Green Screen....

So I was contemplating with the idea...and I did a lot of research online and looked at some tutorials.

First thing I realized was that getting an actual green screen, a professional one that is, was going to be extremely pricey , to be specific were talking £60 - £200 - pretty much out of my hands...but I came a cross a few videos that pretty much encouraged the viewers to just go and get some green or blue fabric, some good lighting and something to hold the screen up.

The key thing that is apparently needed for an effective green screen setup is an even distribution of LIGHTING. This makes sure that there are no shadows when the person stands or sits in front of the green screen as this will tint the fabric a darker shade of green and basically make the editing process hell! (when your trying to key the 'green' out) so I guess that's pretty self-explanatory.

But I did try to experiment nontheless.

The fabric I ordered from ebay came today, approximately seven pounds (plus posting and packaging of £3.35) - now that's saying budget at it's highest, haha. But hey, it's green,it's clear so it should still do the trick. The actual Fabric stated that it was chroma key and could be used for green screening. As you can see there's a snapshot of the package above. It's simply:

2 metres Sherwood Green Suede Look Chroma Key Fabric, nothing more nothing less.

So... I tried it out, with my very awkward set up right in front of the garden door and windows, using my mom as my test dummy. It pretty much failed to stay up at first , even with the double sided sticky tape so in the end I ended having to drape it over a curtain rail pole. As well as that I also had to place the tape at the sides to make sure there were no creases in the material - another essential point to ensure when making an effective green screen set up.
Getting the lighting right was the hardest. The shadows just kept popping up like the flu and I couldnt find a way to get rid of them at first. The dark lighting in my living room did not help either...so i decided to get the three desk lamps that I had in the house in various rooms and placed them as stated: one on the table facing the ceiling ( I learned from a tutorial on youtube that facing the light towards the ceiling helped to reflect it on the green screen), and two on the floor, also facing upwards and hitting the green screen from the bottom left. When I had finished I noticed there was a huge decrease in shadows, and they only seemed to appear when the person was too close to the screen. Voila, I thought. No shadows, yet the green screen only captured a close-up shot of the person as I'd made them stand further away from the screen. I suppose the way I'd draped the green screen fabric over the curtain pole had played a part in this as it was not touching the ground and it was landscape.
So, enough of my babbling, here is the finished result, or should I say: My failed attempt at Green Screening, haha.
But I will have to work on a lot of things if I truly want to incorporate it in my video as I refuse to put up with mediocre results.

Green Screen Test from Imani Pratt on Vimeo.

I used the trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD to edit this. The process is quite simple but as you can see you have to get the good footage with no shadows if you really want it to look effective at all.

The Process:
Opened Program > 'Project' on the toolbar > 'Import Media' > Found the Media files I wanted to import (background image and movie file) > Dragged the movie file to the 'Text' section on the timeline and the background image on the 'Video' section of the timeline'> Right clicked the movie file > Selected 'Media FX/Video Event FX' > Selected 'Sony Chroma Keyer' > Clicked 'Add' > Selected dropper tool and picked out the green on the video file by clicking on the green screen > Altered the amount of 'Low' and 'High' Threshold until I got the desired effect

Filming session 2

So I just filmed the traffic time-lapse that I wanted to film, but surprise, surprise the location suggestions I was going to use went completely out the window. Instead I chose to film a bit nearer and recorded it at the bridge located on Bounds Green Road near the Bounds Green station - which to my advantage, was convenient as its just a drive away.
I managed to stay for at least half an hour before I went. At first I had some trouble finding the right angle to film at, because the bridge had bars on it I had to try and fit the traffic in the frame without including the bars in the sequence. When I did that I realised that I still did not have the perfect view I wanted, the tripod was tilted downwards yet only the middle of the road was predominantly shown with the cars coming from the right side only. After 5-10 mins I realised something was wrong, the tripod had to be stretched completely outwards so that the screen displayed the WHOLE road in the frame without showing the bars.
It is then that I realised I could do with a bit more practice and experience when it comes to angling the camera correctly and positioning the tripod appropriately as well; bearing in mind I have only just started using this tripod today. But nevertheless I finally managed to include all of the road in the frame if not most of it and I am quite pleased with the result.
This is my edited version of a section the time-lapse.



Faster Improved Version

Traffic time-lapse from Imani Pratt on Vimeo.

Perfect locations for traffic time-lapse?

