Green Screen Tips?

[john]

Hey Gang

 

I'm soon to be starting shooting for some videos for my songs. I expect to use a bit of green screen.

 

Do you have any tips you can give me for green screen productions? Tips for shooting, editing & post production are very welcome.

 

Cheers

 

John

[Mahesh]

I’ve been getting ready to use the black and green screens for the Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy work that I’ve been working on. Somethings to keep in mind 

 

• Lighting - if there’s a gradient to the green because of shadows, it’s gonna affect the end result. Good lighting is key. You could make do with at least two to three spot lights with portable stands.
• Creases - having a lot of folds and creases on the green screen an affect the end product too. So keeping it well ironed and folded when not in use can be helpful.

[GregB]

On 7/27/2022 at 11:37 PM, john said:

any tips ... for green screen productions

 

Strange - I only saw this when visiting to start my own new post ... i.e. I wasn't notified of your new post!!

The dolls in the "Fairytale" music video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvCkyuT6Dgc) were posed on and against a dark blue cloth and, because they were stills, the background was removed in Photoshop before being imported as PNGs into the video editor.

 

 

I've only ever done video 'solid colour' background removal as concept demo-examples for friends and clients.  The main things I discovered to save HEAPS of time are:

• the background has no sags/folds. Sheets CAN work but need to be pulled taught.
• the background has its own even lighting. If only using lights in front of the subject, then shadows will be cast on the background (requiring extra work to set the masking colour range, or require manual masking)
• be careful of colour reflections from the background onto the subject's hair/clothes, causing odd changes in subject outline.

John, from memory, you use Premiere?  If consistent background colour is an issue, Resolve has a very quick/easy way of selecting area masks.  Find the most problematic frame, draw a line through an area (and expand with other lines if not complete), and then tracking the mask back and forward. Unsure if this is available in the free version.