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I have a bluescreen, but it doesn't work
🕑 Added 2019-08-15 00:07:24 +0000 UTCSince I've dyed my hair green for the summer, rendering my big ole unused green screen obsolete, I decided to dabble in the art of chroma keying by purchasing blue screen fabric. This is me testing it out for the first time:
That was the night I realized that the folds and shadows would be a problem. It's a pretty huge piece of cloth (6x3m) and heavy enough that velcro failed to stick. I mean, I attached the soft piece to the fabric and the scratchy piece to my curtain track in my living room and it stuck together just fine... But the adhesive didn't stick to the (plastic) track and my world was coming down... (Will this post be laced with self-mockery and inappropriately placed song lyrics? ... maybe. I'm just writing this as it sounds in my head.)
That's when I decided to take it to another level. Actually, when I tried to fold it back together and I failed because it was just too big and in a rage took scissors to the piece of crap just to be able to handle it... was when I decided to take it to another level. I bought pleat tape with no intention to pleat anything - I just needed something to attach curtain gliders to - and hand sewed my own god damn blue screen curtain.
Hi, welcome to my living room. It's a shoe box.
I spent all night doing this and then ironing the piece of crap to get rid of the creases, which ended up being almost completely useless because it wrinkles so damn easily. At first glance it looked promising, like it would cover enough space behind me that I could move freely while filming videos.
Then I ran into more problems.
Nevermind the creases and all the trouble I have to go through to minimize them - the lighting itself was a problem. Because of how I always had my light source under the camera (most flattering angle for my face), it didn't quite illuminate the edges of the blue screen, effectively making it 50 shades of indigo which means...
You should talk to your doctor about corneal cancer at this point.
And even though I have these pro studio lights now...
It still creates vignette and still casts shadows.
The closest I've come to minimizing the vignette was to use 2x zoom on my camera, considerably diminishing the video quality. And it's a shame because normally I'm a huge fan of vignette - how it subtly darkens the edges of the video to create the illusion of a focal point - but it doesn't work for the chroma key crap. How the hell does everyone else manage to use their chroma key backgrounds?! I feel so stupid struggling so much with something every other creator can just do. I must have spent a full week just trying different lighting angles, different reflector umbrellas at different heights and angles and everything, and then I even look worse than ever before. This is me laughing my ass off after realizing that never have I looked more like a zombie than with "better" lighting (and without my "zombie makeup").
After all this trouble, the best I managed was the trash picture that's the header of this post - and only with pure luck and "hard light" blending. This was supposed to open up roleplay possibilities and make my life easier - but so far it's only made it all harder, made me uglier, given me meltdowns and proved my conviction that the dark flatters me.
Look, I'm not much of a problem solver and I have a really low capacity for stuff that I think I should be able to take for granted suddenly becoming a problem, such as never getting text notifications for packages anymore or shit being sent to a different PO box which requires my actual card when I've gone through the trouble of memorizing my card number because I've had to type it in so often because my usual PO box does not read cards. That was me picking up these lights in the wee hours of the morning only to realize I had to walk all the way home to get my card, then all the way to the PO box again, then all the way home again. I'm pretty overwhelmed with all the adaptations I have to make and all the problems I keep having to solve when I'm already at capacity figuring out how to realize all my complex video ideas. Not with a blue screen, I know that much. Unless I look into buying a different lens or something that doesn't have this vignette problem? Does such a thing even exist? I don't know. My home is more of a studio than a home at this point and I kinda like the idea of pretending this is a studio because of ugly and inconvenient everything is and how annoying everyone is. Between guessing games like "Why is my neighbor's brat screaming this time?" and "How often will the elephant fall out of bed to smoke while I'm trying to record something?" I just wish I could escape sometimes. With everything I've got going on, I'm living to work but I don't feel like my videos reflect how burnt out I am because of things like these where I give my all and it's still not enough.
I will continue to do my best and cry every day because every other creator is doing everything I want to do a lot better and successfully. Should I write a post about depression and creative burnout? Cause that's something I'm actually advanced in for a change.
So there. Just wanted to let you know what I've been doing. If anyone has a solution to any of my problems, just throw it at me. I'm thankful for any advice regarding this screen thing I'm trying to set up. Have a good day folks
Comments
VitAnyaNaked
I think that the blue color of your hair will do the trick for you. I like the way you try hard to make something, well done.
Leon Schutte
Something that might work (its usually used to get rid of a rim where you see the background) is layering multiple chroma key effects with slightly different settings. In obs studio its possible but i dont know about your editing software. It should work though because your background can have a more shades and it still works. What also might improve it a bit would be washing your bluescreen with softener. It makes it less likely to rinkle and the surface will be softer without showing the tecture of the fabric in the sensor. I hope this helped
