I love the creative possibilities that green screening brings to my students. If you’re thinking about getting started and aren’t sure where to begin, see below for some ideas.

Below is a sketchnote I drew with ideas from Todd Burleson that was also published in his book The Green Screen Makerspace Project Book. Note that the original sketchnote only had 10 ways but with the discovery of what Play-Doh can do for green screen magic I had to edit it in there and add number 11!  Check out the #wormholechallenge on Twitter for more info on that!

Here are a few of my personal Green Screen tips:

• Watch what you wear – If you wear green or have any green elements on your clothing they can disappear along with the background! (sometimes this works for the desired effect i.e., making a ghostly-looking figure, etc…

• Lighting is key – Use bright lighting or put your screen in front of a window with natural light. Low lighting has less than favourable results.
• Avoid shadows whenever possible.
• A flat surface is best, try to avoid wrinkles if you use fabric because they create shadows and therefor different tones of green and makes it harder to remove the background.
• Film your “green” scenes in landscape mode when you use iMovie. If you record in portrait mode it won’t fill the entire screen and your background image will be visible on the sides of the green video.
• If you don’t have video footage of your own to use, try a stock photo/video site like pexels.com

Have fun getting creative with green screen!