Improving on my Greenscreen

here is what my greenscreen material looks like:

i49.tinypic.com/4r3thw.png








i have 2 tungsten lights lighting my greenscreen, and 3 lights lighting the character in the foreground.

my variable is, i tried setting up an extra light to light the character from behind, but it made no difference at all.

the problem is pretty obvious, it's the green edges around the character.

any advice on lighting my greencreen properly and reduce the edges on my character?

general advice: keep as much distance as possible btw green-screen and subject - for me, it looks like reflections (?).

question: I notice, this is a 'zoomed' preview + screen grab, but your recording looks for 'studio' very low quality - what settings has your camera?

or is this 'proxies'?

the final cut pro preview is set to 200% in that capture, so yeah naturally it looks unsharp, i guess.

my canon 7d is set to the highest video recording resolution, but the character kept moving back and forth therefore going in and out of focus, the room is only 6meters deep and 5meters wide.

how can i reduce the reflections? should i move the lights pointing towards the green screen further away from the green screen or point them a little further from the center of the green screen?

sorry i'm completely new to filming, i'm new to the camera as well, I just got it last week.

The green band you have can be cleaned up with FCP X's keyer easily. You'll have to do a tutorial on the advanced controls.

But for the future, keep the talent at least 15 feet or more away from the actual screen. Use a backlight from behind them, but it should be a very powerful light. Use your brightest light for this. Get the talent as far away from the green screen as you can manage. Get the camera back away from the talent. Set the camera to give you a strong depth of field, i.e. blur the green screen in the background.

But, what you got it really good. You just need to work on those edges with the FCP X Keyer filter's advanced controls. More than I can write about in a forum post. Here are some resources that may help.
www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/fcp-x-...an-even-better-keyer

www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/final-...n-better-keyer-again

thanks a lot for the swift response!

you guys are truly great, usually it's so hard to get help on forums if you're a total noob like myself.

thanks for the links and your insight.

with backlight from behind, you mean pointing towards the talent and not towards the actual green screen right?

so i should use
2x400 on the screen
1x1000 on the talent from behind
1x1000 on the talent from the frontal left
2x400 from the front 1 frontal right and 1 lower left

does that sound about right?

i've been filming for a while now, but i really don't know much about light except what i got from tutorials and well what my eye notices.

my talent was usually between 7-9 feet from the green screen. i saw a tutorial that said at least 8 feet, so i put the line at 8 feet, but she kept moving back which was better for the focus than moving forward.

the problem is the room is only 6 meters which is like 19 feet, if you subtract the space between window and green screen, the room is only 17 feet.

a great photographer/video maker i know, said he always films at 35mm on his lens, now if i'm in a 17 foot room, and zoom in with my lens to 35mm (my lens is 15-85mm) and want to shoot a western (from just below the crotch up), there isn't enough space to place my subject (talent) 15ft from my green screen without hitting the door.

Once we're on this topic I might ask you guys that is it a bad idea to shoot one person green screen shot vertically? Is there a benefit doing so? I'd imagine you'd get more reso that way or do you?

There is no difference in resolution shooting normally/horizontally and vertically. You're only re-framing the same shot. We do use "Garbage Masks" in keying to mask out everything except our talent to make keying easier.

When possible, I keep my talent 10-15 feet from screen, never less unless there is no choice.

I may want a second opinion on this. Anyone shooting green screen vertically?

Ah, I see where you're going. More vertical pixels. Just remember you lose pixels horizontally. But if you're moving the shot in closer, it could be interesting to experiment with...

One trick that I use is keeping the green screen a little darker than the subject.

I also mask out as much as I can to reduce the amount of green that needs to be keyed.

FCPX keyer is really good, but I do hope that DV Matte Pro gets updated for X. That was my magic keyer in 7.

so i should use
2x400 on the screen
1x1000 on the talent from behind
1x1000 on the talent from the frontal left
2x400 from the front 1 frontal right and 1 lower left

The backlight is too strong. I have been using the Arri 1100W kit for the talent. 650 key, 300 fill, 150 hairlight or back light. The green screen is lit with two 1000W CFL in a soft box (flag off if needed). Important is the distance to the screen - at least 3-5m. Softboxes might help you to get a larger area light as your talent is moving.

In your small space, try to make it with less light power.

As mentioned above, play with the advanced keyer settings, and you should be able to pull a solid key.



To your lens problem: On an APS-C cam, the 35mm is about a normal lens (~50mm in 35mm photography). That should be fine for a portrait you're planning on. However, you'll run into space problems, so you will need a wider lens to get closer in. This will work, but keep in mind that your talents nose will be longer.

tonyjworld wrote: FCPX keyer is really good, but I do hope that DV Matte Pro gets updated for X. That was my magic keyer in 7.

With the advanced controls, FCP X's keyer is as good as Matte Pro. I've written reviews about various keyers, and FCP X's stood out as one of the best. I even did tutorials for PHYX keyer, and even though in legacy FCP it was the best keyer hands down, it can't hold a candle to FCP X's built-in keyer. A true first class, top shelf keyer.

If you wanted to upgrade to something better, you'd have to get a MacPro and go with something like a Kona card that does hardware keying.

cgbier thanks for the input, the arri 1100w kit looks amazing but 1700 is quite a lot for lighting, definitely a lot more than i can invest right now. i got all my light from home depo, at 25$ a 400 tungsten and 40$ a 1000 tungsten light. i've got 4x400 with a stand and 2x1000 with a stand, plus 2x400 without a stand.

but you are saying i am over lighting right? i'll try to use my lighting equipment to get more a subtle result and then i'll compare them to the results i get with the stronger light.

the video i'm shooting right now is going to catch a lot of contrast so i figured more light will be better.