I am back! WOOH! I have backgrounds for my three main puppets, all scanned and prepped for use with FX Studio. Here is the first video test (Which was originally making fun of being done in front of a plain blue background):



We need to adjust the lighting (And probably get more lighting, as there never seems to be enough.). In previous tests with it at our old filming location, the videos turned out a lot better.

Regardless of quality, I'm glad to be getting back to this! I'm hoping to get a new video on Friday, and then back to regular filming after taking an exam on the 6th. It feels so good to be getting back to puppetry!

Good!  Yes, a bit more light, a little more from above, and get as much distance between you and your keying backdrop. What software are you using to key with?

It is an app called FX Studio. It's pretty easy to use.

We don't currently have any way to get lighting higher up above. At the old location, there were lights in the ceiling right above the backdrop, and that worked very well.

I'm looking at other options. I found a beginner's lighting kit here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FHZ2SI?colid=5WQWZZ3G2NUX&coliid=I36WT2VD8B3LIC&ref_=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl  I know some people who want to photograph things for sale, and there's a possibility they might want to share such a thing. Alternatively, I might find some stuff meant for a desktop that could also work. Those umbrella light stands seem like they'd take up a lot of room in our shop, so something smaller is probably the way to go.

After a little more searching, I've discovered this thing called a softbox, which appears to just be a number of bulbs inside one lamp:

http://www.amazon.com/LimoStudio-Photography-Softbox-Reflector-AGG856/dp/B008B8IU82/ref=pd_cp_421_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=17BTMG7X136CT38H1ZBF

That's the least expensive but popular option I've seen on Amazon, and it seems like it would work well in our situation.

Aha, The softbox looks nice. I wonder how much light it puts out.
      We just use electronic Fluorescent tubes. I have them mounted on boards that I can relocate. The fluros these days, if they have electronic ballasts, are at a frequency high enough that you don't get flickering like in the old days. They are cheap, consume 20% of halogen or incandescence lamps, are cool and don't heat up the studio much, the local hardware store has replacement bulbs handy in the odd occasion where one burns out or gets broken (the set I have now I have replaced two bulbs I think in about three years.)They give a soft light, and less shadows as they are long and less focused. Our studio is about 3x4m the sets are between 2 and three meters wide (although wide shots are filmed through the door from out in the hall). I have 5x36w tubes as key light and a 2x36w on each side as fills, and a couple tubes as back lights and  a few shorter ones as incidentals when necessary.
      Right at the moment we are recording some wide shot chroma keys in out patio which is 5x5m and 2 stories high. The key backdrop is like 5x5m so it takes some lighting. I have added an extra couple tubes, and have them all suspended on a horizontal pole, hoisted by pulleys, and it also needs a tube to illuminate the backdrop from below and behind the puppeteers to counter the light falloff from the lights in front, to get a more even backdrop, and also back light the puppets a little (although you need to be careful because the back lighting is from below and not above like normal).... and I am finding they only just cope. If you get closer to your puppets, you get more light on them, but it becomes uneven and over exposes some parts, and makes the backdrop patchy. Get them back and everything evens out, but you need more tubes. A couple more tubes will probably help our situation I am thinking...thats 12x36w tubes at present.
     I recently bought an LED tube. Very easy to wire up, puts out twice the light a fluro of the same size does, but cost slightly more than twice the price as a fluro with their assembly. They are very  robust, and  supposedly  last a lot longer than fluros... but.....they  are  missing the red spectrum in the  light. Just as a caution. LEDs are  becoming  more  common, but white LEDs are actually blue, shone through a yellow phosphor, to get what looks white to us, but does not have the red. So when you  use just LEDs it  looks greeny blue. Extra lights or natural light  needs to be added to get  color back to normal. But.. they are really robust, so I use that one for  any  mobile  place where there is any risk of it getting hit.
      Lighting over the years has been the second biggest deficiency we have had. The most deficient has been the audio... a hard one to do really well on a zero budget.
   Oh , by the way, I am using  'Blender' for my chroma keys. Its free, but does have a steep learning curve. An advantage is that you can do rotoscoping /masking to clean up your keys and does a good job.

Ah, that's another reason for me to learn to use Blender! I tried awhile back because I love 3d printing and want to make my own files for printing. (Mostly celtic knotwork stuff.) Unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to learn it. Maybe sometime later this year!

I'll look into flourescent lights. I know someone who does a lot of handywork stuff, making cool things out of pretty much anything. He might be able to help me rig something up.