Author: Pieter de Vries

The green screen should be set at around 3 meters from the subject and the larger the screen the better. Try to not compromise on this distance from the subject, even if it means choosing another location. 

This gives you separation from the screen and reduces the amount of green reflecting off the screen and onto the back of your subjects. This green contamination is a real no-no.

Light your screen separately. Lowel Tota-Lites are good for this however KinoFlos or Lowel Caselights are also very good. I position one to each side and run them through a dimmer to control the output. The plan is to get an even spread on the screen with each of the lights washing out any creases in the fabric if that's what you are using. Lighting the screen so that it's one stop darker than the subject is a good rule of thumb.

Once you are happy, light your subject separately using all the modelling with the light and shade that you would normally use. Keep in mind that strong back-light on the hair and shoulders can exaggerate the fact that’s it is a green screen shot when the final composite is done. When you have finish lighting the screen, turn off the lamps lighting your subject so you can check to see if any green is reflecting back onto the backs of the subject. A small amount of back lighting will generally take care of this problem. It's important to make sure that there is no reflected green from the screen falling on the back of your subject – if there is, it will come back to haunt you as the production manager coughs up the extra dollars for the editor to clean up the problems.

Even lighting

As an on-camera light, the Lite-Panel LED is hard to go past. The ability to trim the brightness for any given lighting situation is important and this light allows you to do that. The daylight balanced 50 degree model works best as an on-camera light in my experience.

Use a piece of CTO correction gel for the tungsten lighting situations but you will loose some output as you'd expect. It's perfect for a night shoot inside a car and the wider beam of the two is more versatile.

Rosco LitePads also work nicely and have the ability to fix any lighting holes; those places where you find hard hide a light. Interior scenes in vehicles at night are nicely taken care of with LitePads along with so many other potentially tricky situations. These are my favourite light because of the different shapes and sizes that are available.

The great thing is that when you use it, nothing feels lit. It just appears like you've gotten lucky with soft natural available light every where you point the camera and we all know life's not really like that. It's the balance of light's output on the subject compared to the background that's the key to making it work.

As long as you can get the light reasonably close to your subject, remembering that if it’s a daytime exterior interview it’s a little harder to fill; the ambient daylight level will probably be quite high in the first place. The small on-camera light panel is even good used as a key light in low ambient light situations. It’s in the great sunny outdoors that you find there is not sufficient output.

I’d go for the wider beam version. It performs better as an all round camera light, but you'll have to power it from a separate battery (9v to 19v) in say a waist bag, as the battery provided clips onto the back of the light and makes the camera far too top heavy. It's no Sun-Gun, but a beautifully subtle lighting tool for video.

© 2013 Pieter de Vries ACS

Photographic tripods consist of two primary parts – a tripod and a fluid head, however it is common to refer to the whole unit as a tripod or a tripod system. 

To get precision pans and tilts, you have to take the time to balance the camera once it is mounted on the fluid head. Australian manufacturer Miller Camera Support design and build a broad range of tripod systems so I will discuss the Miller DS10 Carbon Fibre system here.