Video Editing

What is a green screen spill?

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Are you using a green screen in your photography or videography? Knowing about common production issues with a green screen will help you make sure that the footage you capture is usable. Video producers all over the world would agree that nothing is more annoying than a green screen spill!

Doubtful pensive woman with thoughtful expression, presses lips together, keeps hand under chin, plans something or makes choice standing in front of a green screen

Keep reading to find out what a green screen spill is and how to fix it during filming.

What is a green screen video spill?

A green screen spill occurs when using a green screen, a green pall gets cast over what you're actually trying to shoot. This is often caused by too much light in the shot. 

This green tint caused by the green screen can be annoying, and cause a lot of headaches for people working in post-production and on the video editing table. It will usually become a problem once you start using chroma key options to remove the green background.

Why is it important to understand green screen spills in video?

Green screen spillage can significantly reduce the quality of your video production content. Putting out content where everyone looks vaguely green is just going to end up making your audience nauseous.

This is also important when you're making commercial content, when you're trying to ensure that products look true to life, or food content where you want the food to actually look appetizing.

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When to watch out for green screen spills in videos?

When you're creating content using a green screen, it's important to consider your setup. Don't overdo it when lighting your shot, which is the biggest cause of green screen spills.

You also want to make sure that your lighting is pointed in the right direction to prevent any partial issues.

green screen spill

Don't use green flooring unless necessary for the shot you're planning.

Use only the amount of green in the shot that you need to pull it off — more green will make it more likely for green screen spillage to happen. 

You can also try using a blue screen instead (psst..learn in depth about chroma key here).

Blue screen-What is chroma key? How do you use a green screen for video?-Clipchamp blog

How to prevent green screen spills in videos?

Luckily, it's not a huge problem to fix or prevent green screen spills when you're creating video content.

To remove green screen spill, you can use a color correction options in your video editing software.

Green screen spills in social media videos

Green screens are pretty commonly used in different social media videos, so it's important to know how to recognize when green screen video spills are happening while shooting video content for social media.

This is particularly important when it comes to TikTok videos, since these videos often use many different shots spliced together.

So, you want all the colors in your different shots to match!

Use a green screen background painlessly on Clipchamp

Now that you know how green screen video spills can happen, you should be able to prevent them from being a problem for your future work.

Are you looking to learn even more about video editing and production? Make sure that you check out Clipchamp's editing glossary for all the information you could possibly need.

It’s actually easy to make your own green screen videos with simply your computer and a good online video editor like Clipchamp that has stock footage—you don’t even need your own video!

Step 6. Save and share your new green screen GIF

You can even make video green screen memes on Clipchamp.

How to make a green screen meme thumbnail

Get started and create a green screen video!

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