Green Screen Homebrew – DIY retroreflector – white wall lit green

[Mark Suszko]

The retroreflective cloth is so expensive because the round beads containing the corner reflecting elements are expensive to make and to align onto the substrate. You are not going to DIY this with crushed window glass. You “might” get a spotty response by using the Scotchbrite brand road marking paint system, but you’d need many gallons of it, and a way to apply it evenly. Worse, the illumnation to make the retroreflective system work needs to be right next to the lens. So for something bigger than a car, like a plane, you can’t get enough big lights close to the lens to make the shot key right, and you’d be blinding/suntanning any talent in the shot at the same time.

I think in Hollywood, what they do for green screens of a scale this large is generally to make them self-lit from behind, using banks of lights shooting into a grid of green diffusion material, or colored lights on white diffusion. This does away with the bulk and interference of front-lighting the green and that gear getting in the way of the shot.

In your warehouse you’d build a scaffold-like grid, cover the front of it in a translucent plastic or cloth, and then hit it with banks of flos, HMI’s or conventional lights from behind. The power and heat issues could be large, particularly with HMI.

Your LED comment sparked an idea: if you used the LED curtain or module displays used for big concerts, along *with* a layer of diffusion in front of that, you’d have a rear-lit green (or blue!) changeable screen that you could make adjustments to electronically, by the choice and modification of the image fed into the LEDs. And the curtain might be able to curve in a corner for a 2-wall setup. When you want to use the LED’s to watch video with, for a rave party or something, you roll up the diffusion screen layer. You can simulate what I’m talking about on a small scale by holding some translucent wax paper or shower curtain plastic a few centimeters in front of a plasma TV screen, set the screen to show blue or green..

These kinds of huge rigs you’re considering are uncommon for a reason: there is usually no justifiable business case for making this setup a standing permanent thing in one fixed location, so they are assembled temporarily for specific movie shoots as the time and budget and locations allow, then taken apart again. To tie up that kind of gear in a full-time permanent setup, in one somewhat remote location, that may only see an actual working shoot a few days out of a year, makes no financial sense. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be cool. Very cool. Just financially unsustainable. Sorry to be mister bring-down.

[David Stickney]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply. You experience confirmed what I was expecting – namely a retro reflector or dual purpose surface would be an issue.

I probably will try to make some type of reflector screen and test it out, just to try it, who knows, maybe by playing around I stuble upon something interesting.

On another note, I’ve been reading the forum here for a couple of years and would like to say thanks for all the other stuff you answer as well. You’re the kind of guy that makes the internet such a resource. I’ve read piles of your posts and they are alway solid. thanks for all the stuff you’ve contributed.

[David Stickney]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply. I’ve never seen the material they use for the LED, I am assuming that it’s a pretty standard retro reflector embedded in clothe, but from the sounds of it, that’s not the case.

As for LEDs, a couple of years ago we wanted to make an USB driven LED dance floor, using multivoltage (multicolor) leds by the time we did the math on making the panels and buying the diodes and controllers, it worked out cheaper to simply use cheap lcd displays without housings.

Actually I’ve got some large displays and tried to get a key from them just for kicks, worked fine.

As for the justification of such a set up – I guess it’s early in the game to say a lot, some of the factors:

This will be the only such sound stage in 600 KM

We’re organizing a group for non commercial projects so a community resource is a motivating factor.

In the first week since getting approval on the takeover and conversion of the hanger, I’ve already gotten a deal to shoot a 30 episode series of a italian cooking show for an italian kitchen manufacturer and some good leads from Moscow based producers that come here to shoot anyway.

I’d love to have anyone who is planning to visit the area to come and visit, I am sure when you see the wide variety of locations withing 50 km of our studio you’ll see why we think there is a justification for this stage.

kind regards, David

[Mark Suszko]

That’s news to my wife, Dave!

I’m not a businessman; I’m just a guy with opinions, fwiw.

[David Stickney]

Hi Again,

You bet, I know a lot of people on this forum have tons more experience than me and really there is enough info in the forum already that most things have been discussed.

I’m not in Hollywood and my costs are a _lot_ lower than elsewhere.

While my location is fairly remote, it’s been a long time favorite location due to all the various elements that can be found nearby.

I’ve been bring people onboard and I am pretty sure at the rate we’re going we’ll have a good bit of work to show for ourselves. In the future, I’d like to invite production companies to come to use our studios and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a nice arrangement and very reasonable expenses. We’ll pay for everything, even though we are pretty small now we have done the due dillegence and are ready 🙂

Thanks
David

[Mark Suszko]

“Hollywood”…

“Bollywood”…

“Crimeawood”?

🙂

желаю вам счастья

[David Stickney]

Maybe,.. I could easily fake California scenes here, except less smog, less illegal immigrants but with graphic Artists for $300 a month we can get that all fixed up in post.

India would be a bit harder to fake, maybe toss a bunch of brown food coloring on flour and thrown it in the water, we got cows…

https://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&tbs=isch:1&sa=1&q=Crimea+nature&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

🙂