Tried to set up a green screen backdrop at the studio and it took 3 hours longer than I thought

I bought one of those cheap collapsible green screen kits off Amazon, thinking I'd just pop it open and be filming in 20 minutes. Nope. The frame kept collapsing every time I tried to clamp a light to it, so I spent an hour rigging sandbags and duct tape just to keep it standing. Then I realized the green fabric was super wrinkled from being folded, so I had to pull out the steamer and spend another 45 minutes ironing out creases. By the time I actually got a shot lit and tested, it was dinner time and my whole afternoon was gone. Has anyone else dealt with these flimsy kits or am I just bad at setting things up?

1 comments

1 Comment

adams824h ago

You say it took "3 hours longer than I thought," but honestly, that sounds like a pretty standard gear struggle to me. I've set up a ton of backdrops in my time and every single one had some kind of hiccup, usually something stupid like a bent pole or a light that won't clip right. It's not that the kit is flimsy, it's that most of these things are built for a quiet room with no breeze and perfect lighting, not real life with wrinkles and sandbags. The ironing part is on you though, you could have just hung the fabric for a day and the creases would fall out. But hey, you got it working by dinner, right? Isn't that the real win?