GOING SHOPPING: Green Screen Studio Lighting

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Dan Brockett

...For the Rio Bravo, I shot interviews with John Carpenter, Walter Hill, Peter Bogdanovich, Angie Dickinson, etc. all with the ChromaFlex.

It's the only practical way to shoot green screen on location quickly if you work alone or or to shoot green screen in small rooms period. I have done interviews with this setup in rooms as small as 8' x 10' with the subject 10" in front of the screen...

Dan, I have access to a system but haven't used it much. How wide are you going in your interview shots - any issues there?

[Lloyd Claycomb]

Originally Posted by Guy Cochran

Hi Lloyd,

On the cheap here is a Lowel EDU link with some helpful info on lighting a green screen using the traditional route.
http://lowel.com/edu/lesson_green_screen.html

Then here is another link off the Lowel site with a newsroom set-up with fluorescents. http://www.lowel.com/fluotec/setups/chromaset.html

Here's an excerpt from DVcreators.net "DV Enlightenment" on lighting a green screen http://dvcreators.net/media/demos/ro...en_excerpt.htm

And finally, here is a sample of Reflecmedia that I put together http://vimeo.com/393748

Hey, thanks a lot for all that. I really liked the videos you did. I anxious to see more! :)

[Dan Brockett]

Originally Posted by Seth Bloombaum

Dan, I have access to a system but haven't used it much. How wide are you going in your interview shots - any issues there?

Hi Seth:

I typically am framing from the waist up to a CU with head and shoulders but I have done standing full body length. You just garbage matte out the edges. As long as talent has green around them, the rest is easy to fix.

Dan

[Dan Brockett]

Hi Guy:

Really nice clips with the Reflecmedia ChromaFlex you posted on Vimeo. For anyone wanting to see this thing in action, this is a great demo.

Dan

[Mark Viducich]

lloyd there is absolutely no humming or buzzing from the system if there had been i would have sent it back oh and yes that is the exact system

[Lloyd Claycomb]

Thanks for all your posts. I will be looking into this more, but the fluorescents seem like the obvious winner for my situation. Now I just need to determine if I should try this DYI or spurge for a "real" set.

[Lloyd Claycomb]

Still on the topic, can you explain to me what the best green-screen for my scenario would be? I have an upstairs loft area that I will be doing the shoots (aka, "the studio"). It's also a play area for my kids when I'm not shooting. I will be shooting 1-2 times a week with greenscreen, and the rest of the time it will be used as a normal house room and other non-green shoots (more on this later on another thread).

Right off the bat I know I'm not going to be painting any walls green, so I'm assuming a curtain of sorts is what I need. I see a curtain as a easy "here today, gone tomorrow" set-up.

Oh, BTW, there will be some full body shots, so I need green behind and below the talent, which is another reason for the curtain.

Do you all agree that this is the way to go? If so, what product would you recommend? I need it to put up with a lot of putting up and taking down on a weekly basis... washable too I'm sure... I know Dan Brockett recommends Reflecmedia ChromaFlex, but I can't afford the $5k set up, although it looks like it's AWESOME!

Thanks.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Generally, you want a green screen to be really flat, and not have wrinkles or "fullness" (the curtain's wavy appearance) that cast tiny shadows. So, curtains are rarely used.

Some choices are:
Photo background paper can be rolled down from a background stand or ceiling hanger system, and right under the feet, but it will get wrinkled and is probably unacceptable for a foot shot if carpet is underneath. When you eventually get folds and wrinkles in the paper you cut some off and roll more down.

Green-screens are available as nylon cloth on photo-flex-style popup reflector frames, good for a waist shot.

If no cyc & paintout, the best way for a full shot is with this non-woven foam-backed fabric rolled down from a background stand, available from your local light/grip store, eefx.com, filmtools.com, etc. (so far as I know, no forum sponsors sell this material.)

However...

You never mentioned a head-to-toe shot in your posts until now, and this is typically harder to light, harder to key, and needs a specific light plan to evenly light the screen in the area of the feet equal in intensity to the area behind the subject. You can't use green illumination for the screen, as you're also lighting the subject with the "screen" lights. This is typically done with a couple of hanging lantern-style fixtures that are carefully placed to provide equal intensity below and behind. Now, you have some very flat lighting on your subject, and add key and backlights, maybe siders too, to give the subject some dimensionality.

In short, starting off your lighting career with head-to-toe screen lighting is pretty ambitious, more time & trouble, a steeper learning curve, and perhaps a more expensive screen material... then you need those lanterns, which can be inexpensive.

But if you've got to have a full shot don't let me rain on your parade, I'm sure forum members will be just as generous with suggestions as they have been :)

[Brian Brown]

You're getting some great advice here, LLoyd. Since I shoot something similar to what you're describing, I'll weigh in.

