Live Green Screen/Chroma Key

TLMAlexGro

TLMAlexGro

I haven't been on here in so long that my password said it was 1080 days old! I haven't been able due to school/work/family to work on this hobby I love so much.

Anyway, I made a mistake. I told my brother that I could do a live green screen for a party for him coming up in two weeks. I have both PC and a Mac Mini with 10.3 on it. I bought a nice green screen and lights (plus the ones that were collecting dust). I had done a blue screen for my last project: Gay for Kucinich. No problem right?

Well I tried to set it up tonight and I realized that live green screen is much different than post production. There are some great programs out there for 10.4, but I'm running older software.

I'm up the creek and would love any guidance as to how I can accomplish this. Basically kids are going to dance in front of the green screen and I was going to give them out DVDs as party favors. I have two weeks so it's not totally last second, but in this case it feels like it.

I installed a firewire card in my PC tonight and I'm going to test with that tomorrow. Any help would be so greatly appreciated as to the best way I can do this. I stupidly figured there would just be a QuickTime or Imovie plug in for live green screen.

Thanks in advance!!!!!!
 
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I could be talking out of my butt, but I believe live broadcast green screen is totally different than post production software. I think it is expensive and can come in Avid, Pinnacle Liquid, or some other high end broadcast software. I'm not sure that there are any lower-mid range software you can use for this or if any post production software can even do that, but I could be wrong. Basically, I think you need to look at broadcast software.
 
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VLC can do live Green Screen Keying. However, I've never really tested it. Cinelerra on Linux would be another option.
Also have a look at http://www.arkaos.net/ and http://www.nagashare.com/PRODUCTS/VJdirector.html
And here are a bunch of other links to look at. Copied them from another forum:
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vjprgpix/compstn/compstn.htm
http://www.resolume.com/features/cameras.php
http://www.quasimondo.com/archives/000615.php
http://www.macnews.de/tagesthemen/W...escreen:+Wer+hat+hier+wen+beklaut?/78337.html [for MAC]
http://animatordv.wmmedia.com/
 
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I think setting up the shot is the most important thing. This may not be the best way to do it, but its worked everytime for me, here's how I set my screen up.

1) place the screen on a wall and if its fabric, pull it tight so that there are no edges perhaps with clamps.
2) set up 2 lights to light the screen, about 45 digrees off the centre on each side. Try to make sure that the lighting is even throughout the screen that way in post you'll be able to remove it easier
3) Decide where the subjectis going to be dancing, and mark it with tape. Just tell the dancers that the tape is where they should be approx. dancing.
4) You can setup a headlight for the talent to separate them from the background.
5) setup a key light 45 digrees to where the camera will be this light should have the largest intensity
6) You can setup a fill light or a card to bounce the light off from the key.
7) make sure there are no shawdows casted on the screen when the dancers are dancing usually a few feet away from the greenscreen
8) If the camera is moving you'll need to setup markers on the screen so you can track the camera's movement afterwards.
9) Once the footage is filmed and captured, you can remove the key in several ways
10) I use AE, but most software's remove it in a similar way. I will create a garbage mask around the dancers first, then using Keylight (or any chroma keyer) adjust the settings accordingly. In AE, if the screen is hard to remove, you might want to apply several instances of color key to remove the green first.
11) Once they are removed, you might have unpleasant edges, there should be some kind of plugin to get the edges to look better, in AE you can use "Simple matte choker" to shrink the edges.

I hope this helps.
 
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