side since I sense that compression could buckle the paint away from
the surface while stretching on the outside would be pushing it closer to the surface. Anyway, I think it will work with one qualification. They only sell
that paint in a satin or gloss coat, no flat version. So I may have to deal with finding a way to remove what little sheen the satin coat has.

I'm sure this all sounds like more work and money then it's worth, but the convenience factor is high on my list of features for a green screen in one's
living room.
 
sbrenner said:
I'd prefer the outer side since I sense that compression could buckle the paint away from
the surface while stretching on the outside would be pushing it closer to the surface..
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you could take the screen off the roller mechanism and turn it around.
 
dishe said:
LOL- ok, I don't want to hash this out, but I would strongly disagree with calling it a "certain type of green", since it is rather a very wide range of colors ("certain" implies a singularity, which would be false).
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Roscoe's chroma green is formulated to be as close to 100% green (as in, the "g" of RGB, under 5200k lights) as possible. For keying, that is the ultimate green - as little pollution in the R & B channels as possible. Technically speaking, that is the color you want for greenscreen, especially if you're not shooting 4-4-4, etc.

I grabbed a roll of savage chromakey green seamless - $50 bucks and it sucks. Dull and unsaturated. Very hard to key. Art store "neon green" posterboard is actually very good, for doing small effect plates and the like where you don't need a full screen. My Fotodiox popup 5x7 blue/green screen is awful too - the green is just too gray. And it's freaking shiny. And textured!

But why mess with painting a projector screen? I just got a 20' x 15' muslin screen from eBay for $40, postage included. Along with the various 9x15-ish muslins ($20 and up) I've gotten from eBay, it's very saturated and keys like a dream. At that price, they're disposable - I pay more for gels in a month. (I did take it to HD and have them scan it for a quart of green paint - needed a green ceiling on a set. Worked really well). You do need to stretch the muslins pretty tight if you want an easy time keying (hey, Home Depot has A-clamps for 99 cents this week), but I haven't had many shoots where something smaller than 10' would have worked.
 
I had the same idea to use my projector screens just haven't got a round to do it. For getting a close green color I took my muslin green screen in to home depot and they have a scanner that will match the color almost exactly. Now the trick with the paint is to get a even coat across the screen, so rolling and brushing is out of the question. You need to spray! Best option is to buy a low pressure paint sprayer from harbor freight for under 20 bucks. I would suggest a water based enamel so u can thin out the paint to not clog up the gun. My plan for using this was when I did single person interviews. The convenience with using a projector screen was the is no wrinkles like muslin. I used the white screen before as a background and it was a quick set up and worked great for a run and gun two man crew. I was hoping I could do the same with a green screen. Best of luck with your painting and if I get to mine I will post any issues I run into.
 
The paint I need is mixed and ready for me to pickup. I've got an airless sprayer so that should work well. The paint guy recommended several thin coats. The paint drys extremely quickly.
He said it could be twisted without cracking so I think the rollup stress should be ok. The lack of wrinkles in the projection screen and the ease of use was a key reason for trying this. I won't be able to pick
the paint up for a couple of weeks, but when I try it out, I'll post the results here.
 
Michael Carter said:
I just got a 20' x 15' muslin screen from eBay for $40, postage included. Along with the various 9x15-ish muslins ($20 and up) I've gotten from eBay, it's very saturated and keys like a dream.
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nice!! I think I'll have a green screen in my living room pretty soon :)
 
wgzn said:
i never have figured out why people go though so much hassle to cobble together kludgey contraptions. when they could save all the time and effort and get something like this for $50:
http://www.backdropsource.com/Produ...ersible-chroma-key-green-and-blue-collapsible
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That may be good for a portable solution. For a studio setup, at least for me, it's cost effective and a better product to use a projector screen. These screens cost me $10 (surplus), the paint costs me $50 and will probably do two screens.
The end product not only is much easier to setup but is wrinkle free.
 
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