"Ten": The Chroma Key

For this first green screen test, I got some standard green poster board and propped it onto the rear of the studio table. Then I took three pictures: one of the Ground-To-Air guns in front of the green screen and two different shots of the skyscraper. (Given that the Chroma Key feature of the Power Director software is for video, not stills, I can't show the finished product. But here are the three test photos for the hell of it):





I uploaded these and tested the first shot with a green screen star field behind it and the other two shots with one of the Fort Matanzas blue sky pictures I took.

The result? Promising. I didn't make any effort to get that screen and the lighting exactly right because I'm still learning, but even with a slapdash effort it looked pretty good. One corner didn't show the green screen effect, but that was because of a shadow and is easily fixed the next time. More troubling was the green aura around the guns and the skyscraper. With better lighting, this again may disappear or be minimized. However, I did discover that once the video is transferred to black and white, these effects are less noticeable. Those effected the most were the antennae on the guns, so those might eventually be pitched, which is no biggie.

I'm encouraged by these initial test and can't wait to take it further, and there's the possibility of getting some fabric to replace the poster board. But before that can be done I need to construct more of the sets and props including... a very daunting design indeed.

Next Week: The Missile and the Corpse