A green screen is a solid coloured backdrop that is removed digitally in post-production, letting a puppet be placed into any background.
Why it suits puppetry particularly well
Puppeteers have to be hidden. On a green screen set, performers wearing green can be erased along with the background, which frees a puppet from the frame lineThe frame line is the bottom edge of what the camera sees, a... entirely — it can be shown full body, from below, or flying, with no physical hiding place required.
Why green
It is furthest in colour from human skin tones, and digital sensors capture more detail in green than in red or blue. Blue is still used where a subject has green in it, which for puppet work is a real consideration — a green character needs a blue screen.
The build consequence
Check every material against the screen colour before committing. Green fleeceFleece is the knit fabric used as the outer skin on most mod... More on a green screen disappears, and so does anything with a green sheen under studio light. Test on camera, not by eye.
Lighting is most of the job
The screen needs even, flat illumination with no hotspots or shadows, lit separately from the subject. An unevenly lit screen produces a ragged edge that no amount of software fixes.
Spill
Green light bounces off the screen onto the puppet, tinting fur and fleece at the edges. Keep the subject well forward of the screen — a metre or more where possible — and the problem largely disappears.
Matte, not shiny
A reflective screen produces highlights that key badly. Cloth or painted flats beat anything glossy.
The hack: light the screen, then turn the subject lights off and look at the screen alone on the monitorThe monitor is the screen a puppeteer watches while performi.... Every unevenness shows immediately, and fixing it there is far cheaper than fixing it in software.