Purchasing & Using Green Screen..

[wookieulrich]

Hey friends, Ive been trying to find a Green screen for doing a news channel scene, where my friend will be reporting the news in front of a green background where there will be computer graphics etc..
but so far I have not been able to find anysites which sell this, and I dont quite know how to film a shot like this properley.
Could anyone help please?
Cheers.

[KayBeck]

Well one option is to build a background out of wood and painting it green. I'm told that there are large rolls of paper that come in that color, but I'm not sure where you could find that.

[UFProductions]

Plastic party table cloths stretched over a wooden frame work well, and only cost $5 or so.

[Swanny]

When we greenscreen, we just use a green bedsheet and staple it to wherever we want. You can buy material in some shops for quite cheap.

[Raptor]

Try Ebay - or a search on google for chroma key material.
Now, understand the lighting of the scene and screen and the seaparation are more improtant to getting a clean key than necessarily the screen. So long as the surface is smooth, wrinkle free evenly lit, and you control the lighting on the talent and eliminate shadows on the screen( unless you need them for the scene - but make it a LOT tougher to cleanly key) and the color is consisten in the screen, you can key on just about any color. Just make sure if you use blue, the talent isn't wearing blue. We found 11 yards of material at Wal-Mart that was like $1.50 a yard, had my wife cut it into thirds and sew it together, so we ended up with a screen that was roughly 11 feet x 10 feet . for less than $20.00. We hadpurchased it simply for test shooting, planning on buying a better screen down the road... a year later we still use it for any 'in the studio ' shts for our television program, the underground. We've also used it for commercials both for the show, and for some of our customers. The plastic table cloths will work, but we found it ws tougher to keep specular highlights off of the plastic surface.

[SanElizando]

Try these, they're not the cheapest but they do offer professional equipment:

http://www.studiodepot.com/store/

[crb]

type in Owne's original. They sell green screen cloth. You buy it by the yard. If you did like 2-3 yards it would be more than enough for you news broadcast. Then get a pole, sew one end so that you have a sleeve you can stick the pole on. Make two stands. Hand the pole up so that it is near a wall And basically make it as tight as possible so that there are no wrinkles. The lighting is the tricky part. You need even light. That is why I will be attempting to shoot all my green screen outside instead. Actaully on the color, some sites recommend for video to shoot using green over blue. Something to do with the way video cameras are. all together the cloth you can get for 27 USD or less. then you'll need it shippped to you. I don't have any expereince with it yet, but with my project if it doesn't come out perfect I can say, "I was being artistic!" and get away with you. You probably don't get the benefit with your project.
I don't know if using something than actaul green screen can work, some people say it does. Others say you can even use a white wall. But I guess I wouldn't risk it unless I had already tried and it worked.

[wookieulrich]

Ah awesome, thanks very much for the advice friends, thats wicked, Ill be looking forward to messing around with that now, cheers!

[Epsilon]

I've seen photography stores around that sell massive 10x24 colored background screens for $49 or so.

[Directordude]

well whats the best way to light the green screen becuase i have a 100ft roll and wanna use it badly

[Epsilon]

A lot of lights! lol

You might want to play with methods of diffusing the lights, like perhaps reflecting off white posterboards, so the light with spread more evenly and not have many (if any) shadow lines.

[Raptor]

well whats the best way to light the green screen becuase i have a 100ft roll and wanna use it badly

Outside on an overcast day, best 'soft light' in the world, good even light with minimum of shadows...
When we are shooting green indoors, I use the zebras on the camera to set the lighting as evenly as possible, open the iris and look to see if teh screen goes to zebras evenly.

[Epsilon]

Hey, that's a great idea, Raptor!