If possible, I could use the bridge located in Southbury Road in Enfield to film one of my time-lapses of traffic. I thought this would be a good idea as from the bridge you can get a good serial view of the vehicles as they move.

Alternatively I could record it at Palmer's Green Triangle at The Triangle as it is currently decorated well with christmas lights and a christmas tree, this would be beneficial as it would have a very attractive mise-en-scene.

Evaluation of skills so far...

Technical skills:

• Framing shots: I think I've gotten better at framing shots, all the elements in the sequences I've recorded so far are related to the scene. There is no particular improvement though as ability has stayed the same, perhaps I could try and use the filming space a bit better for my other scenes when filming.
• Using a variety of shot distances: I've demonstrated this in the first rough edit of my first recording, with a zoom shot on the main character Rose towards the end as well as a close-up of the clock during various parts of the scene, a mid-shot of the teacher and a long shot of the class. But it is still very early days and I have yet to demonstrate my ability to film the range of shots I wanted to use, for example, tilt shots which I wanted predominantly on the main character during the video.
  
  
• Holding a shot steady: with use of the tripod this has been made easier for me as opposed to last year when there were a few shaky shots of the scene. I do still need to develop the way in which I move the tripod head to ensure I get a smoother camera movement when filming shots such as zooms, pans or tilts. Hopefully this ability will improve if I practise more on the tripod I have or use another one just to see which one works best for me.
  
• Editing: I think I'm a lot more quick on my feet with the editing, doing as I go along so that I have more of an idea of how I want the actual editing process to go. I actually find it better as last year it was my first time using pretty much any editing software and being able to edit anything so it was more of a shock and it took me some time getting used to the basic functions e.g. just adding new titles or using the razor tool when needed, this became very time consuming, but this year although I still have a lot to learn I have more of an idea of how to use the software; making use of my own software at home (general Windows
  Movie Maker which most PC's have) has enabled some preparation for me.

First filming session

The first filming session took place after school today at around 3:45pm. It wasn't originally intended to be at this time of the day but at lunch time I couldn't find many of the cast members as they probably had gone to lunch and the time was running out too quick, disabling the chances of recording a worthwhile sequence.
Secondly, the original classroom I wanted to use was in use by one of the teachers as they were having an after school lesson so i had to relocate the cast to another classroom nearby.
The first scene was fairly easy to film, I instructed the classmates in the scene to act as if they were in a normal lesson, doing a test or exam paper with a few messing around in the background. First I started with a shot that showed the back of the classmates and the front of the teacher at her desk, during this part a classmate in the back row decided to throw some paper at her friend in front of her, to which they both laughed and the teacher told them to be quiet. I was fine with this part, I felt it was good in the way the actresses immediately responded to the "shh!" as this made it more effective in the way that it was sharp.
However half way through filming I had a few problems. The first was the zooming in of the title on the board. I had placed the camera all the way at the back of the class just so the full frame of the mise-en-scene showed on the screen, but as I tried to zoom in when the teacher was writing the title on the board it was not smooth at all, in fact it ended up looking very jerky and unprofessional, although I did attempt to re-film that part quickly towards the end of the session, I ended up with an even worse attempt.
I don't particularly know why I had so much trouble zooming in steadily, I think I just need to practise a bit more doing it smoothly like my first rough cuts of the clock ticking, or perhaps it was the positioning of the tripod (on top of a table)which made it unstable.
I'm not happy with all of the result, for example, the tripod head was very stiff so it was hard to turn to ensure a smooth camera movement every time i wanted to turn. I may need to think of borrowing the school tripod if this one continues to give me problems.
All in all, much more work is needed on the general technical skills of the first scene; this includes improving the smoothness of the camera movement and improving zooming in and out.
I expect to re-film on a day where most of the cast members have free periods, if the editing can not correct the visual problems. An ideal day would be Tuesdays as most of the sixth form have periods 3 & 4 free.

My test edit using Windows Movie Maker at home:


FEEDBACK
My teacher suggested that:

1. I should make the sound muted for the majority of the film after the teacher tells the student to 'shh!'. The silence should be replaced by the ticking sounds of the clock.


2. The main character Rose should not be the last shot in the frame, instead the clock should be ticking last and maybe transition with a fade into the next scene


3. If I'm going to use the warpy/dreamy effect near the end of the intro, it should be either more prominent and powerful or just be replaced by a fade instead.