in my latest feature filmI decided to shoot all moving car shots on green screen to save time and money while also providing a safer experience. In this post I’m going to outline exactly what we did in production and post it for anyone who wants to do the same thing.
First, I’ll give you a brief overview of why I chose to shoot on a green screen in the first place.
Why green screen?
The feature film was actually a no-budget production and I knew getting into the car scenes would be a challenge. We needed to shoot about 10 minutes of film in two different cars, and one of the scenes was supposed to be a car chase.
With no budget for actual filming (using a process trailer), it ultimately made sense to go the green screen route. It’s also safer than trying to shoot everything in a moving car without the proper gear or camera support, which can be very risky.
Not to mention, I’m in a 50mm lens. That’s a long focal length for a car interior (at least on a Super 35mm sensor). So even from a visual perspective, it makes more sense.
Productions with a slightly larger budget may also consider going the LED wall route. Instead of shooting with a green screen, you can shoot the car on a small stage with a moving background projected/displayed behind it.
That said, even if we had the budget, I probably wouldn’t go this route. I’ve done a few LED wall shots now and found it a bit disorienting. Additionally, technical details often get in the way of the creative process.
All in all, green screens are a great option for filmmakers who need to move car scenes on a budget.
With that in mind, here’s how we achieve this in production and post-production.
Green screen production: driving scenes
This function is completely used Natural and available light. This was one of the rules I imposed on myself from the beginning and created for a truly unique aesthetic.
The one time I thought I might break this rule was during a green screen shoot. But ultimately, even this can be shot with natural light.
We pulled the main car into a friend’s garage, which was hung with green basic fabric, and pulled the front end out a bit to let in the natural light.
The green screen itself was just illuminated by the ambient light reflected around the garage.
For our setup, this is all we need. This is because all of our footage was shot during daylight hours and didn’t require any sophisticated lighting or grip to simulate movement.
For scenes that are supposed to take place at night (as well as other scenes), you’ll also want to use additional lighting and/or rigging to sell the effect. The most obvious example is the reflection of street lights on the windshield.
But for a daytime scene like ours, you can keep it basic and still get great results.
On-site workflow
Another quick note on our workflow on set. We shot with one camera and only one side of the car was covered with a green screen.
This meant we couldn’t shoot every scene in its entirety without wasting a lot of time resetting the camera.
Most scenes feature two actors – one in the driver’s seat and the other in the passenger seat. Every time we complete a scene, we don’t flip back and forth between angles of coverage, but shoot each angle in its entirety.
First, side photos of all drivers were taken, covering 8 to 10 different scenes. We then flipped the camera and green screen to the other side and reshot all 8 – 10 scenes from another angle.
This allowed us to shoot approximately 13 pages of material in just 5 to 6 hours.
At the end of the day, I took my camera into the car and photographed a bunch of the handheld inserts we needed, like the car radio, hands on the steering wheel, etc.
Green screen driving scene post-production
The real magic of green screen happens in post, of course.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, as every scenario has different technical challenges and creative needs. That said, I’ll outline my own process here as a guide.
Build the sound bed first
I edited the entire film using raw green screen footage. If I wanted to, I could do some temporary green screen work just to make it easier to watch.
But I did the opposite. I kept the footage in its roughest form so that I was forced to use sound design to make those scenes work (in the rough cut).
I spent a lot of time choosing the right background ambience, equalizing and mixing it, and ultimately built a realistic soundscape for the driving scenes. That way, when I finally cut out the background and put it on the plate, half the work is already done.
There are a lot of things we can do visually to make our green screen footage look more realistic – adding camera shake, blur, resizing, keyframing exposure values, etc. – but we can’t forget that audio is a major part of selling effects too.
Temporary green screen work in FCP X
The entire function has been cut in FCPonce I actually wanted to complete all the finishing touches.
Once I had the image locked, I immediately started pulling color keys in Final Cut and trying to do some rough compositing to see what it would look like. If it looks good enough, I’ll include this work entirely in FCP X.
But even though I had some good results, there was still a lot of room for improvement. After a lot of trial and error, I finally knew I had to import the footage into Resolve for keying.
Enter Da Vinci Resolve
Once I imported the footage into DaVinci Resolve, everything looked better. I was able to easily key out the green background using the built-in keying tool and clean up the mask with more precision than I could with FCP X.
