Building a bluescreen stage.....

[Dr Mordrid]

This site sells pre-fabbed bluescreen stages, but you can learn a lot about building your own if you need one. Just size it to your project and pay attention to the coving between the floor and walls;

http://www.procyc.com/main.htm

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

If you are shooting DV, it is claimed that a green screen works better.

Elite Video sells both blue and green screen kits.

I've had such difficulty with blue screens in still photography with photoshop that I've not yet tried for video. The lower resolution of video might actually make it much easier to do.

Mike Velte has published a "cromakey" tutorial *.mov over on the WWUG Media Studio forum that shows how easy it is to produce a bad overlay :-) Actually its OK if you ignore the "halo" produced from a slight shadow cast by the subject.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

That's why you need to use TWO lighting setups: one for the background, floor and coving area and one for the subject(s).

For the background I use bright lightboxes surrounding the background arranged and blocked so no direct backlighting of the subject(s) occurs.

For the foreground I use the typical 3 point lighting you'd use for a photo setup, including a hair light if a person is one of the subject(s).

Occaisionally some small amber gelled lights from the side are necessary. This is needed if a bit of blue or green spillover (reflected light from the background) hits the subject(s). Such spillover illumination from the background often causes a problem keying the edges of the subject(s).

Keeping the subject(s) some distance from the background can also handle this most of the time, but not always. It also can help with shadows cast by the subject lighting.

Also, make sure the color temps of the foreground & background lights match up.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 30 November 2000).]