Green Screen: Technical Side

Once we had decided on using a green screen in our trailer it was time for us to work out the technical aspects of using one. None of us had any experience in dealing with green screens or editing them so it was important for some research to take place. I looked around the internet and found out a multitude of tips for using a green screen.

• First of all, we had to decide on where we wanted to film using the green screen, as this would affect the size and type of screen that we used. We chose to use the flats that are used as staging in the theatre as we could arrange them as big or as small as we wanted, or even make them smaller gradually to put across the idea of the main character being slowly trapped by her illness as time goes on.
• From this decision, we could easily choose how to go about using the green screen, and so we thought it would be a good idea to purchase some cloth/ sheets of the right measurements, and then dye them -using fabric dye- green. We thought this would be the most practical option as we could move them around and adjust them easily.
• I came across tips on choosing a colour for our screen. Typically, blue or green is used as these make the subjects in front of them stand out the best. We had to ensure, however, that we wouldn’t have to use props or costumes which utilise the same colours as the screen as they would also be cut out of the image along with the background, which would not look effective. We chose to go for green as blue could easily be used in our actors costumes.
• It is important to light the green screen evenly as any shadows will make the editing process extremely hard. Therefore, being in the theatre will be useful to us as we will have easily accessible lights that we can use to light the sheets that we will stick onto the flats.
• We will have to decide on a background image to use behind our characters. We will do this by filming/taking a picture of an image to utilise as the background –a bedroom perhaps- or maybe finding background to use online, potentially of a burning fire in later scenes as a quick shot to show the main character’s anguish in her illness.
• We will have to edit the two images together in order to make them look effective and realistic. We will use this either using imovie or Final Cut Pro. We will most likely find this part of the process a difficult challenge, but we are willing to hard in order to achieve the effect we want.