Lighting kit for BMCC green screen work?

Hi,

I'm going for the BMCC MFT (having switched from the EF version). Lenses, probably these 2 initially (unless something else comes out during the long long wait); Voigtlander 17.mm f/0.95 and the SLR Magic 12mm f/1.6.

I want to set-up my own small (tight budget here) green screen set-up (15 feet wide), but I don't know what lights to get? I have about £2000 budget on lights. Any recommendations?

Thanks for any help,
Jules

P.S. I'll also be taking the whole set-up outdoors too with generator etc.?, so something portable would be a bonus.

I want to set-up my own small (tight budget here) green screen set-up (15 feet wide)
P.S. I'll also be taking the whole set-up outdoors too with generator etc.?, so something portable would be a bonus.

How tall? Single plane or will it contour with a cyc ? Will these lights be used on the composite element or just the green screen? If you can get e little more detailed I can get you some info.

Vince

Yeah I recommend bringing your budget for lights down to about £500 if it's just for a 15ft of green screen. If it's a mobile set up like mine then I light it with 3 led video lights like these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/CN-160-Camera-V ... 887&sr=8-1

The main thing you want is just to get a nice flat colour setting and for about that size you may want to get a few more.

My set up is DIY, 2 light stands, 2m x 1m of green screen material and some plumbing pipe to hang it off, total cost £40, that plus the 3 lights and me and my crew have used it for all sorts.

Hi All,

It's for a sci-fi concept/short film trailer for a longer film I have in mind. Will be mixing live acting performances with CGI worlds. 15 feet might be a little small come to think of it, so say 20 feet wide and about 8 feet up. No wire work for the moment.

I do own 3 red heads (or harsh lights, I light to call them), 2x600w and 1x800w Arri.

Outdoor shoots could be shooting day or night. The crew will be small (not short, I mean not many people). Of course will be avoiding lighting large areas, no budget for that. But will be green screening out areas.

I'm learning a lesson from my last effort that I wrote and directed, again sci-fi, a TV pilot episode. I shot it on an HDV camera and had only the reds etc. The project/series has been taken away from me (sort of) and to be re-shot by an experienced production company.

This time round for my next sci-fi project, I want to really work on making it look the real deal, with the BMCC camera and hopefully a great DoP who really can make it go that extra mile in the looks department with lights I have/will have. And of course have it looking cinematic and filmic.

Great advice Michael, I'm just afraid if I don't spend more, I won't get that cinema look. Of course it depends on the DoP.

I'm going to be hiring a place (workshop or warehouse) with nothing in it and plunk all equipment in there for a month or two. So I'll have two or three green screens on poles, side by side set up there. Or are there other options?

Vince, hope that's enough info for what lights I might need.

Cheers,
Jules

Hi,

I'm going for the BMCC MFT (having switched from the EF version). Lenses, probably these 2 initially (unless something else comes out during the long long wait); Voigtlander 17.mm f/0.95 and the SLR Magic 12mm f/1.6.

I want to set-up my own small (tight budget here) green screen set-up (15 feet wide), but I don't know what lights to get? I have about £2000 budget on lights. Any recommendations?

Thanks for any help,
Jules

P.S. I'll also be taking the whole set-up outdoors too with generator etc.?, so something portable would be a bonus.

I suggest you give this green screen test a good look before considering the BMCC for keying work.



This is the only test I trust, other 'tests' for whatever reason, do not have movement
(which makes those tests completely useless)

To date: There is no green screen test with motion (example: waving hand) besides this test.

Caveat emptor.

Richard,

I'm no expert with this but for movement I think the shutter angle (speed?) needed to be closed more when the footage was shot. You will get more motion blur with a more open shutter angle which any keying software would find difficult to separate.

Jules

I'm going to be hiring a place (workshop or warehouse) with nothing in it and plunk all equipment in there for a month or two. So I'll have two or three green screens on poles, side by side set up there. Or are there other options?

Cheers,
Jules

If your setting up stationary in a warehouse why don't you get some hard boards and paint them, we took over a small warehouse painted about 7 8x4 boards green, screwed them together with some metal straps and wood, lit them from above with clamp lights, this gave us a nice 180 degrees of usable space.

2x600w and 1x800w Arri.

I'd add 3X http://www.arri.com/lighting/americas/l ... tml#_blank

You may add 4X4 frames with really light diffusion (light opal) if you're having trouble getting the light even on the screen. Just be certain to drop the exposure about a stop below key on the green screen. Use a sharp prime, keep the subject sharp and let the screen go soft.

And watch for contamination anywhere on or around the subject. Separation from the screen will help you avoid refelctions on subject's edges.

Hope that helps.

