Need Help Keying this DV Footage

[Chris Wright]

4 clicks and I got a mostly perfect key in primatte considering the footage. If I were you, I’d buy it, keylight was designed for Star Wars/Harry Potter, quality studios, not single-light dv work.

Even though there’s no spill, try using keylight’s spill sponge anyway. It will help with the blocky grain.

Did you use any gain boosting in camera or software? That could be causing grain. And shoot 1/100th shutter, not 1/60th.

The green brightness should cause even squiggles on the LCD. For furthur reading, search in the forums here about light meters, junk mattes etc.
best read I’ve seen is here.

https://generalspecialist.com/2006/10/greenscreen-and-bluescreen-checklist.asp

[Brendan Coots]

Do you have your gain and/or f-stop cranked full blast to compensate for low lighting levels? The fact that the floor looks washed out to almost white is a clue that something is fishy. With proper lighting and camera settings, I can’t imagine footage coming off of a cell phone camera looking this torn up, much less from an XL2.

Either way, you’re just not going to get a good key from this footage, a reshoot is pretty much mandatory if you need reasonably professional looking results. You will need to evaluate where all that grain and quality loss is coming from. There’s almost no doubt in my mind that it’s shoot-related, not something happening in post. Even heavy compression wouldn’t result in footage with these particular problems.

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Christian Wheel]

Thanks for the help guys,

I downloaded the trial version of Primatte & watched the tutorials, but still wasn’t happy with the results. So at this point a re-shoot may be the only option.

The camera was set to AUTO, which clearly is the wrong way to go. Light shouldn’t have been a problem – Used a 3-light kit and there was plenty of ambient lighting in the room.

Not sure if you’re familiar with how the Reflecmedia keying system works, but the floor-mat is a different brand of reflective material from another manufacturer, so it’s color is off from that of the wall.

Weighing my options now… Thanks again for the help!

—– Christian Wheel —–
Radio Host, 104.3 MyFM, Los Angeles
Audio Production & Imaging
MS Visual Studio Developer
After Effects Enthusiast

[Hans Hoffman]

I have experience in post with traditional green screen. I found that DV Garage and Boris Continuum keyers work exceptionally well. They can be had for $200 and $300, respectively.

A show that I am working on has switched to the Reflecmedia system this year from traditional green screen last year so that they didn’t have to carry kenos in the field.

I have noticed that the footage is slightly grainy. This is definitely not a hardware issue as it was shot with Varicam in DVCPro HD 720p24. It is not likely a shooter issue since we have a very experienced DP. I suspect that Reflecmedia’s LED ring causes some graininess on the subject. Anyone experienced this?

I’m still struggling with getting a good key. Before you do a complete re-shoot, I’d suggest running tests with traditional green screen and with various settings using Reflecmedia.

The camera on Auto was definitely not a good idea. I think the LED ring and reflective background will fool the internal light meter. You should probably adjust the camera exposure for how the subject is lit and then turn on and adjust the LED ring so that the green screen isn’t completely blown out. Again, anyone else have experience with this?

Hope this helps and let me know if you get any other good advice.