Bluescreen vs. Greenscreen

• The choice of backing color may be dictated by the colors in the objects being fi lmed. If the
foreground objects have a lot of green, then you should use bluescreen, and if the foreground
objects have a lot of blue, then you should use greenscreen.
• It is not true that a digital keyer “prefers” blue or green as they work equally well on equally
well-shot plates.
• Skin tones work equally well with green or blue backings when using modern digital keyers.
• Green is easier to light brightly than blue, which requires less lighting on the set.
• Bluescreens lit by natural sunlight work well too. Throw up a large diffusion silk to kill shadows
if needed, or schedule an overcast sky for the day of the shoot.
• Blue spill is less of a problem than green spill because of its less offensive hue and its lower
intensity. However, digital keyers have excellent despill tools that normally render this point
moot.
• The blue channels of both fi lm and video by far have the most noise, so a bluescreen produces
mattes with the noisiest matte edges.
• The green channels of both fi lm and video have low noise content, so it produces the smoothest
matte edges. This is one very compelling reason to shoot greenscreen, with all else being equal.