Green Screen Video on a Budget

 

One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is shoot informational videos but I’ve struggled with locations and background settings.  I know what your thinking, the background isn’t as important as the content.  I agree BUT if you have unusual background settings they can turn into a distraction for your message.   The answer to this problem can be found in what’s called ‘Green Screen’ video.  This is the same trick the weather men (persons) having been using for years.  You simply need some form of a green background, special software, and a video camera.  I set out to do this, here are my results.

Step 1 was to find some green material. I ended up buying a roll of green paper from Lakeshore Learning (a teaching supply store).  I hung it up in my office and shot the following video.

 

Next what I did was find some software to handle the green screen.  I found on the Apple App Store a program called Green Screen by Do Ink for $2.99.

I wanted a program that was simple to use and cheap.  This program is used by teachers in their classrooms and definitely fit the bill on the price.
So now, combining the video in the program and moving a couple of sliders allowed me to produce this.

 

So that was fun but I needed a full area to hide the background so I decided to go the long was in my office and use some thumb tacks to attach it to the wall.
Now I cropped the video while shooting it from inside the program and also place a background image on the live video.  This was my results.

 

Wow, okay.  I was really happy with that.  You can also shoot a video and replace it with nothing.  Setting the color to whatever you want.  In this case I set it black (the chroma – green screen effect – needed it a little adjustment).

 

 

As promised in the video, here is the additional equipment I used.  My iphone 7 plus and a crazy adjustable phone mount from 5 and below.
I hope this helps you out.  Please feel free to share this post and leave a comment in the section below.