iMovie changes tint (drastically) when connecting Green/Blue Screen

Question

iMovie changes tint (drastically) when connecting Green/Blue Screen

I make a video of me against a green-screen in QT, then import it into iMovie over a timeline of background still images or motion backgrounds.

The QT video of me has been color-corrected before saving or importing into iMovie.

When I import it and layer it over the BG images, prior to selecting Green/Blue Screen (still in Cutaway) color still looks natural, see image:

When I select Green/Blue Screen from the drop-down, regardless of the predominant colors or lightness/darkness of the BG image, it immediately, drastically changes my skin tint to pink or beet-red:-) as you can see here:

I can, of course, drastically adjust the color/saturation in iMovie's Color Correction palette. But this will also turn my blue shirt into drab green...and more importantly, shouldn't be necessary. Why does it force this tint change and how can I override it?

Mac Studio

Posted on Jun 1, 2022 11:16 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Rhythm Earthsong Author

Level 1

125 points

Jun 1, 2022 2:39 PM in response to Ian R. Brown

Rich: "I don't know the cause of it. Possibly the particular skin tone is not being accurately interpreted by iMovie 's green screen function. "

As in my past reply, after 23 years of being around, iMovie simply should be better, more flexible, and have already investigated and resolved any way in which iMovie 's green screen function fails to accurately interpret skin tone. Yes, I can send feedback to Apple. Done many times. Never produces results or change.

Ian: Yes, I had hoped to keep it simple and low-cost...I only make simple 'talking-head-against-a-nice-background' YouTubes. Was hoping to avoid the cost and learning curve of fancier programs like Final Cut. I still insist iMovie could be better, with a few simple ergonomic changes that wouldn't force Apple's software coders to do much work. But they seem content to let it remain a wanky, unintuitive program.

Thanks for the link to DaVinci...guess I'll give the free beta version a try.🙏

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Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

47,742 points

Jun 1, 2022 1:29 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

Hi,

I made a screen shot of your original image and did a green-screen overlay onto a background scene. The pink tint appeared with the green-screen overlay just as you found. And, as you also found, the color could be corrected with iMovie's color adjustment tool, but with a resulting drab green shirt. I could find no other way of correcting this. So you would need to choose between the correct skin tone or a slightly more drab shirt. I don't know the cause of it. Possibly the particular skin tone is not being accurately interpreted by iMovie 's green screen function.

Or possibly you could ignore the skin tone and do your face in back and white for effect:

-- Rich

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Answer 3

Jun 2, 2022 1:47 AM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

I am no expert with DVR as I have only dabbled with it.

Moments ago I just followed a 4 minute tutorial on YT about how to do a quick and dirty green screen.

It's not perfect but it's just a first attempt.

Apparently DVR has better controls than I used but I hadn't got time to master them for this demo.

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Answer 4

Jun 1, 2022 2:11 PM in response to Rhythm Earthsong

The green screen looks rather more yellow than the usual deep green.. Maybe this is affecting the way iMovie processes the "green" screen.

You could do with more adjustments which iMovie does not have.

You might get a better result with Final Cut Pro or the FREE Da Vinci Resolve.

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpabKm5WN-AIVEbrtCh3vtQc_EAAYAiAAEgItJPD_BwE

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Answer 5

Jun 2, 2022 1:01 AM in response to Rich839

The free version is not Beta, it's perfectly functional and is probably better than Final Cut Pro . . . it certainly has more professional features and is Hollywood's favourite editor.

The paid for version has mainly extra features required by editing studios who need to collaborate with teams of editors together with a few more effects.

There are loads of tutorials on YouTube and I found it quick and easy to master the basics.

The only downside I found is that it is not optimised for Intel Macs as much as iMovie or FCP so when you start piling on the effects it begins dropping frames sooner during editing playback . . . of course the finished export is perfect.

I believe that it is optimised for M1 Macs as much as iMovie and FCP.

Black Magic makes most of its money selling high end pro cameras and pro editing hardware suites so it gives away DVR free because it knows that once large numbers of people start using it, some of them will become very successful and will then begin buying the expensive Black Magic hardware to complement the DVR ecosystem.

They are in it for the long game, enticing editors in with free gifts in the knowledge that many of them will become customers spending really big bucks further down the line.

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Answer 6

Jun 2, 2022 2:17 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

This was the tutorial I followed........ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6fH2nMerWw

I only did the suggestions in the first 2m 45s . . . there were some further ones for tweaking that I omitted which would probably have removed the green spill around the shoulders.

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Answer 7

Jun 2, 2022 10:52 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Great info, Ian, many thanks. I did download and open DVR.

Am I to understand that this is a method of inserting clean backgrounds behind the 'speaker' without having first videoed the speaker against a green-screen?

Or just demoing how the extra tools & adjustments in DVR can 'better tweak' both the background and speaker after importing the speaker shot against a green-screen?

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