Greenscreen or white backdrop?

[Jeff Carpenter]

I have no experience with keying…
—-

Keying is as much art form as science. Don’t try and learn it on a paying job.

That being said, it might be worth finding someone who does have experience to help you. Going with green will give you more flexibility in post which is never bad. But you’ll want someone who knows how to work with green to be on set with you (very important) and who can help you work through it all in post as well.

This situation is the kind of thing where I’d consider spending my profits for the job on such a person just so that I can learn more for the future. It’s a useful skill but you’ll never fully learn it from just following a book.

[Tom Brooks]

I’ll jump in, since I’ve recently shot something similar for a corporate message.

Green screen pros:
You can shoot in a small studio. Basically all you need is a flat green screen big enough to cover the size of the talent. No matter if you see lights and other stuff on the edges, as it will be garbage matted anyway. Good green screen lighting is needed of course–both on the green wall and the talent–in order to pull a good key.

The background can be computer generated in any way that you like and it will be completely noise-free and static if you want. This is good for encoding MPEG and other compressed formats.

You can change out the background any time you like.

White backdrop pros:
Easier edit. No tweaking the key.

In our shoot, we were going to a pure white backdrop. We shot in front of a white cyc and let the wall clip a bit. We then used a feathered mask around the talent and replaced the rest of the background with a white solid. Sort of a hybrid between a key and a straight cyc shoot. It was a compromise used to avoid having to paint the cyc green on short notice. My preference would probably be the green screen in most cases.

Progressive is probably a good choice with the HPX-500. Which format depends on your final output.

[Anders Holm]

Thanks alot for your advice.

I now have two options available.

1. I have an offer from a green-screen studio (they have a balanced green-screen room with light)

2. Or i can shoot in a white studio normally used to take pictures of cars. The whole room is white, floors and everything.

I think i will go for the second one, and try to pick up on keying some other time. Really can’t afford to loose the client…

Thanks guys!

[Tom Brooks]

As long as you’re going for the white background, you can’t lose the second way. Maybe the only thing to keep in mind is that any movement of the camera at all will result in slight variations in the background which will have to be encoded in your compressed output. –If that’s any issue. A locked-down shot might help keep you away from banding and blocking issues if you’re going to DVD or other compressed output in the end.

By the way, the YouTube clip looked pretty decent, but the lighting could have been snappier on the face. You’ll also find that hair light and backlight in general don’t work the same way against a white background. Any highlights on the edge of the talent blend with the background. Just a heads-up!

[Pedro Ugalde]

normally i would say green, but since you want a white back, then use that keying needs a lot of knowhow, and good keyers, and for some applications thats the way to go. the look you are going after a couple of well placed lights and you are done, for green you will need more lights a good keyer and you might still have spill, and other problems.

if you decide to go go with key i recommend advantedge ultimatte very simple very powerful
other keyeres keylight most keyers that come with your nle will make you struggle

[Anders Holm]

Thanks alot guys! I’ll make sure to post the end result here when i’m done!

Thanks for the tip with the lighting Tom, i will keep that in mind!