Setting Up A Home Video Studio - Part 1: Greenscreen

Before I get started making new videos I need to sort out my studio, starting with the lighting and the green screen.

Here's a shot of my old setup:

The 'greenscreen' here is a green bed sheet stapled to some 2X4s, I have 4 lights, 2 of them classic Redheads at 32k color temp, and 2 CFL umbrella lights at 56K. The mismatched color temperature is a big no-no, but fortunately it threw a ton of light and I'm shooting on a really nice camera, so it actually turned out pretty well. Since I don't have such a nice camera anymore, I'm going to have to do a better job with the lighting and setup. 

The first thing I did was get some real studio chroma paint, that stuff was hard to source and cost an arm and a leg, but it's worth it for the even color and not having to worry about setting up sheets and frames etc. It uses a very pure green pigment and isn't mixed like store paints, so it turned out really well:

The second thing I did was get some proper matching LED panels with some softboxes, the softboxes diffuse the light making it softer, and I don't get the after image of a thousand tiny LEDs when I'm looking at the camera. I also got some adjustable ceiling mounts so I can fold them away, I guess I don't need the garage door with this anyway.

So with the lights folded down the first thing I need is to work out the light on the screen. I used an app on my phone called 'Green Screener' to get a read on how even the lighting is.

Not terrible, but not great. So now I'm going to get a light reading from my cheap knockoff light reader, it'll give me a baseline to see how much I've improved the light level in the end. I used to use this to check the light levels across the screen, but the Green Screener app made it redundant. At least I can use it now to see the change in brightness.

372, but even without that I can tell right way it's not enough light. So I added 2 cheap LED work lights I found at Costco for some bounced light. I also think the shrouds on the softboxes closest to the screen are directing the light too much, time to lose those.

Then a couple of LED panels to give it some light on the bottom:

Now lets check again.:

726, huge improvement!! And the screen looks way more evenly lit in Green Screener, think that's good to go!

Here's a view of what I see looking out, lots of lights!

Next, on to the audio...

You can also find this article and others at:

https://chrispatch.ca/getting-ready-to-rock-in-2018-part-1-lighting-the-greenscreen/