Using a green screeni for an outdoor night scene, with a torch

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sdanzig

Member
I apparently don't like making things easy for myself, but for my next film, I'd like to do a brief scene in front of a green screen. I'm worried about how best to light the green screen.

Picture three brave adventurers, one or two of them holding torches, in front of... whatever dungeon/castle/ruins/creepy forest that I decide to put them in front of. I'm filming with an a7sii, and I figure I can do a soft diffused moonlight on them, with their faces lit a bit more by the torchlight (I see I can order a couple of torches off Etsy, or actually try to make them). I'll match it up with whatever stock footage I choose. I have a 10 foot high, 12 foot wide green screen that I should be able to set up in my backyard, getting at least a waist-high shot. My lenses range from 24 to 105mm. I figure it's pretty easy to film, but I don't know how to light the green screen in a way that's easy to chroma key. I'm worried about how brightly I can light the screen before it washes out the effect of the torch.

Any advice?

Thanks!
 
The greenscreen level should be many times less bright than that of the torch fire. Typically, level of the greenscreen should be a stop less or about the same as your key. Also, do yourself a favor and don't use a log setting for greenscreen with that camera.
 
Random thoughts.

You have a torch - it has a 'front element' that will be easy brighter than any greensceen

But the torch might have a beam which is the challenge?

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For the beamless torch it would seem 'regular' greenscreen would work.

My 'gut feeling is to shoot this on black BG, possibly with some haze/smoke and isolate the charachters and torch beams usiing your keying software to alpha out black elements of the image.
I guess to pull that key you would need a combo of keying and catching the characters with a (motion tracked inverted) mask.

Id light the characters with a blue-ish rimlight and a very soft frontal keylight.

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Id personally vote* heavily to keep the feet out of shot or try and shoot on a practical surface (eg stony ground) that (kind of) matches the surface in your fantasy world



*vote - this is what I would suggest as DOP in a pre-pro meeting.
 
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