Greenscreen: Worth It?

[meddesigner]

Hi -

I am considering revisiting the green screen thing for my talking head medical videos. This was done in the past but due to heat, home made green screen and Home Depot work lights the whole thing was a mess.

That said I spoke with Kino-Flo today and they are setting me up with an option to light the screen with Kino's (of course) and feel that using chroma key green as opposed to digital green can help with reflectivity and spill suppression. Additionally, my Arri 150 as a backlight can also help with spill.

I have good keying tools available (Shake and Combustion) but am slightly concerned with the 4:1:1 color space and the lack of physical space to set this all up in.

In the end I think I can make it work but is it worth the effort. Would you guys set this up properly, home grown, or use some type of photographic background?

What techniques would you suggest for making any of this successful?

Thanks for your answers in advance -
Rich in Nashville

 

[PDX_DVX]

Re: Greenscreen: Worth It?

At school we made a green screen by painting huge pieces of insulation foam with green paint. We got the right color green by going to a local paint store, and buying super saturated green paint. Just ask them to put alot of pure green pigment in it. Its WAY cheaper than buying the real stuff. We use it almost every day, and it works beautifally (sp?). If you light this sort of surface properly, the paint seems to "absorb" the light, and you end up with a pretty good screen. I imagine the softness of the kino's could work wonders. We set up our green screen in a relatively small space, with the actors not too far from the screen, and we even use pretty old keying equipment, and not so nice cameras. The pieces of screen we use are about 4x8 feet I would say, and we have about 6 of them that we line up. We simply used a paint roller, and lots of coats of paint to get it right. You could then go in and use chroma green gaff tape to seal up the seams. The key to getting a good keyable image though, is even lighting of the screen behind the actors. Hope this helps!

 

[dregenthal]

<snipped for brevity>

I have good keying tools available (Shake and Combustion) but am slightly concerned with the 4:1:1 color space and the lack of physical space to set this all up in.

In the end I think I can make it work but is it worth the effort. Would you guys set this up properly, home grown, or use some type of photographic background?

What techniques would you suggest for making any of this successful?

Thanks for your answers in advance -
Rich in Nashville

I am working on a documentary style short for a group of friends where I pop the talking head in over video (and some stills). I am using a couple of cheap softboxes against a wall I painted with the ROSCO green. One of the things I do that seems to have helped is using DV Rack ... this way I can light it/set it up properly and have some sense of what I am going to get before compositing. I have the most current version of AE Pro but for quick, "down & dirty" stuff I've found it faster using Alam's "Chromanator". If you light up your background with sufficient diffused light (and don't have to stand right in front of it/casting shadows) you will probably have an acceptable result. Good luck!