A client has sent me footage with folks shot on greenscreen, and she says they all went to the same hairstylist, as they all have spikey hair. Last year's show, this was was problem with the internal FCP keys, lots of breakup and feathering around the hair.

So, not breaking the bank, I'd appreciate comments on the best keyer plugin for the most reasonable cost, and thanks.

First - "reasonable cost" is highly relative, especially in this industry.

I've tried to pull keys in Motion, but in my experience it uses the same chroma key plugin that final cut uses. A very bad one.

Boris makes a plugin that can be used directly within final cut for $300 I think. I haven't used it, so I can't speak for it's quality.

I've resorted to using After Effects for all my keys and it works especially well. However, the workflow isn't entirely simple.

Try the Primatte keyer in Motion. At least I think it has Primatte. I rarely use Motion so I don't know what's in the latest version but I recall seeing it available.

It's what I use in After Effects and it can readily pull a key with flyaway hair. Not sure if the version in Motion has the same feature set as the AE plugin.

Here's a sweet and simple "vector" keyer for cheap: Oak Street Software, Inc. (http://www.oakstreetsoftware.com/gkey/) Does a nice job too - and simple to use.

Thanks for the replies ... I'll try Primatte in motion first, since it's at hand. I haven't used Motion much at all, so it's always a bit of an adventure.

I don't think $300 for Boris is too much, as long as it actually works. I'll see if there's a trial version.

The V2Key is also worth a look, prior Boris.