Introduction to Green Screens and Virtual Sets

This video is an introduction to what you can expect to learn about green screen and virtual set productions.  Paul discusses the software and skills you will need to complete this course.

7 Green Screen Tips for a perfect picture

1. The Green Screen itself!

1. Background should not reflect light! Reflections change the shades of green. Ideally it should be a flat color and evenly lit.

2. Diffusing lighting is ideal! Be careful for reflections of light

2. Location of green screen and camera

1. Average 2’ off of the ground for green

1. Stand up would be all the way to the ground

2. Ideally green screen will be 4’ behind you to remove shadows and issues

3. Camera location - Sitting at least 3-4’ away from the camera to avoid lighting issues

3. Lighting should be even.

1. Perhaps the most critical aspect of a good green screen layout

2. Watch out for lighting that is only down facing. Try adding light directed toward your subject and green screens

3. LEDs today can provide wonderful light spectrums and colors

4. Diffused lighting is best. Be careful for lighting that

4. Camera Tuning

1. Start with a perfect white balance

2. Hue is perhaps the most powerful tool for removing stray pixels in your virtual background

3. Use focus to make your talent in focus and allow the green screen to be out of focus

5. Adjust your software settings

1. Once you have done your best to set up all the physical aspects of your green screen use software settings as a final tuning process

6. When all else fails try darker background image or video to hide stray pixels

7. Optimize your image

1. Crop out edges you don’t need

2. But leave plenty of room for your arms to stretch out… You don’t want your arms getting cut off during your presentation!

Extra Content:

Intro:

Adding a green screen to your webinar can take your talent anywhere they need to go. Live streaming and webinar technologies are so easy and affordable, it’s worth looking into a few simple additions to your workflow that can increase the professionalism of your videos. In this eBook, we will review how you can easily use today’s technology to add a green screen which can transform our message and presentations just like the professionals on TV! Simple additions such as lower thirds, virtual sets and video overlays can make your next webinar at hit viewers will want to share on social media and keep coming back for more!

What you can do with a green screen

When I refer to “talent” I am talking about the person or people who are hosting your live stream / webinar. The talent video input is perhaps the most important element to your live stream. You want to make sure you have ideal lighting on your subjects and make sure the green screen you purchase allows your talent enough room to make their planned presentation.

Green screens allow you to take your talent layer and put them almost anywhere in the world including virtual sets which we will talk about in detail in this eBook. When you are choosing a virtual set for 1-2 people at 10’x10’ size should cover both subjects when they are sitting at a table. Most green screens come with a tripod system which allows the green screen to drape behind your talent. It is important to get a good camera view of your talent ideally 12-16 feet away and zoomed in to crop out all non-green surfaces (you can also do cropping digitally).

Once you have a good camera shot of your talent with the green screen backdrop you can start to add your chroma-key. You may find that your chroma-key works perfectly digital, or you may need to add additional light to the green screen to even the shading. Either way once your chroma-key has been tweaked you can start overlaying your talent video layer over various backgrounds, videos and virtual sets.

Backgrounds, videos and virtual sets

Now the fun begins. What background will work best for our next webinar? Virtual Sets are the most diverse and flexible backgrounds because they allow you to place the talent in front of a ideal background and behind a ideal foreground. For example you might place your talent at a in front of a modern lobby with a modern desk in front of them. There are many version of virtual sets that can place your talent in almost any background/foreground combination for a seamless transportation to the ideal scenery for your next webinar. PTZOptics has 19 free virtual sets that we offer with our cameras for free which are focused on providing industry specific scenes such as: Classrooms, Conference Rooms, Modern Office Spaces, Houses of Worship, Inspirational Scenes and more.

Virtual Sets are easy to use and customize. Some virtual sets even include a virtual LCD monitor / additional input space content. Therefore you can have your talent in the modern lobby and their PowerPoint in a LCD. This is very popular in modern television for broadcast where a LCD TV or Pop-Up box is included with supporting content for the talent. These layers can easily be controlled in software such as vMix which simply provides a drop down menu for selectable inputs. Personally I like to connect my iPad to a virtual LCD and use annotation to make my point more clearly. You can also use a “merge” effect to pull a intro video into a virtual LCD at the beginning of your webinar.

Using backgrounds and videos are easier than virtual sets. You can simply overlay your chroma-key talent layer over a picture or video set on loop to provide a simply clean background. This is ideal for removing any potentially distracting or simply boring content from behind your talent. There are various “room animations” you can use to place your talent in front of a scenic background with a little movement. There are busy city backgrounds, quiet retreats and even animated rooms which feature floors/ceilings with realistic light rays and more…