Randy,

Is there any way you can do this shoot again? The reason I'm asking is because it is generally better to have good footage to work with than to try and fix it after the fact. There are some serious lighting issues here: It's way too dark (both foreground and background), there is light shining on their foreheads, there are shadows on the female's neck.

Here's the "key" to this (and no I'm not an expert but this has worked very, very well for me).

1) The most important thing is to light the background completely and totally separately from the foreground.
2) For the subject:
- Have a softbox at about a 25 degree angle on one side and have it set to around 1200 watts.
- On the other side have the softbox at about a 45 degree angle but only 600 watts.
- You should also use a hairlight which comes from the back and is high above the subject's head. Use barn doors, etc. to direct the light and something to diffuse the light.
- You can also use powder on the subject's forehead to help cut down on glare.
3) The background must be well lit from both sides. Do not let the light from this spill into the subject area. Just make sure there are no shadows.
4) Make sure the subject is 9-10' away from the green. You did this so you're good in this regard.

Best of luck to you.

It's not that dark on a TV but I did brighten it up using gamma and gain in Color Corrector (the guys in this forum say using the brightness/contrast is a no-no) to where it looked good on my external monitor.
I also saturated the colors and a host of other things.
I don't think a still will show a problem as it's pretty good unless they move.
Thanks,
Randy

i'd say reshoot it too. best I could do:
in vegas: http://img228.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image1ul6.png[/link]
in cinegobs: http://img171.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image2ts3.png[/link]

Sorry I had to go create an account at a site because mine is down until Monday.
This is a still after I added a touch of gamma,gain, and saturation....surely it is workable no???
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30449218@N05/2853727131/#preview

Not sure how clean it can get, but i played around with tha dv file and used the histogram with sony levels input end slider set at around600 to 650, then played with the thresholds on the keyer .this helped a lot but still spilling some green on his neck,
DV and keying quite often = bad weatherman.
Good luck hope this helps a little

I played with this in Vegas and Final Cut. The image is entirely too dark to start with, and there is little chroma in the green to key. DV AVIs are not the best for chroma key anyway because of the color space. I would say you need to "effect" the video in some way and hide that you wanted to a do a chroma key and use an over the shoulder effect instead.

Here is my attempt if you are interested.

http://www.onecompanyway.com/davet2/
www.onecompanyway.com/davet2/
Dave T2

from dave's post I went nuts on the clip with the color corrector & think I got a much better key then last time:
with solid color background: http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image4we7.png[/link]

with footage in back: http://img520.imageshack.us/my.php?image=image3ul4.png[/link]

I used a combo of color corrector, key, two vid layers & a track color curves. the only part I can't seem to fix is the green hue around parts of the people.

vegas 8c project: http://sterlingshield.net/home/steve/vegassite/chromakey_2.veg

basically, I made one copy of the clip a mask by blowing everything out as much as possible. Since the people were wearing non-green anything I just make them as dark as possible while the green as bright as possible.

Randy, I agree reshoot.

May I suggest a softbox for the talent to lighten up the shadows under
their necks. Having a round face too we don't want to emphasize that with too
much shadows. If your key lights are 250 W then I would not use more than
half that power (125w or less or use ND gels or a scrim as needed).
Place near camera but opposite direction they look.

The green is actually kinda dark. Highlighter green is better as long as not
too yellow as will interfere with most skin tones. If this is only screen you have
try using a yellow or CTO gel.

The sides are a problem as talent goes beyond the edge so a garbage matte
would be hard. Tighten the shot a little unless the keyed background is
important.

ALSO: if your camera is locked down, have talent leave and get a shot of
screen only. Look for "difference key" in this forum as a safety net.

HappyFriar,

I'm seeing horrid blocking around the talent in that project???

Randy,

I've tried Vegas, Keylight, dvmatte pro and Cinegobs. This footage just won't key properly.

I'm not sure if your background is a chroma green fabric but it's only reading about 20 ire on the waveform. WAY less than it should - usually you can correct this to a degree using the Aav6cc color corrector plug in and over saturating the green to bring it up to keyable levels. Too dark.

