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Green Screen on the cheap ? what is ideal

liketom

liketom

macrumors 601
Original poster
Apr 8, 2004
4,191
68
Lincoln,UK
hi all ,


been playing with Green screen/Bluescreen's and have used many different materials for the screen like cardboard to wallpaper

all seem to be crappy and not bright on screen as to the eye

what would be the best option to do without actually spending real money on the proper thing?

- remember only using this tech on a cheap Sony DV cam so nothing pro there at the mo , but want to play and test the water.

any advice would be great
 
liketom said:
hi all ,


been playing with Green screen/Bluescreen's and have used many different materials for the screen like cardboard to wallpaper

all seem to be crappy and not bright on screen as to the eye

what would be the best option to do without actually spending real money on the proper thing?

- remember only using this tech on a cheap Sony DV cam so nothing pro there at the mo , but want to play and test the water.

any advice would be great
Click to expand...

No matter what million dollar green screen u put in for your footage. Your camera is still the one needed to be changed.
I assume your cheap Sony DV is on miniDV with color space of 4:1:1
The lack of color space made it harder to key off.

Invest in HD camera. It helps.
 
Yes cheap MiniDV is what i have for now , it's only when i had the original blue and green backgrounds up that i noticed how crap the MiniDV format is for colours ! but until i can justify the cost of the cheapest HD Cam i'm gonna battle on with this MiniDV Sony.

Lord Blackadder TY for the link - it comfirmed two things for me that thread - Lighting and a bed sheet that happens to be blue or green will be fine :)
 
HEY,
the whole trick to color keying is lighting.
the green/blue screen MUST be at least 1 f-stop below the subject
or else you'll get color bleed.
remember the background has to be darker than the foreground.

end of line.
 
obeygiant said:
HEY,
the whole trick to color keying is lighting.
the green/blue screen MUST be at least 1 f-stop below the subject
or else you'll get color bleed.
remember the background has to be darker than the foreground.

end of line.
Click to expand...
yep lighting has to be spot on as i have not yet grasped lol

but practice make perfect
 
Okay .... so been out tonight and bought some fabric from a local store to see what it looks like

Mass bleeding bad light but hell i'm excited about what i can do with this

my test was an old ipod ad mixed in with some crappy dv shots

now i can see what needs improving , lighting is the major factor here.

more to come :D http://homepage.mac.com/thestringer/iMovieTheater50.html
 
that's kool! could you explain how you got your video like that with the itunes commercial on the sheet? was that the fabric on the floor and counter top? which program did you use to edit? FC or imovie?
 
With the bleeding, I noticed you had alot of areas around the fabric that also displayed the image. To fix that, use a Garbage Matte around the greenscreen. Also, for a video like that, in which the camera doesn't move, it would probably be better to not use a greenscreen at all, but rather use 2 layers of video, with the foreground video (the iPod commercial) being resized and cropped to fit where you want it to. Looks much cleaner.
 
MacFan25863 said:
With the bleeding, I noticed you had alot of areas around the fabric that also displayed the image. To fix that, use a Garbage Matte around the greenscreen. Also, for a video like that, in which the camera doesn't move, it would probably be better to not use a greenscreen at all, but rather use 2 layers of video, with the foreground video (the iPod commercial) being resized and cropped to fit where you want it to. Looks much cleaner.
Click to expand...
i'll try that later - what i'm planning next is to have a moving shot around my house say with the bluescreens over things like windows and door panels and maybe parts of the floor all playing videos - of course it will be the apple ads as i've got loads of them lol

but thanks for your advice -

and yes - iMovie on my powerbook for on the fly stuff like that quick movie i made last night and later i will use final cut pro on my Powermac
 
The key to any good digital matte is this:

WORK

plain and simple.

Lighting is one part, BRIGHT colors always show up better and have a uniform color as opposed to something DARK and shaded that has multiple shades of a single color that MIGHT also be contained on the fringes of a persons clothes. Remember that Eintstein proved light bends around objects....or maybe its just glare in this case.

A good composition is vital. DUH, of course dont use a green screen with a character/object with a similar hue, high reflectivity, etc.

