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You will want to light the Green Screen with a flat, even light.

Your talent and props should stand at least 5 feet from the Green Screen so that the green light bouncing from the screen does not fall on anything. (If you don’t do this, your trouble in eliminating any green spill in post production could be enormous.) Here are some more tips to help you avoid this.

1. Take your time and look carefully at a professional camera monitor before your shoot.
2. Make absolutely sure there are no green edges on any foreground element.
3. If any green is in the foreground, try to identify and flag off the offending light source or wash out the green with a stronger, more directional lighting source.

Needless to say, your talent should never wear green or other light colors which might reflect the surrounding green screen. This applies especially to below the waist.

A white shirt worn under a dark jacket is fine; however, white stockings, pants, shoes, or leggings are a major source of trouble. This is also true for highly reflective or bright, shiny surfaces such as jewelry, shiny shoes or transparent glass objects.

Your director of photography may solve a good deal of potential green spillage issues by simply using as little green screen as possible. However, many producers also aim for huge green screen soundstages, regardless of how much they need.

Every American Movie Company Green Screen Sound Stage NYC features black drapes which can partially or completely mask the cyc to avoid green spill or to achieve a total “blackout stage”.

To compensate for reflective spill, use side spill suppressor lights flanking the subject to warm up and wash out spill, which will give you a good, clean key.

Don’t neglect your green floor. If you are on a cyc and the floor is green, you may have green light reflected upward onto the talent. If the shot does not include the floor, simply throw down a few black sound blankets.

You need to take special care when reflected green light illuminates your subjects.

Fine blonde hair or transparent glass with liquid are very difficult to shoot. This is why we use modeling lights to illuminate talent.

Just be careful to separate your lighting. Certain lights should be designated exclusively for the green and nowhere else; certain lights should also be designated for foreground elements such as people, props, practical sets, etc.

Back light creates a soft halo effect on the subject’s hair and shoulders. It gives more definition and separation from the background, but isn’t necessarily great for compositing into a background scene where you need to match lighting. In that case, you could use fill lights to help ensure a smooth, even lighting.

The best way to increase the illusion that both the background image and foreground are part of the same reality is to “mix them”. One way of doing so is by placing an element from the background image into the foreground as a practical object. 

In an outdoor set, logical items might be a tree branch in the extreme foreground to match a tree in the background, or a vase with the same flowers we see in the background image.

This can become more difficult when you have to match background furniture with foreground furniture. One way to accomplish this it to shoot your own background material.

For example, if your green screen is set in a living room, photograph a real room and then take some of the actual elements from that room, such as lamps and chairs, into your studio as practical foreground elements.  This will easily sell the shot as more believable.

In our Green Screen Sound Stages NYC, we can provide everything you need for a successful Green Screen Composite:

• Experienced camera crew with Green Screen expertise
• Full HD & 4K post-production experts and Edit/VFX Suites
• Our cameras include: Alexa Mini, RED Dragon, FS7, Blackmagic 4k