Green Screen

pitcher

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Hi im based in the uk and i wanted to purchase a green screen kit.

I need a stand (2mx3m) some green chroma key material and some soft box lighting and a hanging light(havent got a clue on size, waltage of the lighting required.)

Would appreciate any advice on stands and softbox lighting its a present.

Thanks
 
I got all my green screen stuff from Amazon, most of it was Neewer kit. The screen material has a sleeve sewn into the top for the stand crossbar to thread through.
The trick is to use lighting as direct as possible to the screen i.e. there should be no shadows from the subject on to the screen so a light behind the camera works OK. The screen should be as flat as possible with no creases.
Depending on your camera you don't need a massive amount of light. I use LED floods which run cool and the colour temperature can be varied. The subject lighting is more important than the screen because most video editors will let you "sample" the screen colour and will use that sample to switch the background colour off. Obviously the subject should not have any colour similar to the screen because that will make that part of the subject transparent.
Because of the ability of the video editor to use any colour to act as a background, blue screens can be used instead of the more traditional green.

Hope this helps.
 
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I have no experience of the supplier or the kit but, on paper, it looks ideal. Really it depends on your setup, if you have the room for the kit and a suitable budget, go for it.
I have to work in a smaller area, my green screen is a Neewer® 9 x 13ft /2.8 x 4M Photo Studio and my stand is a Neewer® Adjustable Mini Light Stand Kit which is roughly 7ft by 7ft. It fits my largest subjects, my grandchildren. (both from Amazon who have a massive range of green screen equipment) The LED lights I use are much smaller than softbox units.

Really green screen is more about technique than equipment. Getting the screen and lighting perfect and then using your video editor to good effect. I have had some decent results using my choice of video editor, (Corel's VideoStudio X9) flying grandkids, a model lighthouse perched on rocks above a rough sea and some desktop animation. Bear in mind that green screen is about mixing two, often totally unrelated, shots so the background shot is as important as the subject.

What do you propose to use your green screen for?
 
May I add that one area that's often neglected is to have space between the actor(s) and the screen: this give you room to back-light the actors' heads and greatly reduces any "spill" from reflected light off the screen.
Terfyn's suggestions are just fine - but you do need "Depth" to the studio.
If possible, the camera-Actor distance should be less than the Actor-screen distance. In the examples he gave the background can be sharp ( if the original material is ), but at the Chroma-Key stage, the background ( screen ) should be out of focus; thus preventing creases, spots, etc. affecting the combined footage.
+ Of course for "Family Fun" this is unimportant - many folks won't notice.

It is possible to buy professional material; it's fluorescent in look. This is expensive ( about double the regular green ), and has a curious foam backing to prevent creasing. However, the reflected light is in a narrow green-band, making it easier to achieve the chroma-keying. In practice it may need less light to achieve the separation . . . Oh and they do a striking Blue, also.
On YouTube some folks have achieved good keying using fluorescent Art-Paper . . . and I understand you can buy specially expensive Chroma-paint - but you'll need a v.smooth "infinity curve" wall. However, both paint and papers can be used within a Scene - eg a "Talking Portrait" (hanging on the wall). This may be a useful effect in a drama, where you already have a suitable venue for the action.

FWIW - I read that HitFilm's software is particularly good at Chroma-Key, but I've not used it as It's 64-Bit only..... but maybe soon?
OP looked at a double-kit for ~£119 with 4-section stands...this looks like a good attempt at "Value" - but I wonder that you really need two large softbox lights.... Let us know what and how you plan to make yr set-up work.

Good Luck.
 
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...In the examples he gave the background can be sharp ( if the original material is ), but at the Chroma-Key stage, the background ( screen ) should be out of focus; thus preventing creases, spots, etc. affecting the combined footage.
+ Of course for "Family Fun" this is unimportant - many folks won't notice.
I've seen greenscreens that incorporate tracking markers, eg. crosses etc. For those screens (eg. where someone would also want to track the camera moves by using the tracking markers), I assume the greenscreen would need to be reasonably in focus. Or by "at the chroma key stage" - do you mean applying a software filter to soften it prior to keying?
 
OP looked at a double-kit for ~£119 with 4-section stands...this looks like a good attempt at "Value" - but I wonder that you really need two large softbox lights.... Let us know what and how you plan to make yr set-up work
One way is to keep the lighting at right angles to the screen so no shadows are cast by the subject onto the screen. This would only need one light and is the method I use the most.

A second and better method (if you have the kit) is to set up two softboxes at 45deg to light the subject but to use a third soft box to light the screen and wipe out shadows produced by the subject lighting.
 
I've done fair bit of green screen work for corporate interviews as a simple way of placing them on an infinite white backdrop.

There are a few things I've learned:

- use a green screen on anything except people with lots of blonde hair. Green gets a much better key than blue because of the way cameras sensors work (they are twice as sensitive to green than blue)

- use a blue screen on people with lots of blonde hair, but add more light to compensate. And if they have flyaway blonde hair, politely introduce them to a hair brush :) I once shot a middle aged female CEO with long grey hair that was as wild as anything... she was a lovely eccentric, but damn the I had to work hard in post.

- ask your subject to take 2 steps forward from the screen to avoid casting shadows on it.

- TURN YOUR CAMERAS SHARPNESS CONTROL TO OFF/MINIMUM. This is the best tip I can give. Sharpness adds a black 'edge' to your subject which looks ugly and cheap. You'll get a much better key if this edge isn't there. You can always add sharpness in post if you must.

- If you have the option, record with as much colour information as you can. 4:2:2 material is going give you a better key than 4:2:0. Don't worry if you don't understand this though...its still possible to get a good key with regular 4:2:0 content.

- If you plan on taking any stills from the composite footage, e.g. For a thumbnail image, increase your shutter speed and frame rate....otherwise you'll see bad ghosting and smearing.
 
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I've only had relatively little green screen experience....but I did quickly learn several important points.. most of which have already been mentioned in this thread..

To avoid the 'lighting shadows' problem I took a different approach, and recorded in natural light - in my conservatory! Works quite well, although you do have to take steps to try and deal with green 'spill' onto the subject, from reflections of the screen in the conservatory glass. That's not too difficult to remove with free software though...

Couple of other things I learned......your final green screen output is likely to be overlaid onto a background subject, so will likely be resized or cropped to get the result you want. I found t best to record at the highest possible quality - both frame size size and bitrate - so that you have minimum compression artifacts, especially round the 'edges' of the subject.

Jules tip about turning off sharpness in his post above is also excellent advice..

The principle of chromakey green screen is simple enough -- the reality of making convincing film clips using can be a bit more demanding!
 

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