http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBC1qz-CXeA

EDITED:
I only used 1 overhead light for the bg and 1 key light.
I used FCP5 to key.

It looks a little too dark on youtube, but you can still see the chroma keying.

looks good to me...

it looks good so far but your edges need work, try running 7 to 8 small keys with garbage mattes around the edges the mix the key mattes together with your core, you should also do a bit of an edge blind, but dont go for a light wrap its to dark. are you using shake? it and fusion are really the only options for keying today AE should only be used for roto in todays world. also run a switch rgp to yuv blur gb somewhere near 10 and 3 hor to vert then go back to rgb, this is done with the colorspace node in shake, not sure about fusion. this should be the first step taken on all hd keys.


Jason Miller

If you really want a great key, get Shake. It takes some time to figure out how to use it, but man... no FCP plugin comes close.

get a copy of shake 4.1 its really cheap now, and then pick up a copy of Shake 4 by Marco Paolini, peachpit press, it was a great help when I started out, and is still a great help, I find myself looking stuff up on it all the time.

Jason Miller

Shake is the best i've seen so far.

I have tried to follow the tutorials and the manuals...
I have a demo copy of Shake
I have used AE for years and find Shake a bit
of a riddle. I tried following the keying tutorial
and never achieved anything worthwhile.
I had to go back to AE to finish the project.
Any leads on some good Shake tutorials?

I am far from a Shake expert, but once you get the concept of node-based compositing, Shake isn't all that hard to begin learning. I had some green screen footage that someone who rented my HVX shot. Granted this was shot in a studio lit by a professional gaffer. But I dropped the footage into Shake and pulled an absolutely perfect key with very minimal adjustments. By comparison, pulling a key in FCP using DVMatte Pro or Boris Continuum Complete keyer required a little more effort. The main thing to note is that the HVX is a great camera for green screen work.

Ned Soltz

I just did a green screen two days ago that needed to be send to another country the next day. I used just FCP.
I have and have used DVMATTE PRO, but I didn't have time to play with it.
I think that I got great results considering that I didn't use a mask and it took me less than a minute to key.
The one thing I did different was to use the camera meter to expose the GS. I made sure that it would read between 63 and 65. I first color corrected the clip and then key. Less than a minute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3AkBNgNO1g

You never mentioned if you used 1080i or 720p? what do you find works best for compositing and why?

It looks a little too dark on youtube,.

Yes, a little too dark but let us know what you do when you get around to making it better.

You never mentioned if you used 1080i or 720p? what do you find works best for compositing and why?

I have done simple test that shows 1080i24p to show better on an HD display.

Most of what I have actually done is down converted for DVD, so I shoot 720p24 that way I get more out of my single 4GB card.

The more I do green screen (paper background) the more I understand the importance of good lighting. I read it here somewhere that if you set your BG to around 65 IRE it is easier to key. It absolutely works.

Here is something I shot a couple of days ago of an international singing star Myriam Hernadez. Do a search in youtube so you can see some of her music videos. This was done inside a beauty salon with hair blowers going on. We did around 15 promos for radio and about 10 for TV in less than an hour. I just gave them a RAW DV tape and then she did this one just for me. 720p24

If you want to see the one before it is re-compress for youtube let me know & I'll email it to you. It is 10MBs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7CGRCq7O7s