On Tuesday 1st July I was part of a trip to Barry
Islands where we were given a day’s workshop on how to use a green screen.
Initially I was keen to participate on this trip as I wanted to learn as many
new skills (and develop pre-existing ones) as I could before I begin to create
my A2 Music Video. Therefore, the notion of learning to green screen was
greatly appealing.
At the session, we were firstly given a rough introduction to
green screening. I was amazed to discover how much of a film is actually green
screened. For example, in the film Sweeny Todd, a vast majority of what the
viewer saw on screen was in fact created using green screen. We were also
taught about the importance of wearing the correctly coloured clothes,
depending on whether it was a blue or green screen. Although I am aware that I will
not be able to work to this effect, green screening has now become an
interesting possibility that I am toying with.
The instructor then divided us into two groups. In my group
(after contemplation) we settled on making a video for Avril Lavigne’s ‘Girlfriend.’
This was something that seemed quite achievable considering our ratio of four
girls to only one boy. After dividing the roles, we began to break down the
video into sections. This would allow is to know exactly what we had to do when
we began to film. We also had to find suitable backgrounds for the chosen settings,
and ensure that they were large enough. Once we had rehearsed a little, we were
ready to begin filming.
At the filming stage, we learnt that you can only have one or
two people in the shot at a time, so we had to consider who needed to be filmed
and when. This ended up being a little more difficult than it sounds. We also
had to ensure that the ‘actor’ was not outside of the green space, as it was
essential for them to be within the correct boundaries, for the editing stage to
be easier.
Then we were taught how to actually put our videos onto the
backgrounds. In my group, we decided who would do which scenes, and ensured
that we each had the correct backgrounds and video clips to do this. Although I
experienced some difficulty in this stage, it was actually really enjoyable,
despite not looking of a high quality.
