Is it posssible to light a green screen inside for a outside day scene?

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Filmkid2003

Well-known member
Hey everyone. I am filming a dream sequence where the main character is in the desert during the night BUT, the sand dunes are lit up like its 2:00 in the afternoon, yet, I will be removing the clear blue sky in my desert scene and replacing it with a starry night sky. I already shot the desert footage and I will be shooting the talent in front of a green screen to composite him into the scene in post. My question is, can I shoot the green screen inside with 3 point lighting to make it look like he's realistically in the desert or will I have to shoot the green screen outside on a sunny day? The lights I will be using are two shop lights lighting the green screen evenly from either side and three softbox lights totaling 3000 watts lighting the talent (attached link):

http://www.amazon.com/Studio-Photo-...?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1260422519&sr=1-29

Will I need to attach any gels to the softboxes? Thanks.
 
Inside, outside makes no difference in lighting the greenscreen, the important thing is lighting the talent to match the look that you're going for, in this case the sun being very high up in the sky. This is better achieved indoor IMO so that you can have full control.
 
Just make sure you key from the same direction as your plate shot. Key should also match the type of light in plate. For example, if it is a cloudy or hazy day key soft, if it is a bright day key hard.
 
If you've shot your desert backplate already, what was the light like? Do you have any shadows? what direction? How hard are they?

Couldn't you have shot the scene with the talent in the first place and then shoot a clean plate for the post work?

Finally, if it's a dream sequence, you can pretty much do what you want as it's a dream and everyone's interpretation of a dream can be vastly different.
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone. I have another question. I tried taking the clear blue sky out of some of the desert footage to get an idea of what it would look like with a night sky using the Color Key Effect (I think that's the name of it) in Premiere Pro CS3 and it looked pretty bad. Will I be able to do a much better job of this in After Effects or is AE not that much better keying and compositing than Premiere?
 
Thanks, Vnguyen. What if the blue sky that I want to erase in my desert footage isn't an even solid color like the sky in the video co-pilot video? I was using a circular polarizer filter when I shot my desert footage and some areas of the sky are a darker blue than others. Will I still be able to successfully key out the blue sky and replace it with a starry night sky and not have it look too obvious? Thanks.
 
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