I bought a 10'x20' muslin chromakey green and 13'-long support system on eBay and use is to pull some pretty good keys with Adobe After Effect's Keylight keyer. I've shot in my home in various spaces in the local area as small as 14'x10', but the setup works best in 20'x15' rooms or bigger. I can set up the screen, lights, camera and audio in about an hour.

I've done one head-to-toe job where I keyed out a buddy of mine for a "walk-on" website. The final results are on the first four pages of this site here: http://www.inspectionadvantage.com/ I'm also attaching a frame grab prior to keying.

Due to the final image size and zero budget, I didn't spend much time lighting the talent or the screen. Used a total of five lights: key, fill, hair, and two screen lights. All compact flos in inexpensive SmithVictor lights and stands. I also rotated my XH-A1 90 degrees with a home-made bracket.

Most of my other keying work is from the belt up. Here's my latest example for a local Chamber of Commerce gala: http://www.beeriodic.com/client/broomfield/playlist.htm And here's one rough draft from another project I'm working on this week: http://www.browncowvideo.com/YWCA/stan.html These were shot "on location"... usually a big boardroom with light (and sound) control. One of the Chamber interviews was even shot in my living room. The "golden ears" out there could probably tell which one.

Anyways, I hope these real-world samples and details will give you some ideas.

Regards,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions

[Lloyd Claycomb]

Originally Posted by Seth Bloombaum

You never mentioned a head-to-toe shot in your posts until now, and this is typically harder to light, harder to key, and needs a specific light plan to evenly light the screen in the area of the feet equal in intensity to the area behind the subject. You can't use green illumination for the screen, as you're also lighting the subject with the "screen" lights. This is typically done with a couple of hanging lantern-style fixtures that are carefully placed to provide equal intensity below and behind. Now, you have some very flat lighting on your subject, and add key and backlights, maybe siders too, to give the subject some dimensionality.

In short, starting off your lighting career with head-to-toe screen lighting is pretty ambitious, more time & trouble, a steeper learning curve, and perhaps a more expensive screen material... then you need those lanterns, which can be inexpensive.
:)

Sorry I never mentioned that it was head to toe. Hmm... just when I though I was getting this figured out! :)

So the hanging lanterns would be to light up the green back drop as well as the green on the floor, right? In so doing, you're lighting up the talent equally, I'd imagine... Or are the lights behind the talent?

[Lloyd Claycomb]

Originally Posted by Brian Brown

I bought a 10'x20' muslin chromakey green and 13'-long support system on eBay and use is to pull some pretty good keys with Adobe After Effect's Keylight keyer. I've shot in my home in various spaces in the local area as small as 14'x10', but the setup works best in 20'x15' rooms or bigger. I can set up the screen, lights, camera and audio in about an hour.
Regards,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions

Thanks for that. I'd love to see a wide-angle of that shot to see the lighting placement. Do you happen to have something like that?

I'm starting to see the problem in lighting the area below the feet. At least with just a green background, it's pretty straight forward in lighting the background completely separate from the talent, but when the background continues on and UNDER the talent, the separation becomes more difficult is what I got from Seth's email.

Well, I do want to do this, and I'm up for a challenge, so I need to figure out what to buy to make this happen.... and learn what I need to learn along the way to do it right.

I will try to attach some photos of my space I intend to work in tonight to help with this possibly.

Thanks for your post and picture.

[Lloyd Claycomb]

I also see why the green gels wouldn't work now in this situation because they green wouldn't be separated from the subject, but instead would be spilling all over him/her.

[Brian Brown]

Originally Posted by Lloyd Claycomb

Thanks for that. I'd love to see a wide-angle of that shot to see the lighting placement. Do you happen to have something like that?

Lloyd, this is from a different shoot, and there's some extraneous stuff in the shot since I was sharing the room with a still photographer, but you'll get the idea... screen lights, key, fill, and hairlights.

One of the interviews that day was of four co-owners of a local business, and that was a lot of bodies in one place at one time. We shot it with two cameras, four lavs. and a couple more lights. It was far from perfect... lighting or audio-wise, but acceptable in the end. I'm still working through the edit and keying, so I'll have to see what I can do with the footage.

HTH,
Brian Brown
BrownCow Productions

[Gary Oldknow]

seemed as good a thread as any..


need advice on what standard is best used to shoot for keying...
1080i or 1080p

I'm thinking of shooting with the camera at 90° to give me Hi rez content I can then comp into standard def projects.

[Seth Bloombaum]

1080p

Reducing motion interlace artifacts can only help a clean key.