The Video Light Displays Of Seventies' Rock And Roll

Ever wondered how your local weatherman magically appears facing a chart, simultaneously driving high-pressure systems across the corny jokes and tri-county area across the business at the rest of the Channel 5 Wake-Up Crew?

The one-liners certainly aren't from magic--more like candy wrappers and popsicle sticks--and neither is the man-in-front-of-map technology: it's natural screening (a.k.a. chroma keying), the video effect that allows Tom in Topeka to look o-n the beach in Tahiti, sans airplane ticket and sun block.

Whether you are making a green screen video for your own company or for your own amusement--or for telling Laffy Taffy jokes in front of the Great Lakes Region--you'll need to effectively perform the three main aspects to the method, each of that will be necessary to making the impression of chroma key seem real. Well, true in a fake-looking, information anchor's smile kind of way.

Backdrop/Background

The Screen 'You are telling me I've got to have a green screen for my green screen video? Escape here.' Yes, obvious, although not that easy. Beyond just natural, you need your history to be three things: wrinkle-resistant, non-reflective and evenly colored, all of which make making the effect in editing easier. Many accomplish this by not actually using a 'screen,' alternatively choosing a colored piece of plywood (a cloth certainly immune to lines). There's particular natural screen paint, albeit relatively dear, sold for this kind of task.

Of course, the simplest way to get a good green screen is purchasing a professional-quality one, often made from muslin material, from the countless online retailers who sell them in all types of dimensions (only do a Google look for 'green screen history '). And size is critical: you must make sure you have got enough green to contain all of your foreground action. However, eschewing the professional route, I ordered my makeshift background at Sears--specifically, within the section designated Softer Side--in the form of a queen-sized bamboo bed page, particularly flat, not fitted.

Holding It To hang the screen, you can combine two of these foundation techniques, fixing the cloth to your board, so as to help make the page as clean and flat as possible--remember, that's important. I accomplish this task by taping my bed sheet to the wall using masking tape.

Lighting

Evenness Lighting is the most important component for the process, one that, if done improperly, will sabotage your efforts completely, rendering it impossible to key out the given color range in post-production. And that is just it: you need as narrow a range as possible of green, so that the application is able to isolate and take it off, while keeping in tact the whole of one's foreground subject. The narrow range is achieved by evenly light leak effects the process that's much easier to type about than bring to fruition, made tedious by these evil beings called Shadows.

See, when you light your subject within the foreground--and you should, by the way--it's going to send a shadow toward the back ground, which is going to ruin the evenness (yes, that is a word). You can reduce the darkness of the shadow by, listen up, putting space between the backdrop and the subject, at least a couple of feet, several or more ultimately. But the better reason for creating this space would be to allow room to individually light your backdrop.

Setup For my movies, I work with a simple setup of three lights, every one of which I purchased at Home Depot. Toward the niche, I face a 500-watt Workforce work light, featuring two independently movable lights along with its extensible framework. To light the background, I place hold lights, holding 200-watt lamps, on either side of page. Having the light right can take a while, and you'll definitely need a subject to test on, so, if you're preparing shooting on a rigid schedule, ensure you allot enough time beforehand and generate a stand-in to help.

Editing

Software The upper-level editing application systems--namely from the so-called A-team (Avid, Adobe and Apple), along with from key players like Sony--will and Pinnacle include chroma typing as a feature. I use Sony's Vegas Pro 8.0a; I learned the facts of making the keying effect from YouTube guide videos. When you have done your free light leak footage effectively, summoning the effect is significantly easier and frustrating.

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Background Image The background doesn't need to be a still image; it could be another video. The point is that, before shooting, you should have in mind what you're getting behind your subject in post, since it could influence on set choices, including clothing. For example, for a video I made recently, because I knew the history would be a darker red, I encouraged my video's subject, a small business owner, to wear a white shirt, in order to develop the distinction necessary to make him stay out.

A significant note, also in regards to wardrobe: make certain your subject is not carrying anything with green inside, because that'll be keyed out along with the screen. Therefore, if you are subject includes a green circle o-n the chest of his fashionably little artist t-shirt, you are planning to literally tear his heart out in the editing process, leaving just a hole by which your background image is likely to be apparent. I had suggest you avoid this type of scenario--unless, that's, you want your video to come across as having no heart.