I’m sure you’ve seen videos with a person standing in a very fake looking location with the fuzzy green outline around them. It just looks bad. Even when it is lite correctly and there is no green outline- why do you want to look like you are floating through space, have a swirly blue wall behind you or worse yet riding a roller coaster. Cheesy! And the ‘gimmick’ factor has long passed.

Most of you are not trying to become a videographer or filmmaker- you are learning how to use video to connect with your followers and market to them in a professional manner, without taking too much of your valuable time.

Green screens are tricky to light properly, take some setup time and you have to learn ‘keying.’

Besides your followers want to see you in your natural habitat, or least a spruced up video version of it. This adds to the authenticity of you and your brand.  We can tell that mansion and sports car was green screened in behind you!

Green screens can be a great tool if used and lite correctly. Using a simple, tasteful background keyed in. Perhaps a solid color, a subtle swirl or something else that’s not too distracting. It is possible to ‘key’ in a whole set like they do for E’s “Talk Soup.” But I say leave the green screens for film and TV special effects. It doesn’t really have a place in blogger and marketing videos, where you want to have a more realistic and natural feel.

Tags: green screen, keying, video equipment, web video

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Equipment, Lighting, Techniques, Tips, Tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.