Always greener on the other side

Yesterday the crew got together with Ryan (Goodson) and Charlotte (Eleanor) who were also in the area at the time to have a bit of fun recording some green screen plates for the scenic section of the movie when we look out at the boat arriving in at Roanoke.
Sadly the authorities at Fleet pond and our budget didn't allow for a full 16th Century period long boat and hundreds of extras to arrive on set, for this reason we have had to cheat. In order to make it look realistic there are a number of ways it can be done, below is a quick rough example of one of those...


1. Here our DOP and Camera Man Dan stands in front of a large green piece of cloth in a studio in London, around stand the other crew members, reflectors and lights.

2. Here is an image shot in the Summer of fleet pond (Roanoke). It is very empty and although pretty, a bit boring.

3. IN the editing program we tell the computer to look at the image of Dan, find anything that is Green and delete it from our sights. We then put the image of Fleet Pond underneath so we get a very weird image of Daniel Standing in a studio above a very colourful backdrop.

4. As the "Green Screen" wasn't able to stretch across the whole room we then delete all the rest of the frame of Dan so that the rest of the studio is deleted. In this Picture below I have left the right hand side of the screen as it is so you can see what is happening.

5. When the whole of the studio has vanished we then can scale Dan down move him around and place him anywhere we want. In the image below i have decided to have him standing ankle deep in water.

And finally, add a few more crew members. In the real edit we'll make sure everyone is proportioned properly, there is alot more going on, we have a boat... but for now I hope this has been slightly interesting as to how the green screening idea works.