Love that! All the praise you need Dean...and thanks for sharing your knowledge. Thinking a lot about the less conventional approach.

Interesting to hear all the talk of these third party (costly?) plugins. In addition to standard RGB and Chroma keyers Avid ships with Spectramatte which works very well indeed. Cant keep up with all the latest competing software sellers!!!

I shot Bonnie Tyler against blue once. When I went to key it I found it was the exact same blue as her eyes >doh< hours of tracking/masking fun!!! Check your subject and props carefully is my top tip!

BD

Dean's discovery that he needed to blue up his fill is key (pun intended) to the kind of thinking you need to make it look natural. Match the light, (and the feeling of saturation which will come from how hard the light is) of the original scene as much as possible.

Actually in Dean's shots I would suggest that perhaps a little cool bounce backlight or top light would be even closer to to matching how someone outside is lit because that same sky fill light is also hitting the tops and sides of the subject. Dean's shots look great though so its obviously not always neccessary.

Sometimes the purpose of that that top or back light is to overwhelm reflection of the green screen in the subjects hair or clothes. That can be helped just by putting white or black cards around the green screen just out of shot to minimize the reflection.

I used to always put my blue & green screens down at 40% in the BETA days, but had noise problems when I started using the HVX200. Jim Arthurs from Texas who's done lots of green screen with the EX and other cameras suggested raising it to 60%. I've been wary of 60 but switched to 55% after that. I think he still does his blue screens lower though. Jim was the first guy on these forums to rave about what a good key you could get with the EX-1 despite it being 4:2:0
Lenny Levy

I recently did a chroma key test shoot shooting 1080 30p HQ. When the model was framed down to her waist only, the key looked great. But the client wanted to see the model walking from a distance toward the camera. Because the model was a short distance away, she was about 1/4 the size of the video frame. When I tried to get a good key on her at this distance, the edges didn't look that great (stair-stepped, pixelated). Having your model be as large as possible in the frame really helps you get a good quality key.

Anyone have any experience using the EX1/EX3 chroma key for a "virtual set" where the model is at a greater distance to the camera?

If you're getting a full-body shot - try mounting the camera sideways (portrait mode) to get the maximum amount of pixels dedicated to your subject.

Whoa! How do you guys come up with this stuff? I never would have thought of that. Thanks Kenn.

Now I just have to figure out how to mount the camera sideways! :)

After three hours of trying I discovered that it's way easier than trying to suspend the talent with wires. :-)

You can mount the camera crossways on the fluid head, then tilt the fluid head all the way to 90 degrees.

Or use a photographer's tripod and tilt the head as though you're shooting a vertical photo.

If you do the sideways thing how do you deal with the image once the person has walked close enough to be taller than the vertical height of the image you are compositing into?

In fact altogether, how do you deal with the sequence settings and the difference in the size of the images?

The subject would have to remain in the frame, so the movement and composition would have to be planned accordingly.

The settings should match the settings of the composite. Then the image would be rotated 90 degrees. Of course there would be rendering required.

Here's what i find confusing - Wouldn't you lose the advantage of the sideways shot (which would 1080 wide by 1920 high) by turning 90 degrees and rendering it into a standard 1920x1080 composition?

Is the idea to cut the matte in the sideways format then turn it, render and thus compress it when you composite it?

You get a cleaner key by starting off with a larger image. More pixels for the keying software to work with. This is done in a pre-comp in After Effects, and the pre-comp is then incorporated into the final comp.

Question about GreenScreen and using the EX1r or 5D camera
 

Hello everyone,

Quick question:
I am wondering if you used the Canon 5D camera and made the greenscreen more out of focus if that would help when you key things out? I have both the Sony EX1r and the Canon 5D and will need to do some greenscreen work soon. A friend has Adobe After Effects (and Ultra I think too) so that is what I have to do it with. The shots will be of a male actor waist up and also full body shot. The goal is to composite him in a digital world for part of a film I am creating.

Any suggestions or comments are appreciated!

Thank you.

Been doing that trick for a few years now. Works very well. Filling any cameras sensor with more info is always a good thing. Flip it and scale to whatever you need in post. Nice cause you can keyframe zooms and reframe in post.

Since I dont have a head that will do 90deg tilt, I bought a piece of L-shaped framing steel and drilled the appropriate hole for a QR plate system to mount to my tripod. Cost $3 plus $50 for the plates!

I have been using the Matrox cards for keying out green screens (RT100 + RTX2) these have worked OK for me, although they do leave a fair amount of dirty pixels on the green.

I have been experimenting with Adobes Ultra Keyer and this produces very clean keys. I have been using 720p 24 & 25fps with Cine1 gamma. I am just wiating for my new graphics card to arrive (nVidia GTX470) which will then take full advantage of the Mecury PLayback Engine. Will post some results as soon as I get it.

Kenn, thanks for thinking outside the box and sharing this idea. I had to wait for some free time to finally manufacture and test a camera plate for mounting my EX3 sideways. It works as you described to get the extra pixels on the subject. I can pull cleaner full body shots in almost half the distance. This innovation now allows me to take my Reflecmedia Chromatte screen into office environments for those times when full body shots are required. Cheers!

Saw this at NAB two years ago. It's perfect for mounting our EX3 sideways.
RINGO HEAD CAMERA MOUNT

Spider Support Ringo Head. Sells for $380 from Barbizon Lighting.