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Green screen lighting and tips?
- Thread starter Godchoo
- Start date
Light it evenly. Use soft light.
Light the talent separately using three point lighting so he stands out from the green screen. Keep the talent as far from the screen as you can, to avoid the green 'spilling' onto his clothes, skin, or hair.
Practice. Practice. Practice. You can usually salvage even kind of bad green screen footage in AE, but try not to rely on that. It's still hard and will mean some loss in quality and/or a cheap looking effect.
Hope that helps
Thanks
Light the talent separately using three point lighting so he stands out from the green screen. Keep the talent as far from the screen as you can, to avoid the green 'spilling' onto his clothes, skin, or hair.
Practice. Practice. Practice. You can usually salvage even kind of bad green screen footage in AE, but try not to rely on that. It's still hard and will mean some loss in quality and/or a cheap looking effect.
Hope that helps
ThanksIf you frame correctly, set extension is easier without green screen.
Check this link for what I mean.. http://www.swissmadevfx.com/?p=357
Can you give a bit more detail about the actual shot?
Check this link for what I mean.. http://www.swissmadevfx.com/?p=357
Can you give a bit more detail about the actual shot?
If lit, keep that cig out of any shots using the screen. The smoke from it will be difficult to key out properly.
You'll also have issues with translucent items (glass, etc), & reflective/glossy material (which can pick up green, if oriented incorrectly)
Sounds like a neat scene.
heres a good general resource for special effects.. i just re-found it..
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26981391/Filming-the-Fantastic-a-Guide-to-Visual-Effects-Cinematography
One that that will make the shot hard to pull off is the angles, perspective etc. If you have a real balcony with a great view with tall buildings etc, then the shot my be better off rotoscoped. Where you manually mask off the actor in post. This has the advantage of providing a ready made set reference for perspective, angle and what not for the buildings.
You might want to consider camera movement. In the link above, buried deep, there is a discussion of cameras nodal point. In short, pivoting around the right place in your camera will reduce parallax moment to 0 which means that you don't have to model in 3d just draw it so it LOOKS 3d.
there I go again.. over thinking it it!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26981391/Filming-the-Fantastic-a-Guide-to-Visual-Effects-Cinematography
One that that will make the shot hard to pull off is the angles, perspective etc. If you have a real balcony with a great view with tall buildings etc, then the shot my be better off rotoscoped. Where you manually mask off the actor in post. This has the advantage of providing a ready made set reference for perspective, angle and what not for the buildings.
You might want to consider camera movement. In the link above, buried deep, there is a discussion of cameras nodal point. In short, pivoting around the right place in your camera will reduce parallax moment to 0 which means that you don't have to model in 3d just draw it so it LOOKS 3d.
there I go again.. over thinking it it!
Im also thinking you can simplify if you have a SOLID balcony rail, or don't show it.. masking around the bars and what not will be fun
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Soft background is good. You can hide small mistakes etc. Apply bluing etc to that layer in the composite.
you can composite in smoke in post.
check out http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/frosty_breath/ for an idea..
you can composite in smoke in post.
check out http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/frosty_breath/ for an idea..
My school just got a really fun toy called Ringlite. There's a large (and heavy) curtain with tiny micro-mirrors. The ringlite mounts on your lense, and reflects off the curtain making for such an easy greenscreen lighting situation. No back shadows, etc. We just used it for he first time today, and it's pretty sweet! ...just sayin'.
yeah, I read about that "lightring" setup.. did you get to play with it?
so.. i obsessed over this lightring setups for several hours yesterday.. wondered.. hum.. could I DIY that?
The cheapest knock of setup I can find is about $1000 from B&H and thats CHEAP compared to the name brand setup ($5k) But what is it REALLY ??? Does it really need to be THAT expensive..
So without actually seeing the stuff for real, I believe its operating principle is rather simple. Basically you have a backdrop of material that is just like that material they make road reflectors out of. It shines RIGHT back towards the light emitting source. If you've ever been on a freshly laid dark road, at night you can see this stuff work.... anyway.. the light is reflected directly back to the source, so the source of the light has to be on axis with the camera.. hence the need for a RING LIGHT around the lens.
The light ring part is obvious.. a ring of Green or Blue (or both in the case of the product on B&H photo) LED's around the lens, easy enough to DIY that.
The cloth is the hard part.. You can buy the cloth for about $400 from B&H photo, so already a few hours with a soldering iron can save several hundred dollars. But thats still to rich.. I wondered If I could find a suitable. "Retro Reflective" material direct from the manufacture, well, 3M sells the stuff in 1" tape roll, you can by them at a hardware store.. . ok. .closer.. I found a distributor that sells the fabric, in 50" width rolls for about $50 a yard. So for 12'x12' backdrop thats about $450 in material, plus Id still have to sew it together. And I dont even know if it would work. Good news is they will send a FREE sample (1 foot x 9 foot) for free. So I can test it out to see if my DIY option is even possible in theory.
Now, 3M actually sells the INK to print your own safety logos and what not, its the same product, but in ink form. Iv not got a price on that yet. But My guess is thats how the manufacture makes these things, a nice canvas backdrop dyed with the 3M Reflective Ink for Textiles - Series 8000.
There, obsession met. I can move on..
The cheapest knock of setup I can find is about $1000 from B&H and thats CHEAP compared to the name brand setup ($5k) But what is it REALLY ??? Does it really need to be THAT expensive..
So without actually seeing the stuff for real, I believe its operating principle is rather simple. Basically you have a backdrop of material that is just like that material they make road reflectors out of. It shines RIGHT back towards the light emitting source. If you've ever been on a freshly laid dark road, at night you can see this stuff work.... anyway.. the light is reflected directly back to the source, so the source of the light has to be on axis with the camera.. hence the need for a RING LIGHT around the lens.
The light ring part is obvious.. a ring of Green or Blue (or both in the case of the product on B&H photo) LED's around the lens, easy enough to DIY that.
The cloth is the hard part.. You can buy the cloth for about $400 from B&H photo, so already a few hours with a soldering iron can save several hundred dollars. But thats still to rich.. I wondered If I could find a suitable. "Retro Reflective" material direct from the manufacture, well, 3M sells the stuff in 1" tape roll, you can by them at a hardware store.. . ok. .closer.. I found a distributor that sells the fabric, in 50" width rolls for about $50 a yard. So for 12'x12' backdrop thats about $450 in material, plus Id still have to sew it together. And I dont even know if it would work. Good news is they will send a FREE sample (1 foot x 9 foot) for free. So I can test it out to see if my DIY option is even possible in theory.
Now, 3M actually sells the INK to print your own safety logos and what not, its the same product, but in ink form. Iv not got a price on that yet. But My guess is thats how the manufacture makes these things, a nice canvas backdrop dyed with the 3M Reflective Ink for Textiles - Series 8000.
There, obsession met. I can move on..