GREEN SCREEN TUTORIAL

The purpose of this tutorial is to give you a better understanding of the proper techniques to remove a green/blue screen from your shot for video production. I have received many questions on the subject matter and feel that this tutorial is the best way to explain how to do this properly. Above is a recent video I did for an amazing performing artist "A Guy Named Joe Leavy". Please feel free to check out  at his music @ www.joeleavy.com

Here is a list of items you will need.
 1) A green/blue screen or chroma key green or blue paint.
 2) At least four lights with 5600k daylight bulbs.
 3) Diffusers to help spread the light through your shot such as a semi-transparent thin white silk cloth.
 4) A camera with lenses.
 5) A tape measure.
 7) Masking Tape
 8) A lapel or shotgun mic and audio recorder.
 9) Adobe Premiere CC

Hang your green screen using thumb tacks or a stand behind your subject. Make sure that you have adequate space in the room. Take two lights and position them at each side of the green screen. You do not want the lights to point directly onto the green screen because this will cause the lighting on your screen to be uneven. Use the Silk cloth to diffuse the light hitting the green screen by hanging it in front of the light. Warning do not let the material touch hot light bulbs this could cause a fire and never leave your lighting on unattended. Adjust the light until you have even light across the whole screen use your camera to reference your shot. Use the tape measure to measure 7 feet from the green screen, use masking tape to mark an X or use a chair as a marker. Position the other two lights on each side of your subject, again do not point the lights directly on your subject to avoid hard uneven lighting. Have your subject stand on their mark and adjust the lighting accordingly referencing your shot in your camera. Your camera's distance from your subject will vary greatly depending on the type of lens being used compose your shot accordingly. Depending on the situation lapel mics are a great way to get good audio for your production. Another option to record high-quality audio is to use a shotgun microphone. position your mic as closely to your subject as possible,  just out of the frame of your camera and aimed at your subjects mouth.  Now that you have the basic idea of your setup let's move on to post editing. Below is a diagram for reference.

Above we have a shot of our subject and the shotgun microphone to the left. Look closely at the green screen in the background notice that the screen is evenly lit across the whole shot. This is extremely important to get a very nice clean key out of your background.

To start let's color correct and roughly grade our subject. This will keep the background from changing colors after we key it out which would cause our key to fail. A failed key will show little remnants of the screen in the shot. This can also happen if your screen is not evenly lit.

Next let mask out the microphone from our shot. First under the effects controls tab click the arrow on the opacity tab. In that tab you will see a pen tool, click on the pen tool and go to the video preview and Trace around your subject. Be careful to check throughout your footage and make sure that your subject does not move out of the mask. If your subject is moving out of the mask simply grab one of the nodes (NODES: The little dots that allow you to adjust the area that you have selected to be your mask.) and move the node until it is clear of your subject. At this point I would suggest adding your top and bottom crop bars if you are using them so that you are able to just your subject up or down as needed.

Go to your effects tab and type in Ultra key and drag the ultra key on to your video clips. Select the arrow on the UltraKey Tab under the effects controls and click on the dropper tool then click on the background of your video. You should see the green screen in your video disappear and a black background will remain. Use the various adjustments under the ultra key tab to fine-tune the edge of your subject so that no other green appears in the video.

Locate or create an image to use as your background place the background image underneath all of your video clips that have green screen thus making the subject appear as if they were in that location.

Select the motion tab and adjust your subject from right to left until they are placed where you want them.

That's it your ready for your dialogue audio and background music. Render the video in your preferred format and you're done here is a sample of the finished product.