Case Study 4/4/2016 Green Screen Essentials!

Hello everyone and welcome to yet another online teaching case study! In this week’s case study, we are going to be discussing: How To Use A Green Screen To Create Amazing Videos!

Recently I have been learning how to create better videos for my online students. Using a green screen is an awesome tool and it can be very engaging! We will be discussing 3 specific tops in this post:

1)   How to buy a green screen and lighting kit

2)   Setting up your green screen and lighting equipment

3)   How to shoot and edit your green screen videos!

Let’s get started!

1)   How to buy a green screen and lighting kit

So where do I suggest you go to buy your green screen? The internet of course! In fact my green screen only cost me about $20.00 from Amazon (after shipping and handling!)

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Now, it is also very important that you are able to light your entire green screen! This way you do not get shadows or “spots” when you record your video. This is why I have purchased two “Cow-Boy Studio” lighting kits! For only $50.00 each, these were a great investment!

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2) Setting up your green screen and lighting equipment:

So when it all of your equipment arrives at your doorstep just go ahead and start unwrapping it!

**IMPORTANT**

Before you hang up or put your green screen against a wall, make sure you STEAM it and to get all of the creases out! You do not want your green screen to have any creases because it they will show up in your video and it will not look very professional!

Pro Tip: I actually went to my local dry cleaners and had them professional press my green screen. It looked amazing and only cost me $7.00!

Now, once you have everything out of the boxes and are ready to put things together, I wanted to make the suggestion you keep your lights “semi” close and also at all different angles shooting at the green screen. This will allow enough light to hit the green screen and also reduce shadows! I have lights on all sides, above me, and even a little behind me! However, you will have to see what works best for you! But just my suggestion J

4)   Once you have everything set up its now time to start filming your videos!

I personally use a Cannon HD camcorder because I think the quality looks better, but you can use a webcam or iMac camera. The results will differ depending on which camera you use. Now, once you film yourself against the green screen you will need to edit your videos!

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Using iMove/ Camtasia, After Effects, or Final Cut Pro will easily allow you to use the green screen effect you are looking for. All you have to do is overlay a your original green screen video with a background of your choice and poof! Your video will instantly be transformed!  See Below!

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I hope you were able to learn a lot about green screens today! It’s now time for your to go out there and start filming your new videos today! 

There are many ways to begin teaching online, but this should give you some great ideas that have worked for myself and many other online instructors! Stay tuned next week were I discuss more online teaching strategies.

Thank you for reading our blog post today! If you have any questions please feel free to post your comments below!
Also, you can check out all of my blog posts for FREE by going to: http://joeparysacademy.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,
Joe Parys​