Introduction

green screen

On this page, I’ll talk about the gear that I used to produce the videos that you see in The Vault which were shot in the 2015-2016 timeframe.

For the most part, this gear was purchased in or around 2015, and some of it may not be for sale anymore. Some of the links may be for the current version of the product that I bought back then.

Please note that none of the links are affiliate links. Sharing this gear inventory is a labor of love, not a clickbait trap.

The Room

The room itself is a 12x12 second-story bedroom with two decent-sized windows. The windows matter for two reasons:

  • Light: Because natural light was available/present during the day, I decided to use daylight-balanced lights (6500 Kelvin) so that I could get consistent color results when shooting day or night.

  • Sound: Since glass is very reflective (especially for high frequencies) I wanted to make sure that I had some counter-balance for reflected highs, in the form of acoustic foam on the ceiling and other flat areas.

Green Screen

After numerous experiments with various backdrops, I painted the back wall with Rosco Chroma Key Paint. It is far less reflective than other solutions, although distance from the screen is still your friend when chroma keying.

When standing on my mark, I was probably about a foot or so too close to the wall, so I had to be meticulous with backlighting and fill lighting to wash out the green light reflecting off the wall onto me. I experimented with magenta gels for the backlight, but it was more trouble then it was worth.

I appled black gaffer tape to the border between the green screen and the other walls which are a yellow/gold color. That way it would be easier to fix any frames where a hand motion may have veered off of the green background.

Acoustic Treatment

I treated the room with six 48x24" GIK bass traps. They made a big difference in the audio quality of my recordings, absorbing unwanted low frequency resonance.

In addition to the bass traps, I also added Auralex Studiofoam panels to the wall and ceiling to address high-frequency reflections.

The wall opposite the windows has a closet containing floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, as well a 4ft bookshelf next to the closet. I mention this because those books will absorb mids and lows.

new lights

Microphones

Good microphones are critical to high quality video production, and are arguably more important than good cameras to the finished product, since low quality audio is much more noticeable than low quality video. After experimenting with a handful of inexpensive microphones and doing hours of research, I found these to be in the sweet spot of price/performance at the time:

  • Rode NTG2: This is a shotgun mic that I used for all of the videos shot against my greenscreen. I also used it for some voicover work.

  • Rode NT1: This is a condenser mic that I intended to use as my voiceover mic, as it is an excellent mic that punched well above its price point at the time. However, I found that I got better results from a dynamic mic (Rode Procaster described below) for my particular voice, sibilance, and subtle vocal tics. You learn a lot about your ability (or inability) to speak clearly when armed with high quality mics and waveform editors. In my case, I found that even though the NT1 was more accurate in its sound capture, the Procaster was a lot more forgiving for my situation.

  • Rode Procaster: This is a dynamic mic that I used for most of the off-camera voiceover work that I did in the studio, coupled with a Cloudlifter to boost the gain. I used this with the Rode PSA1 Boom Arm. There are cheaper and pricier arms out there, but this one is both quiet and stable.

Audio Interface

Camera

  • Panasonic GH3 was used as my video camera.

  • Audio was captured via a Tascam DR60D mounted below the camera. I used that as a preamp for the mics, and fed the audio into the audio input of the GH3, eliminating the need to sync separate audio and video signals in post-production.

  • To connect the GH3 to the iMac, I ran HDMI out of the camera (Video+Audio) into a Blackmagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder which ran Thunderbolt into the iMac. Worked like a charm.

  • I used a Benro A2573FS6 tripod. In my scenario it was pretty much set-and-forget, but never had an issue with it.

  • I used a Listec teleprompter, which mounted onto the front of the lens of the GH3. It used an iPod Touch to display the text crawl. I controlled the speed of the teleprompter with an Airturn bluetooth footpedal.

Teleprompter view

Lights

  • I used spiral bulb fluorescent lights from B&H, primarily the VA903 5-lamp Cool Light. I found thowing on an extra diffuser sock made a big difference in softening the light without the need for a giant softbox (which I’d used also from time to time.)

  • I used Rosco Cinefoil (heavy matte black aluminum foil) to mask or shape my lighting when needed.

Computer

The nerve center of my 2015-2016 era greenscreen studio was a 2012 I7 iMac.

Software

In the 2015-2016 timeframe, I had a Adobe-centric workflow.

I used a couple plugins:

And lastly, I used Cinema 4D for 3D modeling, animation, texturing, and rendering.

FYI, in 2019 when I started working on the video which eventually became the Birds & The Ts trailer, I switched to a Blackmagic-centric video workflow:

Closing Comments

  • A low-resolution video with good quality sound is much more watchable than one with high-res image quality and poor audio.

  • Acoustic treatment needs to consider highs, mids, and lows.

  • Shooting against a green screen is easy to do poorly, especially in a small room. If you must use a green screen, don’t bother with inexpensive cloth screens or portable green backdrops, and just invest in a gallon of Rosco chromakey green paint.

  • When dealing with budget constraints, look for balance in your gear investments: Don’t splurge on a high-end camera and pair it up with a cheap cloth greenscreen. Likewise, consider splitting your audio budget into mics and acoustic treatment.