[dylan604]

The sad thing about this is the problems encountered during post from the production team saying "fix it post" during the shoot. I've been on set for green screen shoots where the lighting was not done properly. I watched the gaffer walk across the set taking readings from his meter before saying the lighting was good. I flip on the waveform and told him it was not even (which never goes down well when camera dept tells the gaffer it's not right). He put up an argument, went back and took measurements again before repeating it was good. I flipped the screen around and showed him where it was obviously not even. A third set of meter readings and he starts adjust lights. Once the footage was in post, the fx team commented about how easy the keys were because of the even lighting.

The problem is that the vast majority of people on set have no clue what is going on in post. To the point, when the budget is big enough, a post supervisor is present on production days to give input so "fixing it in post" is minimized. When there is no budget, you'll see situations just like in the first 30 seconds of TFA's video. A single lamp lighting the background so you can easily see the light falling off and the shadows from wrinkles where the screen was just pulled out of the bag 10 minutes before shooting. People just don't realize how much light a green screen takes. They also fail to have enough space so they can pull the talent far enough off the wall to avoid the green reflecting back onto the talent's skin.

TL;DR They solved something to make post less expensive because they cut corners during production.

[weinzierl]

I fully agree but I think for them making it possible to cut corners during production is the whole point. Think about it: The choice is between 5 minutes of work plus a one time purchase of a decent GPU and a big room with a complex lighting setup with a post supervisor present. Now, quality of the end result will not be the same, for sure. You and me would opt for the quality setup whenever we can, but many others won't.

[dylan604]

If you're on such a low production budget that you just physically do not have the lamps to light a screen, then you really have to ask if green screen is the right option. Maybe flip it and shoot black limbo so you do not need lights, and the lights you do have can be better used as key lights for separation. You also don't have to worry about the color cast from your light screen. Essentially, you just need a garbage matte for the key, and then clean up what might be getting keyed that you don't actually need. Detecting foreground subject from background is so capable now that a screen isn't necessary, and matte clean up is pretty much unnecessary. Of course you lose street cred of not being able to say you used green screen, but who cares as long as the shot works out.

[bonoboTP]

Sometimes the cost is human expertise. If the tech allows you to get stuff done with less competent staff, it's a win.

[CharlesW]

> TL;DR They solved something to make post less expensive because they cut corners during production.

FWIW having watched the entire thing, they never blamed bad production staff or unavoidable constraints. Those are things that anyone working with others experiences when making anything, whether it's YouTube videos or enterprise software products. My TLDR is: "Chroma keying is an fragile and imperfect art at best, and can become a clusterf#@k for any number of reasons. CorridorKey can automatically create world-class chroma keys even for some of the most traditionally-challenging scenarios."

[dgently7]

didnt dune win a vfx oscar and their screens werent even green at all? they were tan like sand.

[plastic3169]

Yes and it was a massive manual effort. In a way they acknowledged that keying does not really work all the way and having that unnatural color everywhere in the set is not worth it. It’s a massive production with heavy VFX work so not something you can apply to your own production. Sand screen and roto sections of this discussion are interesting.

https://youtu.be/UARrOsNPviA

[fsniper]

A question, is it possible to use self illuminated (back lighting maybe?) green screens?

[bbstats]

their green screen is good. that has nothing to do with this video.

[bbstats]

... did you watch the video?