Which is better to use Blue or green screen when shooting DV?
Question for those in B.C. Where is a place to rent one?

thanks
Scott

Everyone I see nowadays is green.

Try renting from Lorne Lapham. Their website is www.llsr.com
If you can't get one from them, e-mail me, I might be able to find you one.

Green, because the DV format allots more bits for the green channel than the others--a design decision in harmony with the human visual system. (Humans are naturally more sensitive to green than red or blue.)

I believe that I read somewhere, that if you are shooting a light-haired, light- skinned subject, use a green screen. The most important thing to remember either way, is to keep the subject about four to five feet from the screen, keep it VERY SMOOTH, and evenly light the scene.
And if push comes to shove, you can buy the muslin from a fabric store fairly cheap, and mix your own dye with Ritz dye. The color is fairly easy to achieve.
Good luck,
Keith

Hi

Could anyone please give me some atvice on filming blue screen work with DV PAL.

Shooting with a Canon XL1s, post with premiere and aftter Effects.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Llewellyn

Make sure you light the screen evenly, very important.

Get your subjects as far forward from the screen as possible. This will cut down on any blue coming from the screen being reflected on them. If you are still getting some blue on them, light them from behind with a kicker to help cut it down.

And obviously, make sure your subjects aren't wearing blue.... :)

I usually use some straw or 1/4 CTO on the back lights

I've always heard Green was a better choice for dv25.
I guess it depends on what you are shooting.

I have heard, that if the subjects are fair haired and light skinned, green is better. Either way, be sure that the screen is very smooth, no wrinkles or sags. Even Premiere should be able to easily key out the solid color. Or, as you would say it, colour :)
Keith

yeah, I always use green in fact....havent used blue in probably 15 years.....Ultimattes always seem to use "Ultimatte Green"....Roscoe sells the paint.....

Green is better, but if you already have blue, what can ya do?

Rosco's website lists these matte finish paints in 1 gallon units:

Rosco # Name Phase Angle Luminance
#05710 Chroma Key Blue 342° 52
#05711 Chroma Key Green 242° 57

Does anyone know the Pantone # equivalent of these colors?


Ron Johnson
Portland, OR

Hey ron, I lived in Portland for 11 years untill a few months ago......things still tough out there?? was no work when I left.....I used to live over by Mt Tabor.......

I recently found a short tutorial on Chromakey with the following claims for Pantone color equivalents (so one can purchase ordinary paints rahter than the very expensive ones).


http://members.spinn.net/~medendog/effects.html


Chromakey BLUE: Pantone 2735

Chromakey GREEN: Pantone 354

Both should be FLAT finish



RJ

I can say that my experience with green screens has not been good in the past, but I've read a bunch of literature recently that suggests green is the way to go with DV.

I tried using green a couple years ago, back then I was using premiere 5.5 I think, and a hi-8 sony camcorder. I could never get it to work exactly right, I had a backdrop that I was able to salvage, but despite hours of tinkering with the lights the results were unacceptable. I went to wal-mart, I bought about 15 bright blue posterboards, assembled them on the wall, got the lighting even, and the results were terrific.

However, that was on a hi-8 camera, which if memory serves me correctly, had less than 70,000 pixels. Consequently, any problems with the detail in the picture were probably blurred. I imagine that dv is much more sensitive, and that a green screen properly put to use would probably work. I'll be trying it out very soon, I hope it's as easy to use as the blue screen I used to have.

Actually, most compositing software these days is sophisticated enough that it isn't really critical. I was recently involved in doing effects work for a (low budget) film where a back-lit white sheet was used. Keying out the sheet proved to be no more difficult than green screen, it was just a question of luma-keying rather than chroma-keying. My experience has been that as long as there is enough contrast, you can use anything you want. That said, if you can afford it, use it.

~Brad

and do some tests first....

Jon Jackman had a very good article in DV magazine about keying recently.

http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.jhtml?category=Archive&LookupId=/xml/feature/2003/jackman0603

One comment he makes is about software & hardware. We all spend so much time talking about the screen, the color and the lighting that the software or hardware seems taken for granted.

One of the major problems with keying in DV is the color space - 4:1:1. When keying in 4:1:1 it is difficult to avoid "stairstepping" and the "jaggies". Some hardware and software plug-ins interpolate the color space upward to 4:2:2 (Canopus Storm, RexRT) or even 4:4:4 (Matrox RTX 100). The difference is huge. There are also a number of plugins which do similar magic through software. If you do all you can with screens and lighting, and still aren't happy with your final key, you might want to check them out.

NTSC DV color space is 4:1:1 indeed. PAL DV colo(u)r space is
4:2:0 actually (and no, we don't loose all the information in that
last sample)

It's best to shoot green screen in most cases. Human skin has too much "blue" in it and it becomes a pain with pulling hair and such.

The biggest thing to avoid is "spill" no matter which color you use. If your lighting is too hot and your screens are too close to your people, you'll cast greenish light on them and make it that much harder.