Chroma green Screen?

[Pappy]

Hello everyone,

I am kind of new to video editing, I have some limited experience with Premier and I want to try my hand at some work with green screens. I had a go with the chroma keying in Premier in bad light and the wrong shade of blue and got much better results that I was expecting. I have been told green screens are better than blue.

Basically I need some advice in making a green screen myself and sorting some form of lighting that doesn’t cost me a lot of money. I am on a very low budget and don’t want to spend major money on professional photography lighting gear. If anyone here has some experience and would be kind enough to share knowledge I would be grateful.

Thanks

-Pappy

[david walsh]

Hi Pappy,

I'm no expert in this field either, I have spent the last few months experimenting with different shades of blue and green and lights and lighting positions. All with the same thoughts as you, price is a massive issue.

I started off with a rig made from dowel rod, 8 little 50 watt halogen spot lamps and greese proof paper as a diffuser, the word nightmare summed that up. On a hunch I went and bought a 150 watt security flood light from B&Q for £4.50 yestarday (they sell them at that price without the sensor that gets more cats than burglers). This sits on the floor (The diffused spots are either side and above), it shines up evening out the hot spots that still remained from the spots.

I'm going to dump the spots now and stick one of these floods either side in place of them. The area I am lighting is a sheet of 2.4 meter by 2 meter bed sheet material I got from Remnant Kings for about £6. If you want to light a bigger area B&Q do the same light as 500 watt for 50p more.

I've noticed a differnece between green and blue too, at the moment I have a blue sheet up that is getting changed for a green one. I had a small green sheet I used for experimenting with close up shots before. I got it going good with the diffused spots. With the larger blue sheet I find it picks up on the camera as grey. When I stuck the smaller green sheet in the same shot as this I can clear it out fine without affecting my subject when keying green, when I key blue (wich is picked up as grey) it's close but not good.

So I'm almost there (hopefully as soon as I change back to green from blue) and hope some of what I have found from my experimenting may be of some use.

David.

[Pappy]

Thanks for the info.

I have been told by some that chroma keying is impossible with a mini DV cam, but i have heard a lot of people say it is possible to do well.

I believe it can be done. like i said i got some kind of effect with the wrong shade of blue in poor light in the evening, so i am going to try again somtime with a near to chroma green background as i can in some better light. if i can get any half decent effects i will consider getting some spot lamps.

I would die for a HDV cam but I have no where near that kind of money or expieriance to warrent one.

I am conbsidering doing a course in film studies and takeing this further because I actually enjoyed what little work i have done so far and want more.

[Tony A]

Have you gents had a look at Seymore's post in 'Pimp-the-link'? His video 'Bluescreen Special' is about as good as it gets, using simple materials.

The link is:

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4569

[Mike Thorpe]

Canon MV600i.

Sheet of blue fabric.

Big. Wet. Doggy.

[david walsh]

Thanks for the link tone, I took a look and it does look good.

I messed around a little with outdoor filming a few weeks back. Not for too long though. I liked the results, but what I am doing wont permit it. There are to many factors involved that keep me to shooting indoors, so I soon went back to the lights.

David.

[talaash]

I am no expert on Video production. However I have been messing around with a HD FX1E. I wanted to do some Chroma Key effects, the best result I got was with Green and Blue cardboard. NON SHINY!

I picked some up from the News Agents, cost me A$20, and stuck it on a wall facing the sun, used a thin white cloth sheet infront of the window to filter the light, and I had no problems with blue or green.

hope that helps.