what size of green screen?

P

powerdog

Veteran
Let's say you'll do a long shot of an average size man against a green screen.

Allowing enough space between the screen and the guy, and then enough so you don't need to rely on wide angle to get all of him in, what would you consider the minimum dimensions of the green screen?
 
I'm planning to use Ultra 2, and it does give you a way to crop. Would a 5x12 be too small? Portability is an asset in this case.
 
IF you were just shooting upper torso and head, in your typical man-on-the-street interview, you could probably get by with 6x6. This gives you a big enough are that you can move the subject out some, to avoid the green spill.

PS- If you look around, you can find a collapsable 6x6 green/blue screen.
 
Full body, not upper torso. Top of head to shoes. So I guess we're looking at -- what -- 8x12? Better a little too big than a little too small.
 
Capt Quirk said:
If there is no movement, you could get by with less, and crop out all the stuff that isn't green.
Click to expand...

yup, just enough to cover all the action, then use a mask in After Effects. Saves rendering time, keying, lighting hassle, and money. works the same. the only reason to use green screen is to save from rotoscoping around the movement/action.
 
powerdog said:
When choosing a size, aspect ratio doesn't matter if you're going to crop the guy anyway, right?
Click to expand...

When you say aspect ratio, I assume you are referring to how wide the camera's field of view is... and no, that doesn't matter if you are cropping. The green needs to cover the movememnt so you do not have to mask the person frame by frame. Just draw a mask around anything else.

When I do a green screen in my garage you can see the rafters, edge of the green screen, etc. It doesn't matter. I just mask that. Keep the actors in front of the green screen and key that.

Again:

GREEN SCREEN = key it out. used for an easy background replacement without editing frame by frame (rotoscoping).

MASK = use it to cover up whatever is undesireable in the frame quickly and easily, so long as no action is in front of it (making it perfect for what the green screen does not cover). It will let the same background used for the green screen come through.


Just keep the actors in front of the green screen. That is all the matters. Test
this out first and play with masks in After Effects or whatever you use.
 
powerdog said:
Let's say you'll do a long shot of an average size man against a green screen.

Allowing enough space between the screen and the guy, and then enough so you don't need to rely on wide angle to get all of him in, what would you consider the minimum dimensions of the green screen?
Click to expand...

Actually by going in the opposite direction and backing the camera up and zooming in, you will require a smaller green screen background to fill the frame than if you had the camera closer on a wide angle.
 
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