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Greenscreen…talent placement
Is there a rule of thumb of how far your talent should be from the screen when doing greenscreen work? Is 6 feet enough or should it be more than that? I will be shooting in a large room so If I need to put some distance between them and the screen, I will have the room to do it. I am thinking of shooting one or more people in front of a 10X20 screen.
Cre8tive Minds Entertainment, LLC
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10 Replies
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My ROT for green screen is the talet’s height in feet, plus a foot, as a bare minimum, to prevent shadows hitting the green and to reduce color spill off the green.
Also, the more distance you can afford to put between them, the easier it becomes to light the screen and the talent separately without interactions.
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Mark’s guideline is a good one.
There is no absolute rule for the distance or anything, other than “however much it takes.”
They need to be far enough away that you have an evenly-lit shadowless greenscreen… and far enough away that you can light the talent completely independently from the screen.
In some cases that might be four feet… in others it might be 20.
You have to work with the space you have, but as a general rule the greater the distance between the talent and the greenscreen, the better.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Ok great, I should be in good shape then!
Thanks!
Cre8tive Minds Entertainment, LLC
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Mark, I’m 5’6″. Could we make that height plus a foot and a half:)
Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com -
I’m gonna confess here that I’ve almost TOTALLY changed my green screen approach in the past few months based on new gear.
I’m using a SINGLE Cool lights 4 lamp fixture with the mirrored wings in place mounted on my rail system approximately 8 feet over the stage floor set about six feet in front of my greenscreen and that’s ALL the GS lighting I do. One fixture – directly behind the talent – that’s it. Period.
My GS itself is one of the newer foam/fabric screens on a Avenger frame. (I bought it 12×12 and typically leave off the bottom stand section so that I set it as 12′ wide x 8′ high and can bring the unused material on the floor forward to provide a temporary green screen cove.
I key the talent with another Coollights 4 tube soft fluorescent and use a Coollights 2 light fixture for the back/rim light. For fill I use ether a bounce card or set a small Arri 150 at distance.
3 lights using color balanced fluorescents (plus reflector or kicker)- so virtually no studio heat or power hassles and I’m getting nearly PERFECT keys.
I think part of the reason is because I’m shooting with a Canon 5dMkii and there’s SO much resolution and sensitivity in play that my keys are working out AMAZINGLY well. So well, that I’m no longer using Ultimatte or Primatte or After Effects, I’m just keying them directly in Final Cut Pro without any issues.
After years and years of fighting to make GS work simple, I think the newer gear is finally catching up to the challenge.
Soft light – lots of pixels – stock software.
Life is BETTER these days.
FWIW.
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More pixels = more pixels.
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We bought one backdrop from Denny, painted canvas with hanging bars on each end:
https://www.dennymfg.com/Products.aspx?SRC=&SRK=chromakey
Works great.
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Rosebrand in New York City will have everything you need.
DS
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There is a place in Philly called Webbcam. They sell mostly photography equipment but they have some nice backgrounds for video or photography needs You can get the background stands with cross bar there to use for greenscreen work too or just about any decent photography shop should have those items.
Cre8tive Minds Entertainment, LLC
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