A Little Bit of Green Screen Movie Magic!

You’ve seen our TV Spot. Now, here’s a little behind the scenes fun.

While working in film and video, sometimes you can’t always go and film at the location that you really want.  So, what’s a person supposed to do?  Bring the location to you!

As most everyone knows, the use of a green screen is the best way to put your character, in any setting you need without the cost of traveling, building a set, or even paying all the people you’d need in order to make it happen.  Not that I’m cheap, or anything… well, mostly not cheap.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again.  My favorite number is “free”.  I’ve said this to countless people when it came to starting a podcast.  And I still say it and believe it when I say I want to make videos.  The least expensive way to do what you want in a video without sacrificing quality, is the best way to go.

#GreenScreen

Ok, enough about that.  Let’s get on with the fun stuff.

This image is from a clip we filmed for our commercial.  It’s also going to be in a commercial we use when we film an upcoming web series (stay tuned for that).

So, the key factor in using a green screen is proper lighting.  If you don’t have proper lighting, you’ll have shadows where you don’t want them – and more work on your hands to make it all fit together.  The next thing that is key, is to make sure your subject (actor) is NOT wearing the same color as your backdrop – in this case, the green screen.  If your subject is wearing, in this case, green – then they are going to wash out – completely, and they will be nothing but a floating head on your background.

That’s key.

Speaking of “key”… (yeah, nice segue – or if you like scooters, segway).  Chroma Keying is what is used when you want to make that pesky green screen disappear and put your subject/actor in a whole new location.  I won’t go into too much detail.  You can read about Chroma Keying, here. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key)

With the magic of green screening, we were able to take our actor and place her in a warehouse type of location (reason being secret, until you see it in full) for a scene in our upcoming web series.  That will totally blow you away, because we are totally awesome like that.

With the magic of a green screen, we can use any video editing software that offers up the ability to do minor effects and compositing – something like Adobe Premiere or DiVinci Resolve (free) are great for this.  You can also get a compositing software that allows for a LOT of special effects, motion graphic, and all out pretty cool compositing – much like Adobe After Effects (sooo NOT free).

For something like Adobe After Effects, you can take your two dimensional subject and background and turn it into a completely three dimensional location and give it a great effect, like so:

Notice that we removed the green screen and added the new background, in such a way that it appears to be a three dimensional location – almost like we were really there, filming our actor interacting with the flames.  Though, I would actually believe she can play with fire.  I might also have some reliable  intel on that.

But, enough about that.  So, with the magic of green screen, we can truly start to bring you some really cool entertainment – which, we really look forward to doing, mind you.  This is something that, I personally, have been wanting to do for a VERY long time.

And, now it’s time to make that dream a reality.  Stay tuned for some more cool stuff.  Both, here, and our YouTube Channel.