The lighting of the talent is not perfect but very fixable in post if the green screen was lit better. It's just way too dark. Even zebras say you're light is even but it's still very underexposed for the type of shot you need.

If it were me, I'd light the screen with the Frezzi's and light the talent with the softboxes. In most cases your talent should be a stop to stop and a half hotter than the background.

Because this is DV also, it's just not going to look right. If a reshoot is possible, I'd highly suggest it - bring a laptop with Vegas, pre-light your screen before talent arrives, capture a few seconds to Vegas and pull a test key, keeping waveform at 60 - 70 ire if you can. You'll have a green that will key in Vegas very well.

Then bring talent in and light them.

Other than that, not sure what can be done to save it. Which I was more help.

cheno

I'm seeing horrid blocking around the talent in that project???

yup. it's ~1/2 transparent though, that's why I threw it over some vid I had laying on a drive. A bright color makes it look like crap, motion in the background makes it a lot harder to notice. I just notice the green then. also looks like it's mostly on the guy. you can adjust the mask plugin settings to help block him out a little more & blur, but then the green pops in @ the outlines.

Okay - wanted to make sure it's wasn't me only seeing it ;)

As for green spill on outlines - I'll create a mask layer on top and then desaturate the green on the bottom layer - turns green spill to grey like most keyers.

cinegobs looked better imho but is a harder key to use, plus you need to render an output to put in to vegas. (http://www.cinegobs.com).

but you've got more options & can still use all of vegas's tricks once you get it in there.

I've tried using Keylight on the previous "Please help me key this" post. You endup chasing your tail. It seems to me that the better keyers can make what would have been a good key in Vegas a perfect key. However if you're having major grief with it with Vegas's basic keyer nothing will save the day.

Bob.

Ohhhhh...now I see....you're all saying it's underexposed!!!! (just kidding)
Cheno said:
bring a laptop with Vegas, pre-light your screen before talent arrives, capture a few seconds to Vegas and pull a test key, keeping waveform at 60 - 70 ire if you can. You'll have a green that will key in Vegas very well.

Believe it or not I have been complimented a lot on my lighting for some TV and corporate work I've done...I have learned the hard way that greenscreening is a different animal requiring much more than just aesthetics.
Although this was a bit of a rush job I think my most ignorant mistake was to not do a test shoot but I thought I had all the rules covered (that I had read prior to now) and if there was a problem it could be fixed.
Had I read "keeping waveform at 60 - 70 ire if you can." I don't think I would have this problem as i would have had a reference point to adjust accordingly (the most comprehensive tut I had read was that the subject should be a little hotter than the screen). I set my exposure to not have any zebras whatsoever (even jewelry) thinking I might have some kind of weirdness later (and would be able to compensate with a little gamma/gain in post).
Also, thank you all for not pointing out how horrible the lighting on the talent is (I'm sure it was tempting).
My biggest concern at the time was to not let any of the 2 light sources spill into the other and couldn't get a fill on the talent that wouldn't do that within the time constraints.
I will definitely copy/paste some of these suggestions into a word document for future reference....and ummmm....do a test shoot.
That said, I will let the talent know and see if we can do a (free) reshoot.
Now if I can just explain the problem without sounding like a total moron!!!
Anyway thank you very much everyone, you have truly enlightened me.

Randy

"That said, I will let the talent know and see if we can do a (free) reshoot.
Now if I can just explain the problem without sounding like a total moron!!!"

How about:

"I had equipment difficulties that would not have presented you in the best light.
It is our policy to make sure you are pleased with the final result, therfore I
would like to schedule a re-shoot..."

something I had to use a few years ago.

The equipment difficulties being my brain I went ahead and told them the truth (including how you guys were able to tell me what I did wrong).
I emailed them a sample with a background and we'll see what they want to do.
I am hoping for a re-shoot as inconvenient as it would be.
Thanks R,
Randy

I didn't have that much trouble pulling a key from this in Vegas. It could use some spill suppression and the lighting on the talent needs to match the background you use, but I have seen much worse.

Video http://amediaprof.com/trans/CCTESTkk.mp4

Veg. http://amediaprof.com/trans/CCTESTkkveg.veg