Thankfully, the ambient daylight levels remained mostly consistent while we were shooting footage. This meant I could copy and paste the finished look from one shot to another and then make small manual adjustments as needed to refine key points.
At this point, I’m still using some makeshift background panels I downloaded from YouTube to make sure it comes together nicely. The next step will be to put together some properly shot boards that fit into the context of these scenes.
Find a backdrop
In the entire process of completing these green screen shots, the backdrops were the most challenging part of the process.
I started experimenting with photographing my own backdrops on it Fuji X-T4which is the camera I use to shoot movies. I used a small suction cup to mount the camera to my car and kept the same 50mm lens that I used for the main production.
Unfortunately, 50mm was too long for the rig/setup I was using, and the lens was too shaky to use.
I then tried using two GoPros (an old GoPro I had with me, and later a new Hero 11) to capture the backdrop. I spent a few days driving around Los Angeles with the camera mounted in my car and got some pretty solid footage.
I had to add a lot of motion blur to the GoPro footage (in addition to simulated lens blur) to get it to work, and it ended up looking pretty good.
But the funny thing is, a few shots didn’t work out and I ended up reshooting them with my iPhone. Overall, I found the iPhone’s footage to be slightly better than the GoPro’s for this use, both in terms of stability, motion pacing, and color matching.
I ended up completing a version of the film using backdrops I shot myself. Looks good, but there’s still room for improvement.
Partnering with DrivingFootage.COM
Fortunately, in the final stages disappearing boymy company can work with DrivingFootage.com – who provided us with some incredible, professionally shot backdrops for use in the final film.
Although I had spent a lot of time and effort on green screen footage (using my own negatives), I knew the film would look much better if I went the extra mile and used the highest quality footage possible.
I quickly learned that shooting backdrops—especially moving panels for car scenes—is an art form in itself. To get it 100% correct, you have to find the perfect balance between camera selection, placement, lens pairing, mounting, and many other variables. This can require extensive testing over a long period of time and can also be quite expensive.
Ultimately, partnering with DrivingFootage.com made more sense to me. Not only in terms of visual quality, but also in terms of selection. In my opinion, their plates are the best in the industry, and their ever-growing library is extensive.
You can easily browse all their shots on both pond 5 and Youtube.
I selected 22 shots I liked on Pond5, sent a request to owner Gray Jones, and he sent me a Dropbox folder with all the shots in less than an hour. Rivals needed two days to turn things around.
DrivingFootage.com currently offers over 14,000 clips from across Southern California. This was perfect for my film because it was set in Los Angeles, so almost every shot we needed was included in their existing library.
DrivingFootage.com will also add New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver and 15 other cities by fall 2023, with plans to add 50 cities in 2024. , you can also request additional services by contacting them directly to add cities.
Going forward, all of their films will be shot in 10-bit 4:2:2 using Netflix-approved cameras to allow for more flexibility in color grading. Since they are shot in a node configuration, their boards can also be used in rear projection and curved LED/virtual environments.
And their pricing is very affordable, especially compared to competitors that sell for upwards of $850 a pop. DrivingFootage.com sells its clips for as low as $179 per shot, with discounts available for students and low-budget filmmakers.
Click here to learn more about DrivingFootage.com
Blur, color correction and camera shake
Once you’ve finished keying and put in the correct background plate, it’s time to add the final touches.
This involves 3 main steps:
- Adding Lens Blur to Background Plate in DaVinci Resolve
- Correct background color to match foreground
- Add simulated camera shake to make it look handheld
As for the lens blur, I just used the built-in ResolveFX settings that come with DaVinci Resolve and customized them to match my reference footage.
Matching the background to the foreground is simply a matter of setting the look of the foreground first, then adjusting the color balance and exposure of the background to match. From there, I tried slightly overexposing the highlights (to simulate a more realistic dynamic range) and boosting the shadows a bit (to simulate the reduced contrast of the car windows).
Thankfully, I shot some test footage while actually driving, so I had a good reference for camera shake. Again, I was able to use the built-in ResolveFX camera shake settings and closely match it to the test footage by adjusting the amplitude, speed, and zoom settings.
With that, the shoot is complete!
final thoughts
While it takes a lot of hard work to get these shots to look right, the effort is worth it. It allows us to shoot faster, achieve better quality visuals, and have more control over the final product.
In the future I plan to share a more detailed article on the post-production/color grading/compositing aspects of the process, so stay tuned.
Otherwise, if you have any questions about my workflow, please leave a comment below!
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