I love the background Scott Kelby used for this video, but was wondering if he used a studio background with lighting, or if he just shot this on green screen and made the background in photoshop. Anyone have any guesses?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOpoMS6YT54&eurl=http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/page/5

Almost certainly a studio background. There is not a hint of green-screen artifacts.

For this kind of shot green screen is more expensive, time-intensive, and problematic than just shooting it.

This is probably shot against a piece of gray seamless background paper, with a small de-focused fresnel making the nice light effect on the background. A very common technique in still photography - you don't need a painted background to do this one.

Hey Seth,

Thanks so much for the advice and tips. I have a couple fresnels, but haven't head the term "defocused" used for lighting. Could you explain this a bit? I'm pretty new to lighting and videography and would like to match a similar setup someday as Kelby's. Thanks so much for your help.

A fresnel has a focus knob on it that goes between wide and narrow beams. Perhaps he means put the fresnel into wide beam mode for a larger coverage area.

In addition to what Richard mentioned, the edge of the light pattern on the background can be hard or soft with a fresnel. The "wide" end of the focus will tend to be nice and soft, as in the example.

This is an instance in which it will be important to look at a good monitor when setting the lighting, and to have some wire grids and/or some ND gels on hand to help adjust the intensity of the background light. On a medium gray background, too much light will make it look white, too little will make it look black.

The example is a nice subtle balance.