Summary of green screen page
To see a summary of the tutorial on this green screen page, watch the video below.
Q. If Hollywood were making a superhero movie about the Green Hornet, how would the special effects people use the green screens? See if you can figure it out. The answer is at the bottom of the page.
Making a no cost video
If you are just starting out learning about green screens, there is no point in spending money now. We have a solution that may not give you the quality to upload the video to YouTube. But, you will learn how to make a very good product once you want to spend some money.
In the animated GIF above, the speaker’s wife held her green skirt behind the speaker’s head. There were two shadows on the left that could not be removed.
Making a video with green screen in 11 steps
- Find something green to hang behind the speaker’s head. Make sure the green shade is as uniform as possible.
- Create a ScreenFlow video.
Add the video clip with the green screen as the top line of the Timeline.- Click the Video icon at the upper right of ScreenFlow.
- Click the plus sign to the right of Video Filters.
- Make sure Chroma Key is selected.
- Click Add.
Click Color icon.- Click on green area of Refine Key.
- Move the Tolerance slider back & forth to remove as much green as possible.
- Move the cursor around the green area of the Refine Key until your background is as close to perfect as possible
Spending a small amount of money
In the animated GIF here a background of movement in outer space has been added behind the speaker’s head. There are no shadows like you saw in the GIF above. These are the steps required:
-
- The speaker went to a dollar store and bought some green Bristol board.
- He taped enough sheets together to make the green screen.
- He made a video of himself talking in front of a green screen.
- After it was finished, he made sure the video was on the top line of the ScreenFlow Timeline.
He found a background MOV file from the Free Video Footage website and placed it on the next line of the Timeline.- He added the rest of the ScreenFlow action that you see above.
Hollywood green screen
You have learned how to utilize green screens without spending much money. Perhaps you will start using them professionally. Watch the video below to see how green screens were used to make the 2013 Great Gatsby movie.
The Green Hornet
Q. If Hollywood were making a superhero movie about the Green Hornet, how would the special effects people use the green screens?
A. When people use a green screen, everything that is the right shade of green would be made invisible. So, if the light shining on the superhero created a shade too close to the green screen, he would likely have invisible spots on his body. In all likelihood, a blue screen would be used instead.