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A stupid guide to green screening.

Stigian

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Howdo all, yep that time has come for another blog entry, something that's a bit of fun.. Green Screening.

For those of you that are wondering what Green Screening (also known as Chroma keying) is, it's a simple technique for making you appear somewhere your not on video.

Anyone who has seen a weather forecast or a new's show on TV will have seen green screening in action... Or not as you can't see the green screen once the editing has been done.. :D

Anyway, here's what a green screen looks like.. Or part of it as it is rather big being 3m x 1.6m.

Ideally your screen should hang nice and flat with no creases showing... My screen was quickly hung in a way too small room just so I could have a quick play.. I've not told my wife yet that I want to turn the spare bedroom into a recording studio yet :hide:

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So having filmed your bit of footage, you now need to do some editing.. I use Sony Vegas Pro 11 for all my video edit (more about Vegas in a later blog entry), as you can do so much in it.

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If we zoom in a bit you can see me and the bit of backing footage I'm going to use in the time lines.

You need to make sure your backing footage is below the green screen footage or this won't work.

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Now to add the "effect" which will make the green screen vanish.

In Sony Vegas I click on the "Video FX" tab which brings up a whole host of video effects options.. Chroma Keyer is the one we want.

As you can see you do get a choice of different types of Chroma Keying, you can do it using a red or blue screen, but green works the best which is where "green screening" got it's name I guess.

The last 3 GS options are my own custom pre-sets.

For this demo I dragged and dropped the "GS option" onto my GS bit of footage in the timeline.

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Which gives you this. The GS has vanished and been replaced by your bit of backing footage.. It's not looking that good however, the backing is a bit dark and you can see the folds in my GS (which is why you need them as smooth as possible).

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When you drag the GS option from the Video FX tab onto your GS footage this window also appears so you can tweak the GS effect.

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You need to tweak the Low threshold and High threshold a bit, I also add a very small amount of blur..

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Until you end up with something like this.

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A close up..

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So there you go, my short guide to Green Screening..

If your wondering why this blog entry is called "A stupid guide to Green Screening", this short video will give you an idea of what's possible..

The only limit is your imagination :D

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Sparky

Posted

Awesome! I would like to have my image moved to a tropical island please....hehe!

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nylyon

Posted

I love this!  BTW, for Mac users, iMovie has this functionality in it too!  (I just looked)

 

And a nice Red Hat to boot!

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Stigian

Posted

Does she hafta know? 

 

I think my Wife might notice a big green sheet hung on the wall Craig :-)   I would also have to move a bed out the way which would be a bit of a give-away as well :-)

 

 

 

Awesome! I would like to have my image moved to a tropical island please....hehe!

 

Thanks Mike... Anything (almost) is possible is the fun world of video editing :-)

 

 

 

I love this!  BTW, for Mac users, iMovie has this functionality in it too!  (I just looked)

 

And a nice Red Hat to boot!

 

Thanks Karl, I wondered if you would notice the hat :-)  It also made a guest appearance in my latest 6x6 video, part 56.

I've never done the "Mac" thing, I saw one once and was shocked to find the mouse only had one button on it!!  But that was a very long time ago :-)

As your checking out green screening in iMovies am I correct in thinking your thinking of buying a nice big green sheet to hang on a wall somewhere? ;-)

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nylyon

Posted

I've never done the "Mac" thing, I saw one once and was shocked to find the mouse only had one button on it!!  But that was a very long time ago :smile:

As your checking out green screening in iMovies am I correct in thinking your thinking of buying a nice big green sheet to hang on a wall somewhere? ;-)

 

 

Now they have no buttons :) I am looking into materials to Green Screen.  My kids used to make a lot of movies, I think this would be a great next step for them.

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Stigian

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Now they have no buttons :) I am looking into materials to Green Screen.  My kids used to make a lot of movies, I think this would be a great next step for them.

 

 

No buttons now!! Is technology going forwards or backwards? :-)

I think a green screen is just the thing your kids need to make their videos more fun... I'm sure they will enjoy all the silly/daft things you can do with it :-)

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