Room size for Green Screen

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Idioteque

Hello everyone. I'm kinda new here. Hopefully not for long.

But on to my question. I'm looking to set up a green screen in my basement for a drug-trip out effects for a scene in our adaptation of A Million Little Pieces. However, I don't have the best camera in the world, and although the room is about 14 x 25 feet, the camera zooms in too far to even see the entire wall from the other wall. Is the answer a different camera or a bigger room?
 
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I authored and sell a plug-in for chroma-keying, so I have lots of experience shooting in small rooms, outside, large rooms, etc., for testing and for projects. 14x25 is large enough (hopefully you have at least an 8 foot ceiling). If I understand you correctly, you can't get back far enough to get a wide enough shot? Generally you don't need a really wide shot, as you can scale your green screened subject down to fit in the wider background shot.

Could you explain a little more about what you're trying to do? Maybe you're trying too hard! ;)

Doug
 
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lol. What I meant was that if I was to film the green screen, my camera would only be able to record just the head of my subject because the camera is zoomed in so far, even though I'm recording from the other side of the room. Maybe it's because my camera lens is so small. I'm looking to record scenes with several people, not just their faces either.
 
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Noah is right, of course, but you have plenty of room for a single person shot. It may not be ideal, but you should be able to get a full body shot from 15 feet away, which leaves you 8 feet to separate your subject from the screen and 2 more to get behind your camera. If your camera lens is that limited, I'm betting you may have a serious problem keying the video, anyway. You can't have too good of a camera for chroma-keying. Any loss of image quality, or chromatic distortion will only add to the problems you'd have keying low chroma video under the best of circumstances with 3 CCDs and a high quality lens.

If you can, borrow a really good camera; even if the owner wants to come with it, just for this shot. You won't regret it. Make sure you go over the checklist again and again ... lighting, focus, white balance, lighting, white balance, white balance ... I've done some great greenscreen shots, but they didn't happen by accident, and I've messed up more than I care to mention.
 
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