Back Lit Greenscreen

[Guest Christopher Wedding]

Anyone know of a rear lit green screen material?

[robert duke]

Anyone know of a rear lit green screen material?

 

Try taking a silk and lighting it using a green gelled soft light.

[Guest Christopher Wedding]

Robert, that's a great idea. Let me elaborate.

 

These guys want to shoot day for night in an apartment.

There are four 3x6 windows along a far wall that the

director want to put a city scape on later. However,

the room itself needs to feel dark. The solutions I

came up with was to either find a backlit green screen

material or a translight. However, I think they've ruled

out a translight. I guess I could gel the windows green

and then silk it. But it definetly worries me since I can't

do a test first.

 

Anyone else heard of back lit green screen material?

[Michael Nash]

If it's day for night, why do you need to backlight the greenscreen material? Use a solid green material and front light it, as there wouldn't be any light coming in through the windows at night (certainly not green light, anyway). Don't make it more difficult than it has to be! ;)

[Guest Christopher Wedding]

Hmmm, I agree that the backlit idea is not ideal. But my worry is how to hide the lights since it's on location and the actor walks through the space by the windows. There are some beams above...would four source fours be the way to go? I wish I had the pics to post, clearly it would make things easier.

 

It's a huge loft and I'll be hand held behind a character hiding in the shadows. He watches the other guy walk across the space from left

to right and into the kitchen. The apartment is supposed to be very dark and high contrast. I worried that with all of the lighter colored set dressing introducing those other units would really ruin the mood or that the guy will cross the lights as he walks.

 

I'll try to post a picture of the space later today.

 

Cheers,

Chris

[Zamir Merali]

Why not use a back lit blue screen because it seems more likely that blue light would be coming through the window at night rather than green.

[Michael Nash]

Why not use a back lit blue screen because it seems more likely that blue light would be coming through the window at night rather than green.

 

But any color spill would cause a problem for keying.

 

Chris: The green screen doesn't have to be lit to "key" level; in fact quite a bit underexposed is actually okay. It just depends how dark you want the walls to be. Sometimes the ambient light on set is enough.

 

You would probably have just as much trouble keeping a backlit greenscreen the proper level, as the outside daylight level changes throughout the day.

[Guest Christopher Wedding]

Thanks guys! I'll be talking to our VFX guys today and see what they say.