best green screen technology?

the_learninator wrote on 2/26/2005, 6:27 PM
hey folks I'm looking to purchase a green screen solution. take a look @ this:

http://www.seriousmagic.com/video%20samples/UltraDemo-750.wmv
seriousmagic.com

looks pretty convencing.

Anyone reading this have any experience with green screen/room shoots? got any tips or suggested solutions. my budget is very limited so im just looking for the bare minimum. so far what's posted above looks best to me but it's kinda pricey..

Comments

goshep wrote on 2/26/2005, 6:31 PM
I've tried the demo and it seems worth the money. I think kencalhoun uses it in his work.

Ken???
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/26/2005, 6:32 PM
Ultra is the best "affordable" greenscreen application available. To go better, you'll need to really step up. Vegas does a good job with properly shot footage, but Ultra is a few steps up.
Search the forum for Ken Calhoun, look at the work he's done in Ultra. It's very well done. We've used it on a few projects, and Victor Milt is using it on a project right now. Well worth the cost if you want efficient workflow and plan on doing a fair amount of this type of work.
the_learninator wrote on 2/26/2005, 6:43 PM
ok cool i'll do a search for him. what are some other alternatives. i'd like to see those just so i can compare and contrast the quality/cost. thanks in advance...
goshep wrote on 2/26/2005, 7:00 PM
Here ya go but you've been warned....you'll need a second mortgage

http://www.ultimatte.com/
apit34356 wrote on 2/26/2005, 8:22 PM
Ultimatte is very nice, but not for the DV market. This not a beginners tool. If you use AE and shake a lot, then you probably already know about ultimatte and your company probably is already using it, if you do HD or film work. Some mid-range IDF projects are starting to use it, mostly thru contracture agreements, etc.......
logiquem wrote on 2/27/2005, 7:03 AM
Why not try Vegas before buying another soft if you are a little short on cash?. You can make a pretty good keying with the stock chroma-blur + chroma-keying FX.

You can find cheap backdrop here (i did'nt try them yet):
http://www.chroma-key.com/chroma_key_green.html

For screen lighting, i use personnally stock fluos and it proved to work very well: 2 x 48" on the floor and 2 x 48" on the celling. You can use cardboards to avoid back spill on your subject. Try to have 5 ' distance between your screen and your subject. Use large soft lights for main lighting (you can experiment with some white pieces of fabrics that you use as diffusors in front of your lights if don't want to invest in true soft dome lights). I use that myself for a permanent installation with Fresnels and it works very satisfayingly.

The larges front lighting sources will not creates hard shadows on your screen and this really make keying easyer.

Hope this help...
ken c wrote on 2/27/2005, 11:41 AM
Hi, thanks all (just getting back to the pc after a weekend in Denver, scouting hotels for upcoming seminars, so far I like Embassy Suites and Adams' Mark the best; any feedback re hotel meeting rooms that are good, anyone?) ...

Here's a few works I've recently done in ultra:

www.MegaSeminar.com
www.MegaSeminar.com/affiliates.htm

www.DaytradingUniversity.com
www.DaytradingUniversity.com/videotheater.htm

Best quality green cloth I've gotten is the felt via ebay seller www.eefx.com .. had been using jandkgroup (ebay) green cloth, the felt is much much better since more even. Just got some rosco chromakey green paint, will be painting a wall next, will let you know if that's good. So far though, the eefx.com felt cloth is superb, keys very well.

Lighting, got a JTB softbox from jandkgroup, it's made a huge difference, plus a spotlight w/barndoors, it's useful .. and I use a lot of 5K flourescents from home depot in various shop light formats for lighting..

hope that's helpful .. enjoy it -- ultra's a terrific tool..

agree re make sure to light the background separately (I have 6 lights on the key back alone) in addition to talent (which I use the softbox for), with a minimum 3 foot distance from talent to key cloth in back.

next challenge: figuring out how to light my feet to produce sharp keyable shadows like the MSL demo reels...

ken
Spot|DSE wrote on 2/27/2005, 11:48 AM
Ken,
If you wanna hit me offline, we've done many, many seminars in Denver, and I can give you some tips/pointers.
ken c wrote on 2/27/2005, 11:51 AM
Thanks Douglas, will do .. appreciate it.. it's my first time doing a seminar in Denver :p

30,000+ trained in hawaii/other places, but "never done Denver.."

ken
mjroddy wrote on 2/27/2005, 1:55 PM
DSE & Ken:
Sounds like that discussion would benefit us all. Wouuld you mind keeping it public here?
RexA wrote on 2/27/2005, 2:19 PM
> DSE & Ken:
>Sounds like that discussion would benefit us all. Wouuld you mind keeping it public here?

The offline discussion was about where to present classes in the Denver area. Is that what you think we would all benefit from?
Coursedesign wrote on 2/27/2005, 2:51 PM
The best green screen technology is a 4:2:2 camera, it makes it a lot easier :O)

For software, don't forget V4 of Discreet Combustion, due out next month, it will have the Diamond Keyer from flame, their Oscar-winning six figure post tool. And it's still less expensive than Ultimatte...

This lets you select 2-dimensional color ranges to key from a color space that looks like a CIE color chart. You can make for example a diamond-shaped election that often is the best way to pick only the colors that need to be keyed out while leaving the subject alone. For the most difficult cases (poorly shot DV), they have addditional tools on top of that.
mjroddy wrote on 2/27/2005, 3:41 PM
"The offline discussion was about where to present classes in the Denver area. Is that what you think we would all benefit from?"

Sorry. I misinterpreted. Thought they were taling about lightin. My oops.
the_learninator wrote on 2/27/2005, 3:56 PM
thanks folks......i dont need anything fancy. the best solution i think for me is to stick with the vegas chroma keyer....i was just fooling around with the settings.

i did a banquet and majority of the shoot was a guy speaking with a white background behind him so i changed hue/luminence to white and put an avi over top of that a bada boom bada bing sure enough it showed up on the white wall. it wasn't perfect but it was good considering i didn't use any green screen equipment.

so i think i'll buy me a green/blue screen and just use the chroma key because it looks like it can get the job done for me. basically i just need this for when i do documentaries or interviews i like to put some graphics in the background or something.

so im on my quest to find the cheapest by size green/blue screen! I want something that can atleast cover 2 full size men

ps: i didn't like the www.DaytradingUniversity.com vid as much as the other one for 2 reasons....when the people were giving their testimonials of ken you could hear a lot of conversation in the background...you might of been able to get that out through noise reduction plugin and im not a fan of those 3d backgrounds....looks kinda cheesy to me. I perfer making my own backgrounds. (although i do love the flying camera thing)