KNOW that green screen is mostly a term, and YES green is used alot but KEYING and MATTING can use ANY color you like. Key out taupe for all I care, everything boils down to one simple thing:

trial and error

test stuff, especially tweaking the matte, the feather, and the key. It can make all the difference. ALSO make sure that your key DOESNT change over time because the character moving from left to right created different lighting conditions and the key doesnt work for 12 of the 30 second clip, for example. In the end the BEST AND PROFESSIONAL keys/mattes are rotoscoped 100% or at least 50%, its the only way to be sure.
 
liketom said:
i'll try that later - what i'm planning next is to have a moving shot around my house say with the bluescreens over things like windows and door panels and maybe parts of the floor all playing videos - of course it will be the apple ads as i've got loads of them lol
Click to expand...

as MacFan25863 said:

you are making too much work for yourself I think. Unless all of your bluescreen shots are on a tripod... how are you going to track the video that is playing in the window as you move around? By keyframing the ipod video to move as well right?

In that case, you can just layer the video OVER the window and keyframe it to move with the shot. Rotoscope it. Sucks, takes alot of time, unless you did a nice non jerky pan or whatever, but is the only way and well worth it.

If you are doing static shots with a tripod, bluescreen might work for you, but in the end, its not for replacing something with something else like you are. But for editing out something and replacing it entirely. You are doing more of a small scale thing that can be done differently. I think.
 
Sdashiki said:
The key to any good digital matte is this:

WORK

plain and simple.

Lighting is one part, BRIGHT colors always show up better and have a uniform color as opposed to something DARK and shaded that has multiple shades of a single color that MIGHT also be contained on the fringes of a persons clothes. Remember that Eintstein proved light bends around objects....or maybe its just glare in this case.

A good composition is vital. DUH, of course dont use a green screen with a character/object with a similar hue, high reflectivity, etc.

KNOW that green screen is mostly a term, and YES green is used alot but KEYING and MATTING can use ANY color you like. Key out taupe for all I care, everything boils down to one simple thing:

trial and error

test stuff, especially tweaking the matte, the feather, and the key. It can make all the difference. ALSO make sure that your key DOESNT change over time because the character moving from left to right created different lighting conditions and the key doesnt work for 12 of the 30 second clip, for example. In the end the BEST AND PROFESSIONAL keys/mattes are rotoscoped 100% or at least 50%, its the only way to be sure.
Click to expand...

good advice - thanks for that :)
 
Sdashiki said:
as MacFan25863 said:

you are making too much work for yourself I think. Unless all of your bluescreen shots are on a tripod... how are you going to track the video that is playing in the window as you move around? By keyframing the ipod video to move as well right?

In that case, you can just layer the video OVER the window and keyframe it to move with the shot. Rotoscope it. Sucks, takes alot of time, unless you did a nice non jerky pan or whatever, but is the only way and well worth it.

If you are doing static shots with a tripod, bluescreen might work for you, but in the end, its not for replacing something with something else like you are. But for editing out something and replacing it entirely. You are doing more of a small scale thing that can be done differently. I think.
Click to expand...

i will be using a tripod to do the static shots but as my video last night showed in the last bluescreen shot that slight movement does not work that well.

like you say trial and error is the only way to learn - :)
 
liketom said:
Okay .... so been out tonight and bought some fabric from a local store to see what it looks like

Mass bleeding bad light but hell i'm excited about what i can do with this

my test was an old ipod ad mixed in with some crappy dv shots

now i can see what needs improving , lighting is the major factor here.

more to come :D http://homepage.mac.com/thestringer/iMovieTheater50.html
Click to expand...


i was looking at your video thing, and you dont actually need green screen to do that. You just have to draw a matte. It like cutting a hole in the video. then you dont have to fool around with lighting
 
I would definitely recommend using a the TRIAL After Effects Pro 6.5 for this. It might look a bit intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, much like fcp, it is awesome. I normally batch capture in FCP-> rough cut in FCP-> Export to quicktime leaving some extra footage before the in and out points of the clips-> Import into After Effects and split it up, and add transitions/ visual effects/ text. The ability to have virtual cameras/ lights/ and other goodies makes it well worth the time and effort to learn the application. But I did take a course on it, I would strongly recommend the "Creating Motion Graphics" book by Trish and Chris Meyer. It has lots of color pictures and straight to the point lessons. It isn't that large of a book either! It also comes with the After Effects Pro 6.5 Trial version and a bunch of awesome full quality content to work with (meant for the lessons, but it's fun to just experiment with it all). Just looking at all the pictures in the book gave me tons of ideas. Good luck with it (if you decide to learn AE).
 
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