How to get a flawless greenscreen shoot in a tiny room

A lot of people say they have a hard time making video because they just don't have the space. It's like some meteor came down out of the sky and exploded in their 300-square-foot Manhattan apartment. And this just won't do for an image-conscious audience, or one that's hypersensitive to misperception, or, God forbid, both, which pretty much describes almost all of my clients and customers. How about yours? So what if you could make all of this irrelevant, all of this background noise? What would that do to support the kind of stories you want to tell, support your brand? So let's find out. Let's look into this and discover exactly how to turn this liability into an asset. Hi, I'm Steve Washer with BrainyVideo.com, and welcome to The Background. Actually, this is one of the most popular ways that people do videos. They get an idea to make a video, they don't really think about what's around them, and they just start shooting. And the problem is, it doesn't necessarily support their message. For instance, this particular room is one in our house that we kind of like. It's sort of a combination bookstore-coffee shop. But on camera, it looks a little bit more like, you know, an episode of Hoarders. And that's not really going to support anyone's message. And so, even when people become conscious of this problem sometimes, what they do is just take a blanket, maybe, you know, throw it over the chandelier, throw it over some things in the background. But all that does in the end, really, is point out the fact that they're not really dealing with the problem. But, well, that is one thing you can do. The other thing that you can do is get a full-frame DSLR camera with a fancy-schmancy lens and just put the entire background out of focus. Works for me. In order to do that in a room that's 10x10, 10x11, you'll need a full-frame sensor type DSLR camera. That will run about $2,500. And the fixed cine lens, at least another $600. The one that I'm using is stationed like 42 miles down the road. I can barely see it from here. I think it's going to have to turn in an expense report for a travel day. The other complication with a setup like this is that it is a sensei-level camera. So, there's quite the learning curve. So, why don't we try yet another way? Something that will allow you to put in whatever background you want behind you and that's not quite so difficult a learning curve. Ready? Let's take a look now. So, here's what I think is just about the ultimate way to do that. And that is just to cut out the background altogether and put in whatever background you want. And of course, I'm talking about doing green screen, but not the way we've done green screen in the past. Because what everyone has told you and what I've told you as well for such a long time is that you need to have 8 feet between the green screen and the subject, you standing in front of the camera. But what I've discovered lately is a little bit of a loophole. We're not going to break the laws of physics. We're just going to bend them a little bit on your behalf. But before we do that, I need to explain to you, generally speaking, how green screen works. So, it uses 4 lights. Two of them are set up in front of the green screen itself. You've got one here. It's about 3 feet away. And you've got one here. It's about 3 feet away also. And these are special lights. They're soft boxes. Soft boxes are really cool. They're big and bulky. But they make a very diffuse kind of light. And that means that the light doesn't create harsh shadows. And so, it's easier to get a nice, even coverage across the green screen, which is one of the keys to making it work so well. Now, I want you to pay attention to what I'm going to do next, because this is kind of the key to bending reality here a little bit. Watch what happens as I move closer and closer to the green screen. Oh, now I'm being lit. Very, very warm. That's exactly what we don't want to have happen. So, I'm just going to walk out in front of the green screen until I'm no longer lit by these lights. There's three ways you can tell. One, you can kind of tell out of your peripheral vision that you're no longer being lit. Two, you can kind of see a line on the floor where that light stops. And three, you can just look here and see that the light is being ended here by the cover of the lighting instrument itself. So, as long as you step in front of that, maybe give yourself just another few inches for a margin of error, you can have a perfect green screen. You can have any kind of background that you want, as far as the background is concerned. Now, as far as the rest of it, remember, I said there were four lights. We've got two here, and where are the other two? Well, the other two are right here. You can't see them right now because one is right next to the camera on this side and one is right next to the camera on this side. And the purpose of those lights is just to light you. It doesn't matter if they light the green screen or not. The green screen is happy. It's already being lit. It doesn't need anything else. So, you're being lit separately, and the green screen is being lit separately, and everybody's happy, and we have a really, really nice background. And now your background can support your message. It can support your story. It can support whatever it is you want to get out to the world. So, that's my little recommendation for today. Now, sometimes it's a little bit tricky to set up these things. There's different formulas and algorithms and measurements that you want to take to make everything work just right. And so, I've created a free three-part series that takes you all the way through doing green screens, all the way through the shoot. So, if you'd like to sign up for that, just click below and be my guest. And that's it for today. For happier audiences, I'm Steve Washer with BrainyVideo.com.