Even in higher end budgets you would think twice about fast motion with green screen.
You have to be smart about these things prior to your shot.
Don't swallow more than you can chew I say

Richard,

I'm no expert with this but for movement I think the shutter angle (speed?) needed to be closed more when the footage was shot. You will get more motion blur with a more open shutter angle which any keying software would find difficult to separate.

Jules

Hi Jules,

I read a lot of good critiques of that test, and shutter angle was one of them. Other critiques was
color balance, poor keying job and the focus was (apparently) soft.

However: Until we see a revised test with similar actions (movement), it's all in the domain
of speculation.

So until we see a revised test which shows a genuine difference: The original test stands.

- Richard

I have been playing with LED 12v strips. These are available in a variety of colour temps and very cheap, I have been paying A$15 per 5 mtr lengths. Issues with colour temp can also be covered with a filter on lens or matte box. The strips can be cut and joined at will. Battery life is extraordinary.
I have even run a strip of LED down the back of a fashion model with a tiny 12v battery, this effect added a back shine to the dress that really impressed the client.
We have a boom operator for audio, why not a boom operator for a LED rig, imagine a light strip some 3-4 mtrs long on a boom weighting less than 1 kg in total.

Michael,

That's a great idea with the hard boards and non-gloss paint. Then I can use the red head lights to light the talent only. Get three of those diffusion frames that Vincent recommends probably a good idea to help getting softer lighting.That's the way I'm going to go. Trial and error here I come!

Did you have the clamp lights on a separate stand? Or like this?
http://videoproductiontips.com/VPT-Images/green%20screen%20wide%20shot%202jpg.jpg

Cheers,
Jules

That's a great idea with the hard boards and non-gloss paint.

You can buy Rosco chroma key paint. It's about $70 US per gallon. Throw a speed rail across the ceiling and grab the lights with something like an Arri clamp.

That I never thought of Sandy. I can imagine it working well for sci-fi; adds more complex looking lighting and probably helps to separate actors from the green screen too. Might also help to match the background image better by having them placed in the right places. Cool idea, worth a go.

Yeah, that paint is in London too, Vince, about £50, cool. Speed rail, right. I better put all this down in my notebook.

Cheers Everyone,

Jules

One of the best things you can do for lighting a green screen is to use Kino Super Green tubes. You don't even have to use an KINO fixture, but they work really well because they emit a much tighter spectrum of colour.

It also means you can use less lighting firepower because the lighting level of the screen when it's reflecting only the super green light.

Less lighting firepower tends to also mean less contamination of the foreground elements. I've found they also tend to even out a lot of creases and unevenness in the screen, because the light source itself is inherently softer (being a fluro). I lit a 20'x20' with two single kino tubes in 2 x 4' kino parabeam.

http://www.kinoflo.com/Kino%20Flo%20lam ... LAMPSintro

jb

i just saw bad green stuff shot on alexa few days back.

for my opinion bmc could do decent key material if you se your lights correct
and do not mess up your workflow (like in the example convert to prorez)

it seems more user capability for now not the camera.

Michael,

That's a great idea with the hard boards and non-gloss paint. Then I can use the red head lights to light the talent only. Get three of those diffusion frames that Vincent recommends probably a good idea to help getting softer lighting.That's the way I'm going to go. Trial and error here I come!

Did you have the clamp lights on a separate stand? Or like this?
http://videoproductiontips.com/VPT-Images/green%20screen%20wide%20shot%202jpg.jpg

Cheers,
Jules

I could only dream of a setup like that. As we were in a warehouse I was able to rig across the metal roof supports. but we ended up just putting them on top of the boards. Don't forget the boards were 8ft and both of the actors involved were less than 6 ft so we keyed around them and masked out everything else. Trial and error is the best bet and don't always go for whats considered film industry standard, we used some matt paint from B & Q (some type of lime colour) the main thing and its a sin that we still find pros doing today is getting that green screen lit as flat as possible and separated from the actors/prop. Also get some more boards painted and put them on the floor. If i can get his permission I'll show something our vfx guy did where they green screened it horribly and what he was able to achieve.

Cheers John,
Green Kinos so obvious yet I didn't think there were such things. Great! The parabeams are ..., I'll have to get someone else to pay for them later. Certainly can get the lamps though, and standard fixtures.

Michael, did you find problems with where the green floor boards meet the green wall boards? How did you get around that? Cool, if you can show that vid. I also found this tutorial helpful and the lighting series easy to follow


Jules

Hi,

I suggest you give this green screen test a good look before considering the BMCC for keying work.




Caveat emptor.

A key is only as good as who's keying it with a proper shot. This a terrible example of a proper shot. There's so much motion blur. Nothing can save that shot. There's no magical "stick something in front of a green screen, hit a light on and click a button for a perfect key". Good keys take lots of time and lots of experience, which, whoever shot and edited this clearly doesn't have.

