Green Screen Compositing - Making It Look Real

[Rob Johnson]

Originally Posted by Perrone Ford

Excellent Rob.

So let's talk about how to simulate the sun! :)

You are correct in your assessments, so what we really need here is a minimal fall off of light intensity with the shadows being formed only by the position of the body itself. Fortunately, we don't need to fully replicate the rays of the sun to do this. Your softbox (Rifa 88 from the sound of it, will do a lovely job. However, you could easily achieve the same thing with a large bounce card or two, shooting through a large frame of diffusion, or shooting of some draped muslin that curves around your subject some. All can give a lovely light wrap and a lovely quality to light.

I also think you misunderstood me in relation to your 3 lights. It appeared from the photo you posted, that light from 3 lights was hitting your subject, not just the greenscreen. You are correct that they should be lit separately. Most seem to recommend 15ft or more of a gap to eliminate spill. How far is your talent from the screen? And how far are the greenscreen lights from the talent?

Hey Perrone thanks for the additional Ideas. Yes I would love to go with Lowel and the Rifa 88, but at the price I had to settle for the Britek special :) It is variable output though (from 1/16) so I consider that a plus.

As far as the scene I shot, there were two lights. Initially it seemed like there was more light coming from the right in the BG plate, so I added a 100w light to the left of the subject out-of-frame (mistake). I'm sure the softbox will do much better than the point-light heads I've been using for this.

I usually have my subject about 10 feet from the screen, and the screen lights are about 5 feet in front of the screen. I'm always sure to check that there is no direct line-of-site path between the bulbs in my umbrellas and the talent. I turn off my talent lights and look at the subject with only screen lighting on (and vise versa) to see how much ambient spill light I'll be dealing with. I don't blast the screen with too much light which a lot of guys do, so I almost never have to deal with green spill, or very little. With everything balance propery it produces a nice key.