Green screen keying is honestly one of my weaknesses, so I made this video to clear up the biggest misconception I keep seeing—especially in short-form edits—about when you should use a green screen versus when you should be thinking “compositing.” I’m not a VFX artist, but I do know a thing or two about editing product videos, and chroma keying is one of those tools that can either make your life easy… or create a massive headache if you use it the wrong way. First, I walk through the “basic” use case: shooting a product on a green screen so you can cleanly remove the background and drop it onto anything you want. The key takeaways here are separation (so you don’t get green spill on the product) and lighting the screen evenly so your key is clean. Then I step it up to the more realistic scenario: using a green stick to hold a product so it can “float” and interact with the scene. That’s where most people get stuck—because when you key out the green, you’re left with a hole. The fix is a clean plate: the exact same shot, same framing, same movement, but without the subject. Layer that underneath and suddenly you’ve got a believable composite. If you want camera movement, you’ll need motion control (I used a motorized slider), or keep it locked off and add movement in post.