How to begin using a green screen to make music videos with puppets?

February 20, 2022 9:26 AM

I have never used a green screen before. I'm reading stuff online but would love to hear what works for others.

Context:

I have puppets and I have recordings of me singing songs. I want to make the puppets do things in front of a "green screen" sync'ed to the music. I do not own a "green screen" yet. I have an iPad Pro. My songs are on GarageBand for iOS, & also in .mp3 form (I assume that doesn't matter). I tend to take videos with my Google Pixel 2XL phone and then put them into iMovie in the iPad for editing with the songs, but I can also set up the iPad to record the puppet videos directly into iMovie with the iPad's camera.

I would love to hear:

(1) recommendations for a green screen: how about a piece of green cardboard taped to something? Or do I need something fancier? any particular color green?

(2) what app would you recommend to do this? (for iOS - iPad Pro, a couple of years old).

(3) How do I get the backgrounds? do they come with whatever app I get? (I might want backgrounds of a medical exam room; a dining hall with older people, as would be in an assisted living facility; a park; a running track; or None of the Above, I'll work with what is given to me). Any copyright issues I should know about, re: these backgrounds, before I begin?

(4) How about "scale"? (adjusting the size/resolution/whatever to the size of the puppets - although I could go "surrealist" and not care about this, if I'm consistent within the video(?)).

(5) Any tips for how to make this easy-ish for a 71-year-old* vaguely new-app-phobic green screen newbie? I am not a professional (but I have, in the past 3 decades, learned some e.g. video editing, a little Photoshop, a little Ableton, been an online host for 3 decades, etc. But when I open a new app like, let's say, Procreate, I go into panic, hence this question.) OH! which reminds me! Is there a little course in Green Screen I should take? or is that overkill?

[*ageist remark! perhaps not relevant]

thanks

posted by DMelanogaster to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

My child does some green screen recording for his YouTube channel. We use a green fabric, pulled completely tight and smooth. I think you could use a painted board, but you want it to be a matte texture paint so it's not reflective, and use something very very smooth like foamcore rather than cardboard.

The lighting is pretty important. Even, diffused lighting across your green background so that the puppets do not cast shadows is the most essential thing. We use two studio lights set at 45° angles at the left and right sides of our stage area.

For backgrounds I would search stock photos/videos and only select the ones that have a license for use.
posted by xo at 9:33 AM on February 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Caveats: I've done this on a medium budget, with real people, a few years ago, and on a PC, not an iPad. I won't be able to help with specific software for iPad.

So, brightly light your green screen. Bright, evenly-illuminated green makes it easiest for the software. Set up your shooting space so shadows from your puppets (or anything else) are not falling on the green material. We used a tightly-stretched cloth purchased from Amazon as a green screen, but I agree that painted foamcore could work on a "puppet" scale.

The best thing is to have totally separate lights for the greenscreen and the talent, but that may not be possible in a DIY setup. Setting up your shooting space so that the distance between the talent and the screen is as large as possible helps keep lighting separate, and prevent green from the screen spilling onto your talent, which looks obviously "wrong."

Re: backdrops, I don't know what app you're using, but you can comp in basically any source (image, video, whatever) in the desktop software I've always used. Licensing is the same as for any other photo/video you might want to license. You can look for explicitly CC0/public domain works, or probably any of the CC licenses that allow commercial use and remixing/derivative works. Buying a license to some stock photography/video would be the easiest/most legally and ethically clear option.
posted by Alterscape at 9:38 AM on February 20, 2022

Most important thing is put your ipad on a mount to keep it STABLE. Not gooseneck, but desktop or floor tripod raised to the right level.

Green screen can be cardboard, but most cardboard have a bit of shine to it. That's why most people buy a kit that comes with a stand and the fabric. You MAY want both green and blue in case you want to show something with some green. Roll up the fabric and put away the stand when you don't need it.

You will also need good lighting, preferably matching the lighting in the background photo you plan to comp in. One of those old-fashioned desk "task light" should do nicely. Something you can pick up in Ikea or any office store for like $5-15.

Don't know about iPads, but if this was on a PC, I'd use the free NVIDIA Broadcast to add the background. :) Someone else can suggest iPad apps.
posted by kschang at 12:06 PM on February 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

My husband is a professional TV editor who also goofs around at home, and he uses a pop-up greenscreen because they don't wrinkle and are easy to move around, and because he's mostly using it to sit in front of (so not running around back and forth where he'd need significant real estate), and that's probably big enough for you to do any puppetry you want in front of. His is just clamped to some wire bookshelves so it doesn't move, and he does have lights on the back of his chair so the screen itself is brightly-lit and doesn't catch shadows of his head and shoulders from the lights he uses for his face.

Ultimately how green-screening works is that you use a color that is highly distinguishable from the stuff in front of it and then tell your video software what color should get replaced with your background image. That's why bad greenscreening often also backgrounds people's hair or clothing, if it's too close to the key color. These pop-up screens have green on one side and a bright blue (also a common chromakey color) on the other, that way if one of your puppets absolutely needs to be wearing bright green you can use the blue key color instead.

Most people either shoot their own backgrounds or use stock photography or video; it's free to make your own but there's some pretty budget-friendly stock stuff out there.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:31 PM on February 20, 2022

Good advice here, even lighting and a smooth blue/greenscreen are super important. Another thing to keep an eye out for is spill - which is when some of the light is bouncing off of your greenscreen onto your foreground elements, making parts of them look like they are lit with a green light. This makes it hard for your software to separate the foreground from the screen, and makes your foreground look weird and sickly. When setting up your lighting (and having separate lighting for the screen and the foreground is a really good idea) take a few pictures of your setup, and look carefully to see if any of the green light is visible on your puppets, and adjust your lighting until there's as little green on your puppets as possible. Here's a good illustration.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:04 PM on February 20, 2022 [2 favorites]