Green Screening with the 7D

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Dbldwndrew

Member
During one week this past October I invited 28 bands down to Seaside Lounge Recording Studio to film a live green screen music video with me. I ended up with 35 music videos and NEW live audio resulting in 1 terabyte of footage. I am here to share, discuss, learn, and help anybody planning on; shooting GREEN SCREEN, using CANON 5D & 7Ds, L GLASS LENSES, managing LARGE AMOUNTS of DATA, and using AFTER EFFECTS to KEY and MASK there subjects.

The music video series launched in December, two videos are up thus far. If you like it please share, and please send me your thoughts. If I could do it all again, I would do it completely different. All behind the scenes were shot on HVX 200

Video 1 - http://www.green-screening.com/dale.html

Video 2 - http://www.green-screening.com/softblack.html
 
When you say you would have done it completely different, what is one thing you would have changed?
 
James0b57 said:
When you say you would have done it completely different, what is one thing you would have changed?
Click to expand...

Ah man. Of course money was a huge hang up when putting this project together, but if I had had more, I would have rented a larger recording studio. The amount of space between my subject and the green screen was so small that there were tremendous amounts of green spill on everything. Turning a one day keying job into a three four five day keying job. Also, it was suggested that I use a non glare spray on all my shiny metals, which I shrugged off. In hind sight, the drums, especially the cymbals which are constantly moving appear and disappear because of green spill. I do not know if the spray works, but it may have been worth a shot on the drum kit, and the shiny metallic base amp we used. Lastly, there was no organization or method involving the tracking marks on the green screen. Originally, I planned to make this Green Screening series a much simpler cheesier green screen project, and do it without markers. At the last minute I was convinced otherwise. The markers on my green screen needed to be more strategically placed. There are way too many in general, and many are positioned in complicated/obstructed areas rendering them useless and/or a pain to remove. When shooting handheld in the future I would treat the green screen markers as the subject of my composition, with the actual subject as an in focus dirty frame foreground object.
 
Ouch - just watched the dale Jr, but I see the same stuff that plagues me when keying with the T2i - hair detail gone, heavy aliasing lines here & there, pulsating masks, etc. Looks like a lot of work went into it though, and I think it sort of "works" for the quirkiness of the band & song. You certainly pulled off having a conceptual idea that went through the song (even if I didn't "get" the tie in of brand logos and birds to the lyrics myself, it was more engaging than 90% of the hip hop videos posted around here) - I'd cut the intro perhaps, by the time the band came in I thought "dude, you accidentally posted stock footage at this link"...

I've only gotten really happy results keying Canon footage for super dark/moody stuff - you really have to plan for the right scenes to key this stuff - I get shot down for saying that often ("I pulled AWESOME keys for my scifi flick") but when I see the footage examples, they're not something I would have considered acceptable. I do need to test more for settings that could kill the hard aliasing lines though.

I find dark & smoky themes work best:
grab3.jpg

grab2.jpg
 
Michael Carter - Thanks for watching the Dale Jr. Jr. vid. The stills above are amazing. I agree that taking a key and putting it into a dark or smoky atmosphere definitely helps hide any small details you would rather not want seen, but this looks amazing. In regards to your intro comment, my father and several other friends responded in kind. They were annoyed with the intro green screening song, and then thought what is this??? A video about a bird? ha. Let me know if you post your sci fi flick online or if it makes any festival runs in New York.
 
Thanks man - that was a music video actually - the guy in the suit is my son, I sort of had a last-minute thematic idea and had just bought him his homecoming suit. So I made a little army out of him.

Video's on Vimeo, url number is - 16510200

I'd post it here but that's kinda thread-hijacky!
 
POST it. Would be cool to get a green screening thread going strong! I am posting a new video no and hopefully another one tomorrow.
Michael Carter said:
Thanks man - that was a music video actually - the guy in the suit is my son, I sort of had a last-minute thematic idea and had just bought him his homecoming suit. So I made a little army out of him.

Video's on Vimeo, url number is - 16510200

I'd post it here but that's kinda thread-hijacky!
Click to expand...
 
New Green Screening Music Video 1st with video background

New Green Screening Music Video 1st with video background

This is the first green screening video where I have used video footage as the background. I had to composite 8 different shots together to make the background, because I did not measure distances angles or record what lenses i used. And a composite video with 8 separate videos in it is hell on my comp. Not my favorite as of yet, but others seem to like it more than the rest.
http://www.green-screening.com/

 
IMO you need to color correct and grade these projects different for them to work. These Videos look "Too Live" if you know what I mean. Also try using soft boxes in the future for light as they do a more even light low which is crucial during keys. Finally as you noted you need separation from your background, a general rule I was thought was at least 5 feet.
 
Drew, you might be able to salvage the footage if you convert it. You will also have too do some work on the luminence channel to clean up the mask.
 

latest endeavor into green screening. this was the first band on the first day of shooting. was the hardest to edit. learned alot the first day, but learned way more after sitting down with my 5th green screen edit. tracking markers, aahhhhh!!!!!!! use as few as possible, and when shooting handheld treat them as the subject. does anyone know if cs5 rotoscoping tool is really the greatest thing on this planet, i.e. timesaver?
 

I cannot believe the last video in this series was posted in January 2011. Three years later (ashamedly so, it takes so long when not properly prepared for...), I have another one, BUT its the best one to date, and I am going to keep dropping them even if it takes me until 2032. I only have 20 odd-something more.

This video was made to the brief of an old timey ticker tape parade & all effects done in After Effects. The title was created by Adam Carter - http://instagram.com/adam.carter

Hope everyone likes.
 
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I will add mine, once the company posts it on their student website. Didn't have any issues with doing green screen. It worked perfectly I would have to think.
 
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