In the old days, a chromakeyer wasn't digital and it couldn't tell the difference betweeen one shade of blue and one close to it. We had a special paint, called "ChromaKey Blue" which was very expensive (but,when you sell something to broadcasters, its normal to over charge)but had specific hue and reflective properties that improved the analog keyer's discrimination.

Today, digital chromakeyers can differentiate between very similar colors.

One suggestion, consider the subject in front of the keying screen. The reason blue and green are so popular is those colors are not very likely to be part of the human flesh color. Blue was almost the "standard" until Walter Cronkite sat down in front of the "CBS Evening News" set and engineers discovered his blue eyes were keying out, making him look like Little Orphan Annie. They switched to green.

Another important thing to consider is the lighting. The keying screen must be illuminated very flat. Any shadows can affect the key and cause "crawl" in some cases. In broadcast stations, UltiMat and NewsMat are very popular downstream digital chromakeyers. These allow shadows to exist without messing up the key signal. Watch your local weather guy, if his arms cast a shadow on the keying screen, and the keyed imaged appears in the shadow at a lower video level, that's probably what they're using.

Just an FYI from and old tv guy.

Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. Is Vegas good at this function or should I use something like Ultimatte or one of the programs you listed?

Best Wishes,
Scott

Is it any good at chromakeying?
I think it is very good.

Another good tip:

When using a blue screen, backlight the subject with a yellowish backlight (the opposite of blue) to minimize the blue cast on the subject and reduce tearing.

Ultimatt and Newsmatt are pieces of (very expensive) broadcast hardware. I think SF Vegas Video's is excellent and will serve you well provided the basic precautions are taken, as others here have suggested.

And I'll reinterate it again: FLAT LIGHTING is very important. If you use a good quality light meter, the needle should stay pretty much in one place as you walk past the chromakey cyc (background). In broadcasting, 99% of the problems of a good, quiet transparent key stem from the lighting. The other 1% is the idiot talent who doesn't dress correctly for television.

If you can possibly get your talent to wear a silver lame jumpsuit...

Everyone is giving good advice. Use a color that is not going to be on your talent. Pray they aren't bald with thick glasses. Have them stand far enough in front of the backdrop and use soft backlights so the diffusion is reflected in their skin. I've seen rentable cloth backdrops that are blue on one side and green on the other. As long as it doesn't have big stains it should work.

If you have a meter or a waveform monitor they can help get the backdrop right. But if you have a waveform monitor then you already know what it's good for. Otherwise, a spot meter is handy because you won't have to get up and walk over to the backdrop.

Maybe Vegas will let you do garbage mattes. These are just hard mattes that don't need keying. The only spots you have to key out are those the talent moves through. The rest can be done by the mattes.

And remember, get the biggest room you can to work in. Kick everyone out of the cafeteria.

Rob

I've found something that works pretty well for a background to key out....
an LCD projector with no source - most of them shoot out a very bright blue when you have no source plugged in (ie computer, vcr, etc). Shoot that onto a large screen that you would normally use for projecting, and put your talent 15 feet in front of it. Of course, normal lighting issue come into play for the talent, but you won't need to worry about lighting your backdrop. that is, if you have an LCD projector available to you. If not, it's not worth the several thousand bucks to buy one just for that! :) who knows - an actual chromakey backdrop might work better, but i don't have one, and the LCD has gotten me through a project already.

Just my 2 cents.

jamie

Well all you really need is a cinemaphotography type light meter. You walk past the cyc, watching the display, and it shouldn't diviate very much one way or the other, steady in other words.

A lot of the suggestions I offer may seem like over-kill, but I come from a broadcast background where being anal retinative is pretty much the norm. So, I can't help it.

I've never used the ckey in VV3, and for all I know you may be able to not be as picky with the lighting as I have stressed. I only know the problems we've had to deal with in broadcasting, including the talent's wardrobe, hair style, etc.

We had one newscaster who was so vein she would not wear corrective lenses or contact lenses, so we had to truck the camera in to within 3 feet of her head so she could read the damn teleprompter. The depth of field goes to crap at that point. Prima donnas...tv is full of 'em.

You should read the topic "blue screen backdrop", which has been active the past few days. There is discussion of how DV is actually a BAD format to do chroma-keying in, if indeed that is what you are using.