Matt,

And since you're clearly interested in learning about this stuff, look at Nate's photo and don't look at the model - look at the SHADOWS surrounding the model on the greenscreen material.

Don't see much and what there is is extremely soft and diffuse.

The greenscreen background is evenly lit, but even though she is ALSO evenly lit - notice how she isn't casting much in the way of shadows to mess up the way the green screen reads?

THAT is what you get with the right equipment in competent hands.

Just as with your examples.

Again, this simply can't be done with a few lights and stands.

Just for anybody's info, in that setup, there was a forward mark the talent would land on where there was a nice key/fill ratio for some shape on the face. It was somewhat flat as the talent was farther away.

Key was camera right, the 9-light through a half-silk. Fill was a 5K camera left through a full silk.

Is that then an acceptable amount of shadow from the talent?

Also, if you wanted a matrix like white in a cyc, is it easier to use a white bg or green and drop in the white in post. I would think a real white bg would solve the spill issues that'v alwaya plagues my green key shoots.

Brian,

It's seldom that simple.

If you decide to do a luma key using BRIGHTER values (white), you can certainly pull a clean key - but what about the whites of the talent's eyes?

How about the white buttons on their shirt?

One of the reasons green is so popular for keys, is that there's very little pure green in skin tones and in its pretty easy to avoid in set dressing and costuming scenes. Even green eyes are typically more brownish hazel than the pure green of a chromakey.

The point of choosing green, or blue, or red or whatever is that the background key color represents a DIFFERENCE between what you want to key out and the stuff in the scene you need to maintain.

Modern software can help with garbage mattes - but you want to start by keying against a difference. And you'll quickly learn that a key light shining off a sweaty brow can read pretty close to a white backdrop - spoiling your clean key very quickly.

FWIW

The biggest film I worked on was TITANIC and we had lots of China balls, a few Keno's close to the actors, small battery single tube Keno's that were placed inside and behind beams, equipment and such just to fill in shadows where they wanted them. There were lots of reflectors for day shots, and zero or none for night. Night shots had lots of Keno or other flourscent blue lights to for fill. China balls at night for moon fill. And Various Mole's Baby's and Jr's, though I swear they were dimmed, and of course HMI for outside.

Honestly not much more than a lot of indies i've been on, except for the night , a lot more Keno's and china balls.... most importantly those little battery powered Keno (maybe other brand) that were used in practically every shot.

Now I've gotten away with for a music video for Linda Blair 8 Home Depot 500 watt Quartz shop lights with diffustions screen that worked very well. $5 light, + $12 light goose neck and $25 light stands, plust reflectors and cheap $15 umbrellas. Looked good enough. Hard to control, I wouldn't use it indoors, unless it was a large warehouse, but it got the job done for her quickly and cheaply. also don't forget the biggest thickest extension cords that you can. Thin ones trip breakers before thick ones.

So maybe a bunch of cheap Home Depot Shop lights with reflectors and diffusion screens might be the only way to do a decent job (with enough room) for $300.

I asked a similar question a few months back and as I recall someone suggested using "Chinese Lanterns". As it turned out I didn't have to do it after all so I never tried it.