From the course: Green Screen Techniques for Video and Photography

Using a fabric backdrop

From the course: Green Screen Techniques for Video and Photography

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Using a fabric backdrop

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- We're standing in front of a fabric backdrop, which is a great for shooting green screen. This fabric backdrop is super portable, super light, and it's easy to transport. This fabric is what's called chroma green, which is a very specific green that's not found in nature. So, where you might be tempted to look for just any old off-the-shelf kind of green, this green is a certain pigment that's not found in human skin tone. So when you're keying it later in post-production, it's not going to remove any of the green, and you won't have any issues with the skin tone, or looking strange when you're working with it. So it's a great choice to go with the chroma green. Couple of characteristics here, obviously, we have... This is just the fabric itself, we have a crossbar that the fabric is hanging from, and then we have two stands that are supporting it. This fabric backdrop is a little bit spongey, which means that it's not going to show wrinkles, or anything like that, as opposed to muslin, which you might have to iron or steam out. So when you open up the fabric, it's not going to have any creases, any wrinkles as you set it up. You'll notice here that the screen is pulled tight, so we've got a couple of pony clamps, right here on the left and right side, and that helps reduce the number of creases, any wrinkles or droops in the fabric, so having a couple of pony clamps in you kit, always a good thing. So keeping the fabric nice and tight is going to help you get that even key when you set up your lights. One of the things you might notice as you are looking at this piece of fabric is there's a small seam right here, down the center. That is no cause for concern, most fabrics have seam because they're a couple pieces of fabric together. In this case, the keyers are sensitive enough not to have to worry about the seams. Once this is lit with lights, the seam will disappear and it will go right away when you're trying to key it in post-production. As you can see standing next to me, it's perfect for putting either just a single person, or maybe a couple people if you have to have a couple people on camera. So, fabric backdrops, great choice for green screen.

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