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Green Screen & White Hair
What is a recommended lighting tip for killing green spill in a person with white hair? We will be shooting on green screen. I heard adding a magenta gel to the back light could help. We have the green screen lit evenly. And for lighting the subject we have a Diva Lite 400, Arri 650, 2×300. Planning to use the DivaLite as the key and the 650 w/chimera as backlight and one 300 bounced into a white card as fill. But really not sure how to reduce the spill in the white hair. Thanks in advance for any help.
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5 Replies
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Chris,
The magenta (aka minus green) gel can help, but the best way to avoid spill is to maximize the distance og the subject to the screen. also the darker “digital green” screens bounce back less color.
JS
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Some women use hair treatments and shampoos that include bluing. We had a devil of a time with a platinum blonde frizzy-haired woman on a blue key once, because of this.
The magenta will help. Use of a stronger backlght might help. Distance from the BG will help a LOT.
Also, pick the highest quality codec to shoot this stuff that you can. DV and HDV make things tougher. Not impossible, but tougher.
Some folks over-crank the green screen until it is like neon. You don’t need it that bright, just very even and well-saturated. Too bright, I find, actually makes it tougher to key cleanly.
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Maintaining at least a 9′ distance from the screen will solve most of your problem with white hair. I also have had great success placing 4×8 white cards on stands on the sides and above the talent to block as much of the green as possible. They also bounce white light around the edges of the talent which makes for a cleaner composite. I’ve used brown paper and black flags also depending on the lighting effect. Of course having the smallest amount of green background possible to begin with helps.
If the shot is wide enough that you see green floor, but not feet, place card, paper, etc. on the floor around and under the talent to kill green bounce from below. I’ve also placed small cards on grip poles to place under arms to kill green bounce when a person gestures forward or is demonstrating a product.Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com -
If you follow all the suggestions above, you’ll be in good shape….. and I can’t stress enough that DISTANCE will be your best friend. Put your talent about 10 feet or more from the screen.
Another helpful technique is not to use a reflective green screen. Chromakey Paint, for example, won’t be your best friend. It’s far more reflective than a fabric greenscreen …especially a fabric with a nap (or texture) that will absorb the light instead of bouncing it back to the talentDS
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I appreciate the advice. Lots of great tips that I will try to implement during the production.
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