A roundup of beginner tutorials on shooting and compositing.

The two things that make compositing far more difficult are shadows on the green screen and motion blur – so getting it right in camera is as crucial as understanding the tools for keying in post.

Shooting

Avoiding unwanted shadows means careful lighting. Reducing blur means adjusting camera settings. Skyler Tomas demonstrates 5 Green Screen Mistakes Beginners Make – and how to avoid them:

Cinematographer Shane Hurlbut demonstrates How to light a Green Screen w/ just two lights:

Compositing

Once you’ve correctly shot your properly-lit green screen footage, Cinecom.net shows how to key out the green and achieve clean edges (in Premiere Pro):

One of the more difficult things to key out is hair – luckily, Film Riot demonstrates how (in After Effects):

Up Your Skills

Kevin – The Basic Filmmaker offers a detailed, comprehensive tutorial on everything from taking care not to sip on green straws in shot, to adding shadows that help sell the final effect:

Film Riot again, this time with a quick-fire round of often-overlooked techniques, such as lighting your subject to match the scene and practical effects like wind and water, which help better sell the effect: