OT: Portable greenscreens

[Jeff Memmer]

I have this screen and it is HUGE. You need a lot of light and a lot of space. Most importantly, it does NOT stand by itself. I just lean it against a wall; but, I’m just messing around at home. You will probably want some type of rig setup to hold it steady.

You may want to buy two light stands and rig something up that can be packed into a small suitcase of some sort for travel.

[Lifetypo]

i have something allmost exactly the same and i paid 15 bucks .
from walmart of all places . they have all sorts of green fabrics on a roll i bought 2 rolls which was about 6 feet tall about 4ft wide i move one of the ground or put them both up side by side depending on the shot.

[Erik Pontius]

I would avoid having your talent stand/sit on the greenscreen unless you are doing a full body head-toe shot as you’ll have a lot of spill. That extra fabric in the photo, that is on the floor, helps to cover the floor behind your subject when shooting a seated subject. You want your subject as far away as feasible from the screen to limit spill.
recently bought greenscreen from a company called EEFX.com.
I bought it as a replacement for a seamless fabric one I bought a while back. Problem with the fabric is that is was very prone to wrinkling. The new greenscreen is made of a “looped” fabric sorta similar to felt that is connected to a foam back and a nylon backing. The felt type fabric is is pretty diffuse when hit with the lights and really helps keep it evenly lit. The foam core helps to avoid wrinkles since it expands. I’ve shot a bunch of interviews with it and have been able to pull some very nice keys. I have it in a small studio, but have to pull it down between shoots and put it up again when I need it. I haven’t traveled with it yet.
I once hired a crew for a remote greenscreen shoot, they had a greenscreen made out of a very stretchy material. They just stretched the fabric over some c-stands with some clips….no wrinkles.

Erik

[Steven J casey]

Portability is high on the list of what I’m needing in a GS. Maybe I’m asking too much, I don’t know. But yeah, I have a big green fabric one now but it’s probably the most easily wrinkled fabric known to Man. It’s also just so big as to be unwieldy to set up when traveling due to the required stands or finding a ladder to hang it from the ceiling. That’s why a popup screen would be nice.

And yes, keeping spill off the talent is key (pun intended), which is why I wondered about the length of the screen in question.

So finally then, what are you guys doing when you need a full body shot so as to key out the floor? Just laying out another big screen on the floor?

[Erik Pontius]

I’ve done full body shots before. The old fabric green screen I had was something like 12ft x 20ft. So I was able to get the subject far enough away from the vertical part and just tried to be careful with the lighting on the part covering the floor…then its a matter of how good your chromakey software is and how much time you can spend tinkering with it. In my case, the full body shots were comped into a AE 3d camera move that swooped down from above and then switch to a tighter shot, so spill wasn’t as big of an issue since the subject was relatively small in the frame in the full body wide shots.
Another good tip I’ve seen is to lay down white core on the ground around the subject whenever the floor is out of the shot, but you still need your subject standing on the greenscreen…helps to minimize some of the spill.

Erik

[Jeff Memmer]

I can take a picture of the screen you asked about, folded into its carrying case, so that you have an idea of how small it gets down too. If I have time, I’ll do that tonight.

Folding that sucker can be a pain too. I’ve purchased another screen material from B&H that just folds up, but it’s still in its package… Maybe a good time to pull it out and see how wrinkly it is.

[Steven J casey]

All good advice…thanks for the input.

Jeff, yeah, the thing they don’t say in the ad is how big it is when folded down. Maybe still too big to deal with planes, trains, and some automobiles?

Dave, yes, I agree about the dirt and wearing out the part they’re walking on; yet another reason I’ve been wondering what people do for those shots. People other than Peter Jackson…

Thanks again.
Steven

[Graham Quince]

We have this exact greenscreen at work and it’s excellent. Generally, it’s pinned taut against a wall with the floor folded back. Most the of time we just use it for hand/shoulder shots, but because of the space we have, we have the flexbility to go larger. We do need proper lights for it, although not when we use Adobe’s Visual Communicator. Not exactly the best key on the market, but for quick, live-keying, turnaround videos it’s excellent.

Learning to fold it up does take practice though, there are times when I wish we’d also bought the next size down.

Graham

[Deleted User]

We just recently bought a Photoflex 5′ X 7′ green/blue reversible screen. You also should have the holder arm that they sell as well assuming you have access to c-stands or similiar. As has been mentioned, the folding technique to get it back in the bag seems to slip my memory and has to be re-learned everytime. It’s not like folding the standard round flex boards. The screen ran around $400cdn.

Lee
CTV Calgary