Re: HMI and Green screen

If it's a large area with talent moving across a wide shot and you see them head to toe, I start by lighting the walls and floor with large soft sources to get everything as even as possible; keeping in mind that you need room for the talent/prop lights With that done I then concentrate on adding the lighting for the talent and props. If you're killing all shadows in the final composite then this is relatively easy. If you want shadow,say a single shadow from a back rim, then I light my talent to match the eventual background and tweak that and the studio soft sources to find a good balance of interesting talent light and even studio light. I avoid a direct back light because of the glare, (There is a gel I found years ago that can be put on your key light that acts as a polarizer. When you rotate the barn doors it kills the glare. This is only useful on a fresnel and I never could use it because it took about 1-1/2 stops from my key and all my sources are relatively small).

Mark D'Agostino
www.synergeticproductions.com