Looking for some greenscreen (help)

[Nathan Petersen]

I was just browsing the net for some cheap greenscreen and possibly some alternatives. I ran across this site with a Citrus Green Disposable Plastic Tablecloth - 40 Inch x 100 Foot Roll. Here's the url: http://www.mypapershop.com/c-plastic...oths-roll.html
I found out that other people have used these table cloths and it worked, here's a url to Nick Jushchyshyn (member of this board) website, he used a plastic blue tablecloth: http://www.jushhome.com/Bluescreen/Bluescreen.html
Do you think this would work, or do you know of any cheap greenscreens, I dont want to pay an arm and leg for greenscreen.

-Thanks Nick Jushchyshyn for the idea!

[Nathan Petersen]

anyone have an opinion, I really need one...thanks.

[Bill Zens]

Nathan,
I am in the construction products industry, and you may find this to be a pretty economical an easy to use option.

There is a "residing insulation" from both Dow Chemical (blue) and Pactive Products (green) that is a great option. They come in 4' x 50' bundles, and are very light weight. (1/4" or 3/8" thick, about 4-5 pounds/bundle). They do have fold marks every 2 feet, but I have not found that to be much of a problem. Here's a link to the Dow site...

http://www.dow.com/styrofoam/na/res-...f_underlay.htm

There is printing on one side, you'll obviously use the other. You do need to be aware of glare from a plastic coating, but otherwise, it's a great, economical solution for bluescreen...

Pactiv, the green material is here....
http://pactivpartners.pactiv.com/pro...A5FBF6DF%5D%5D

You should be able to get a bundle for about 30-35 bucks, at almost any siding or building materials distributor. I don't think you'll find it at the Depot or Lowes.

(Also, they both make the same product with aluminum foil on one side. It makes great, lightweight and cheap reflectors for you as well...)

If you have any questions, let me know...

Bill

[Nathan Petersen]

wow, that really does look like it would work. I will definitely check that out. Thanks. I also picked up some of that table cloth 'neon' (somewhat) green and it seemed to work very well, even with my outdated Hi-8 sony trv58 video camera (waiting for my optura xi). I will post some pictures soon. Again, thanks for the links :).

Note: these pics where taking with my digital camera then I chromokeyed in Adobe Permiere (Fuji S5100-digital camera)


:The green screen was the plastic table cloth that I picked up at PartyLand:

http://www.fiercegaming.com/table_cloth.jpg
before chromokeying

http://www.fiercegaming.com/table_cloth1.jpg
after chromokeying

If you look closley you will see it didn't keyout the shadows, should have been standing much further back from the green screen.
I can give you some frames from my Hi-8 video camera if you want.

[Nathan Petersen]

I checked more into the insulation and will probably go with it if my table cloth stuff doesn't hold up, I just like it because it's so light and portable. Thanks Bill.
(look in last post to see how it worked)

[Bill Zens]

Yeah, the shadows were pretty obvoius, probably because you were too close, and used the same light for your hand as the one to light the greenscreen. Other than that it looked pretty good, though.

Let me know where you're at, and I'll probably be able to direct you to a place to get the insulation.

Bill

[Matt Ockenfels]

Check these out....

http://www.amvona.com/v7/shop/?page=...roduct_id=1925
http://www.amvona.com/v7/shop/?page=...&product_id=64

This company does prett heavy trade on eBay, and you can get pretty good discounts there.

Cheers,

-Matt

[Nick Jushchyshyn]

Glad you found the tutorial to be useful.

The plastic table cloth works wonders, really.
I've used it in a number of client shoots now and it has been fantastic.
I'm to the point now where I could easily afford a more expensive solution, but simply haven't been in a situation where it would actually be needed. :p
Besides, I still have a lot left over in my rolls of blue and green table cloth.

The insulation doesn't look like a very good solution, at least not without painting, and you don't want to leave it up as a permenent install, since it's highly toxic if it burns. (Why it's used on the outside of the house but not inside)

Bright blue colors tend to have very high green channel values and bright yellow-greens contain too much red.

To find a good color, get some paint sample cards with variations of blue and/or green, then shoot them with your camera in typical shooting conditions. Capture the video and check the RGB values. The color shade that has the key color channel very very high (usually in the 200-225 range) while also having the lowest values in the other two channels (typically 50-80) is the best color for your setup.

Avoid shadows falling onto your screen ... BIG TIME.
If at all possible, use seperate lights for the screen and the subject.

One last note.... Darker objects (black, brown, brunette, dark skin) are easier to key in front of green. Bright objects (white, yellow, blond, pale skin ) work best in front of blue screens .... even when shooting DV.

Good luck.

[Nathan Petersen]

Thanks for the pointers Nick, you have been really helpful! I like your tutorial, everything works well. Here is how I got my blocky edges to look smooth, here is what I said in another thread:

(Other Thread): I found this tutorial:
I ended up saving one of my clips as a .flm file from premiere I inserted that clip into Photoshop and then switched it to lab color then I went to channels and gave layers A and B a motion blur with a 0 degree and 4 pixel count then I switched it back to RGB color and saved the .flm and inserted it back to Permiere. Worked great now the edges are smooth. I think you can find this tutorial somewhere. Anyway it will probably take a long time for long clips/scenes.

Any other solutions that don't take so long. Someone? Anyone, Anyone?

[Richard Krider]

If you are really into chromakeying take a look at this product:
http://www.seriousmagic.com/products/ultra/

expensive but very cool!

[Brennan Lang]

I used this way around it and it worked fine. Plus now I have a Green Screen cyc, in my garage
http://www.detonationfilms.com/low_b...reen_paint.htm

Brennan

[Michael Sinclair]

That ultra program looks sweet ;) My kids would love that.

[Bruce Linden]

A bit of trivia about Greenscreen. At first ChromaKey Blue was the only color used. However the engineers at CBS New York developed the green because Walter Cronkite's (Please tell me that us old guys aren't the only one who know who he is!) eyes are the same blue as the background and they were keying out. That shade of green was chosen because it is ugly enough that its very likely that no one would ever wear a color even close.

[Jeremy Davidson]

Nathan, 'just saw your post today. I built a greenscreen using Nick's design a couple months ago. I had a hard time with glare on the plastic green tablecloth (Nick, how did you light yours?), so I bought several yards of green cloth at Walmart and used Nick's frame.

My resulting screen was 9' x 7'. The RGB numbers I got off of my color choice weren't real good (more blue showed up than I expected), but it stilled keyed well in Premiere. Granted, due to the nature of the project I could afford to let it look a little cheesy.

I used two 500watt halogen work lights and two 100watt incandescent flood lights to fill in some dark spots.

Jeremy