The Shut Up and Shoot Freelance Video Guide

THE PROCESS OF KEYING

Here’s a basic graphical breakdown of what’s happening in a normal comp.

We start with a flat shot of the character against a greenscreen; in this case, I used a cheap piece of bright green fabric and made sure to light it well. (I could’ve done a better job of getting the wrinkles out here.)

I used Adobe After Effects’ Keylight plug-in to key out the background, leaving me with a “matte” of the foreground. Notice that the green in the fish necktie has been dulled by this process. Sometimes it is necessary to mask out problem areas like this. Generally, your subject should not be wearing green.

Now the keyed subject is layered ...