Digital News: Green Screen Workshop & Test Shoot 2

We recently had a green screen workshop in the studio, to help us learn how to set up and then use a green screen.

GREEN SCREEN WORKSHOP

We started the workshop by watching one of the groups set the green screen up. To do this they attached the green screen to two C-Stands, and then raised the C-Stands so the green screen could stand up high enough for someone to stand in front of it.

Next they began to set up the lighting. When using a green screen, it is important that the screen is has a balanced amount of light on it, otherwise it will be difficult to edit out the background. To do this they used to white LED lights on the green screen, one on each side. They then used one LED light to light the talent.

I volunteered to stand in as a presenter whilst they tested the green screen, and the autocue. They had to mess around with a few settings on the camera, and the lighting, before they could begin as I was looking a little purple on screen. Once they had done this, we recorded a few test shots using a pre-loaded script on the autocue.

The green screen set up

Before my group (Nisserin, Ida, Becca) could use the green screen, we had to learn to set up the autocue. Sam ran the group through the process, showing us how to attach it to the tripod, and how to attach it to the camera. Once this was done, we uploaded our script to the autocue, and filmed a few test shots.

Filming in front of the green screen

Once we had finished filming the test shots, we used After Effects to replace the background with our pre-rendered studio background, below is a before and after:

Overall we were very happy with how the green screen footage came out in the edit. It was a very clean shot and it wasn't difficult to delete the background. If we can replicate this set up during our real shoot, we should be fine.