To the original poster: If you're looking for a relatively inexpensive solution for lighting green screen, these types of CF bulbs can be very useful. Since CF tend to have a slight green color spike anyway, that's actually useful for lighting the screen (only):
http://www.amazon.com/Cowboystudio-Spec ... 71&sr=1-10

CF bulbs similar to those sold by Cowboys Studios are available from a variety of sources. Nice thing about CF, flos & LEDs is they run cool and draw little power, making it relatively easy to wire, rig and flag. Of those 3 categories, the CF bulbs are least expensive.

Cheers.

Michael, did you find problems with where the green floor boards meet the green wall boards? How did you get around that? Cool, if you can show that vid.
Jules

As we clipped the light to the top of the boards facing down and had some leds in foreground at ground level it kept it fine. Can't show the vid yet as it's embargo'd until the productions release unfortunately. It was the worst possible scenario they green screened a whole studio wall and then didn't light it at all. What my friend did with it is nothing short of amazing considering and shows what can be achieved even in the worst of cases.

No worries about the vid Michael.

And thanks everyone who responded to this thread to part with some great knowledge. Can almost write a how to guide on green screen shooting now and how to avoid mistakes.

I'm sure it's going to add invaluable production values. I feel enlightened

Does anyone have tips on how I should set-up the BMCC (or any camera in general) to shoot good green screen footage?

Jules

... Does anyone have tips on how I should set-up the BMCC (or any camera in general) to shoot good green screen footage Jules

Not BMCC-specific, but can be helpful in many cases: For footage that will be chromakeyed, you might use a higher frame rate and/or lower shutter angle (higher shutter speed) than you would for non-chromakey footage, to minimize motion blur and thus make keying easier/cleaner.

Peter J. DeCrescenzo wrote:
Not BMCC-specific, but can be helpful in many cases: For footage that will be chromakeyed, you might use a higher frame rate and/or lower shutter angle (higher shutter speed) than you would for non-chromakey footage, to minimize motion blur and thus make keying easier/cleaner.

So motion blur is the main culprit?

I think maybe software needs to evolve more to help. LOoking at this, surely Adobe could do it?:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2011-sneak-peeks/max-2011-sneak-peek-image-deblurring/

Jules

Peter J. DeCrescenzo wrote:
Not BMCC-specific, but can be helpful in many cases: For footage that will be chromakeyed, you might use a higher frame rate and/or lower shutter angle (higher shutter speed) than you would for non-chromakey footage, to minimize motion blur and thus make keying easier/cleaner.

So motion blur is the main culprit?

I think maybe software needs to evolve more to help. LOoking at this, surely Adobe could do it?:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/max-2011-sneak-peeks/max-2011-sneak-peek-image-deblurring/

Jules

Hi Jules: No pun intended, but the key to clean chromakeying is to shoot it as well as possible in the first place. No amount of post processing can completely make up for poor shooting, not without introducing artifacts of its own.

Shooting for clean keys is relatively straight forward. Like most things, all it takes is practice.

A green screen keying test from BMCC ProRes, I found from a post in bmcuser by Greg Ferris.

http://vimeo.com/album/2142825/video/53125469


Cheers,
Jules

A green screen keying test from BMCC ProRes, I found from a post in bmcuser by Greg Ferris.

http://vimeo.com/album/2142825/video/53125469


Cheers,
Jules

Looks promising. If you can get a decent key in FCP then it should be a piece of cake for a compositor.

That is one mighty clean greenscreen!

Hi Jules,
you will need two different sets, one for the chroma and one for the talent. The best way to illuminate a chroma is using fluorescent with electronic ballast, the best are Kinoflo lights but, in this case is out of budget. I would buy two kits like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/FloLight-Contin ... 3caeb85be2 This kind of lights are soft and diffuse so it will be easier to get a uniform green/blue wall. You can find osram or phillips daylight fluorescent tubes replacement and is an affordable option.

You will need a photometer to check that all your green wall is illuminated at the same aperture. Photometer will be your best tool

If you could buy some sky track system would be fantastic for you http://www.manfrotto.com/lighting-sky-track-system

We made a wood structure with a curve join between the wall and the floor. Paint it with Rosco chroma key green paint http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/9 ... Green.html

And don't forget to us a contra light to get out the talent from the background. Use your fresnel set with a daylight correction gel and some flags to illuminate the talent.

I hope this can help you

Some really good cost effective advice Guisphoto, thanks. I've archived it away until the day the BMCC arrives, then I'll get cracking.

