green or white – that’s the question

[Bob Cole]

I’m not a huge green screen expert but I do 4-5 shoots a year with it. A large green screen becomes a light source itself. If the green cyc wraps around the subject, you’ll have more and more green fringing problems, i.e. the green will appear on the subject’s shoulders, etc.

I’d go with a white background; you’ll know exactly what you are dealing with in real time that way, and if you do some post work on it, any fringing will at least be more natural-looking.

[Nick Jushchyshyn]

About the only reason to go with green (or blue) would be if the background will be getting populated with OTHER assets in addition to the white.

If you will be cross-fading from some “real world” location to the white room for example, or adding something like the “weapons racks” from Matrix.

If you’re truely only going to have pure white in these shots … yeah, just shoot on white!

Well ….. I suppose there’s one other practical reason to shoot on green….
If the cyc is already green and you’ll need to paint the whole thing white, then green again after the shoot, for just a couple shots and budget/time won’t allow for that. :p

Have fun.

[Mitch Gross]

Just shoot it on white–much easier to light without worrying about the actors going green. Plus you have the freedom to use green costuming or props. White “infinity space” rooms have been done numerous times before, and generally with white rooms unless there was a specific need for greenscreen. Check out George Lucas’ “THX-1138” with an extended sequence in such a room, all done in a true white space.

Just make sure to have the crew wear the little paper booties over their shoes so as not to drag dirt onto the clean white floor.

Mitch

[Rayk Hemmerling]

thanks for all the advice. shooting was last saturday and we did a mixure of shooting in front of green (mainly it was already there and we couldn’t repaint it) and in front of a white removable backdrop (mainly for individual full and half figure shots and cu).
there’ll be comps done with the white bg shots and i’ll see what i can do with them.

thanks again,
-rayk

[John Mastey]

GREEN or WHITE CYC?

Hi: I am new to cyc screen and I have a few questions:

First, I will be shooting video for commercial/music video and some photography. I don’t get this (void white cyc) why not use green cyc?

1- I usually use green screen and chroma-key. But what if my subject has a white shirt, doesn’t that creates a problem keying the white bg and the subject’s shirt? This way the subject’s shirt disappears.

2- I am almost positive that I can build a cyc-wall but is there any place that I can buy a bit cheaper version.

thanks,

Johnny