The green screen video effect is amazing. You stand in front of a green background and press record on the video camera. Then, you drop the footage into your video editing software, select a new background, apply the chroma filter, and it’s instantly transported to a new location. You may be in a shiny new office, standing on a high–technological virtual stage, on the beach or even on the moon. At least, that’s how you imagine things will work out.
Too often, the first try with the green screen effect produces disappointing results. When you try to remove the green background in your editing software, you can’t get all the color to disappear. You play around with the settings to get more green to disappear and suddenly half of your shirt is gone. You make more and more adjustments until things look better. You have lost all the fine details around the edges, but the green is gone. But, when you hit play, the edges of your footage dance like lightning bolts. Go back and blend the edges until they turn to mush.
After hours of tweaking and tweaking, you’ve created a buggy green screen video.
Creating a bad green screen video is easy
The secret that most people who sell green screen video effect software and tools don’t tell you is that it’s really easy to create bad results. YouTube is littered with examples of horrible chroma videos. But there is another secret. It’s not much more difficult to produce great videos with chroma.
You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours of effort to create videos that you are proud to share with the world. One of the main keys to success is how you light up the screen.
The myth of big screen lighting
There is a big misconception about green screen video recording that comes from companies that sell lighting screens and kits. Search online and you’ll see an endless list of options to buy a kit that includes everything you need to shoot green screen video. The list of included items is always the same. You get a green muslin lampshade, a stand to hold the display, and three lights. You always get three lights, and that’s the problem.
For the best results from the process, you should illuminate the screen separately from the subject. An ideal green screen lighting kit includes five lights. Two lights are dedicated exclusively to illuminating the screen itself. The other three lights are used to illuminate the subject.
The best lights for your green screen
Even, flat lighting is the goal when illuminating a green screen. Any variation in brightness will make it difficult for your editing software to remove the background without losing edge detail. In a home office video studio, space is often at a premium, so you can afford to use large light boxes or place lights away from the screen. The easiest way to get good results is to use fluorescent or LED bench lights.
A bench light is nothing more than a large flat (usually rectangular) lamp. The professional versions just look like fancy fluorescent store lights placed on their side. In fact, you can make your own with inexpensive parts purchased at your local home center. There are a few things to keep in mind when making your own. But once you know what to buy, it’s easy to do.
LED bench lights are more expensive to buy, but they last forever, don’t have a glass tube to break, and can usually be dimmed to dial in the perfect amount of light.
Placing the lights
Illuminating the screen with bench lights is easy. You place a light on each side of the screen. The lights should be oriented vertically so that the light shines evenly from top to bottom. Adjust the angle and distance from the screen until the entire surface of your green screen is illuminated with a uniform level of brightness.
Once your screen is properly lit, you can use the other three lights that come with your kit to illuminate your subject. Make some critical adjustments to your camera settings and you’ll quickly shoot amazing green screen videos to share with the world.