For those who want to try out some BMCC green screen DNGs, Greg Ferris has posted them in a Google drive folder here:
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0Bz...NMSGpsMjA/edit

Greg showing some good keying of his footage of a model with long blonde hair vigorously shaking her head:
http://vimeo.com/album/2142825/video/53197627


Cheers,
Jules

check out flo lights new cyclight Now I'm not saying buy this but it has given usme some ideas for new lights we can make for the greenscreen work

I love these lighting kit posts.
Green screen shooting is so simple if you want it to be.
Shoot it outside. Use all that free sunlight and all those
Fstops sunlight will get you. The higher fstop will give you a clean edge on your subject that
will key super easy.
So how to control the sunlight? Go to a hardware store and buy electrical
conduit to make 6'x6' frames (sorry I don't know metric).
I suggest having two or three. Use frosted shower curtains to diffuse the sunlight.
Use a reflector or bounce if you need to add some light.
It doesn't get any cheaper or easier than that.

Until it rains or the wind blows.

Until it rains or the wind blows.

Upsssss also the sun light change, not only the position, also the temperature. Maybe it is a good idea if you want to do some kind of matte painting at short shots.

I love these lighting kit posts.
Green screen shooting is so simple if you want it to be.
Shoot it outside. Use all that free sunlight and all those
Fstops sunlight will get you. The higher fstop will give you a clean edge on your subject that
will key super easy.
So how to control the sunlight? Go to a hardware store and buy electrical
conduit to make 6'x6' frames (sorry I don't know metric).
I suggest having two or three. Use frosted shower curtains to diffuse the sunlight.
Use a reflector or bounce if you need to add some light.
It doesn't get any cheaper or easier than that.

You live in Florida. I live in the UK. So outdoors is out of the question 80% of the time. My current mobile set up though is 2 stands some plumbing pipe and some green lycra material. Total cost £10 (which will be about $16) for when I do outside work.

If the situation was "studio only" a simple 'outside wont work' would have sufficed.

Albeit at this point I should be more than accustomed to displaced frustration
among the BMC-less camera buyers.

Sunlight changes? Wind?
So I take I you all don't know about planning a shoot, tracking the sun, or how to really 'use' overheads.
As for wind- I put sandbags onto combo stands.

I can understand regional weather concerns. Be it the emphasis of the post
was on also budget and not time so it seemed reasonable to speculate
a shoot spread over a few days for 'weather' or 'wind' would have been reasonable.

Good luck with your future ventures.

Good luck with your future ventures.

I didn't mean to offend you...sorry you took it that way. Back in the 90s a huge external wall at the Las Colinas Studios in Irving, Texas was painted Chroma Key Blue. It got used a few times (weather permitting) but basically the actual studios did the vast majority of the keys...my guess would be in the 99.9% range.

Reminds me of the time I drove by the Wellington NZ studio lot where they were shooting Avatar... they had built a giant massive green screen wall/set there.. using dozens of shipping containers stacked up as "walls"

Ah I even found some pics of it.. see here: http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00012007.html

If you are using a 15 ft-wide screen, it sounds like you are going to be shooting full-length people, and will need around 9 ft of height, depending on poses, and the floor will be in some shots, so you will need to put some sort of cyc-like curve at the junction between the floor and the screen. My inexpensive choice is just to use vinyl flooring, paint the back of it (which is smooth and flat) with the special saturated paint (don't use house paint), and just curve it at the bottom and tape or staple it to the floor. One advantage of vinyl flooring is that it does not wrinkle and needs no stretching. You will also have to paint the floor, and continue to touch up every time something gets messed up, just like the guys in the real studios. You need to ideally find a big enough indoor space with that height. Lighting a larger area is more expensive, since more light is required, and it is more of a challenge to spread that light across a larger area evenly.

I like the advice of Guisphoto for saving on lights and mounting. If you use a reverse light hitting the talent (as jb did) it can reduce spill on the edges, plus of course you want to keep them as many feet away from the screen as possible, both to limit spill and to put the background screen out of focus. I have not had much trouble with edge spill using Primatte for keying.

You have seen examples of handling motion blur and hair that are fairly good. The Vimeo of the guy in the forest handled the motion blur OK, but they did not exactly match the sky light, both in color temp (too warm), and in source size, since skylight is perfectly even on an overcast day. The talent shown in the comped shot is also a bit too bright on that shot, but that and the color temp are easily fixed. Their key was quite clean except for the slight issue with the motion blur. Holding hair is also tough, but this camera should do it pretty well.

You have to work and really try to get top notch green/blue screen comps if you are going to have actors moving around on a stage. It is not near as easy as normal shooting, both in lighting and post. Yet the pros pull it off nicely.

dn

DNomer,

I am almost missed your post. All those words of wisdom and experience too.

Thanks for the advice info,
Jules