RGB Lighting Hacks | Ultimate Background Setup

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If you’ve ever shot against a plain background, you know how hard it can be to get the right color for your project. Whether you’re in a small studio using paper backdrops, or in a large studio shooting against cyclorama walls. Changing the color can mean buying a brand new backdrop or painting the one you already have, and that takes a lot of time and money. An alternative that filmmakers have used since the introduction of RGB lights is projecting colored light onto a white background in order to change the color in camera. Today on 4 Minute Film School, we’re going to show you how to create a lighting setup that will allow you to make your background any color you want.

In this video, Matt from the A-Team shows how to use lighting to alter the color of your background. First, he sets up a neutral background. This will ensure that the color of the light he uses stays consistent. Next, he sets up lights with RGB capability to light the background with. The placement of the lights affects how well they fill in the background of the image. Lastly, he sets up a key light for the subject. Having the two light setups separate from each other is important for making the effect work.

The main aspects addressed in this video are background color, saturation, and controlling spill. Background color refers to the color of the background you’re starting with. The color you start with will determine how accurate the colors are that you reflect off of your background. Saturation refers to how rich a color is. Digital sensors don’t capture saturation the way your eyes do, so you need to make sure the camera is recording the color you want. Spill refers to when light is hitting part of the scene that you don’t want it to. Controlling spill will make sure that the light is hitting only the places it’s meant to, and not interfering with the look of your shot.

Whether you’re shooting music videos, or talking head interviews, having colored backgrounds can add a lot of character to your image. While it can be nice to have solid color backdrops to choose from, you can save a lot of time and money by being able to change colors quickly using RGB lights. Additionally, having colors change during the shot can be a cool technique you can use on your next music video or experimental film.

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Summary:
Aputure's YouTube channel provides free high-quality cinematography, lighting, and filmmaking educational content to help you take your film projects to the next level.

[aputurelighting]

What's a video with great use of colored backgrounds? Comment below for a chance to win an Aputure M9!

[ALMBusinessInstitute]

4-minute videos are perfect for those of us with short attention spans who still want good content.

[dominey]

Amazed you went the extra mile and compared the RGB lights to multiple rolls of seamless paper! Well done.

[timperry]

I actually like the look of most of the colored lights over the colored backdrops

[Skillthrive]

By far the best video out there on how to achieve this look. It's almost impossible to tell the difference between the RGB and colored paper. Well done!

[TheNateLefever]

Matt's hair is like my Amazon wish list each time one of these episodes comes out. It gets longer and longer!

[ivpt]

The lit background is even better than the colored ones

[meetthegaffer]

Using a light gray background is also a good way to get further saturation from the colored light. Meet The Gaffer #190... note about gray is in the post roll at the very end. We used Skypanels, but Nova’s would have worked great as well, they just weren’t out yet:)

[mayorofndstreet]

Kid Cudi - frequency is probably my favorite example of this. Keep up the good vids!

[BasicFilmmaker]

Excellent (and subtle) statement here I hope many don't miss who do green screen work - keeping the lighting of the green screen and the talent separate. :)

[KashsCreativeSpace]

Tobi Lou - Hot Tub dream machine is a cool example, specially the striped transitions they used..

[simplytiffanysoul]

Great info helps so much for my up coming documentary shoot!

[lightpointfilms]

Drakes "Hotline Bing" is legendary in the way that they used RBG lighting and a white set

[tobby]

Awesome Video! Was trying to figure out when i did something something similar why my colors wasn't popping on camera compared to the natural eye

[Bradcurran]

Think you could pull this off with ONE Nova 300 for the background light? Maybe mounted about or below with a modifier?

[rowanmuellner-wong]

I feel like Khalid's 'Talk' music video has great use of coloured backgrounds in conjunction with a separated box-like set to convey how couples can be in different mindsets and all they need to do is talk to each other to be in "the same coloured room". I could just be overthinking it though...

[forrestygarcia]

Hotline Bling made use of this lots i think!

[katerinaorsagova]

hey:)can i obtain same or similar effect with color lights using simply white walls in room pls:)?

[Jones_Media]

🙏🏽 always look forward to these tips .

[a-muse]

When you say "colored background" in the 3 setups starting at 3:04 is that white light with a colored seamless, or colored light on a background other than white?