Green Screen in iMovie – Chromakey Tips and Tricks
It is pretty easy to do green screen video with the video editing software now available. With iMovie or Final Cut Pro on the Mac or you could be using Premiere from Adobe, you can easily do green screen on YouTube videos. So long as you set it up right and take care, especially with the lighting of the green screen, it is as easy as falling off a log. As far as green screen lighting tips go, there is really only one tip. Just light your green screen as evenly as possible. All you have to do is to make sure that the light that you cast on your green screen, covers the whole area without there being either bright spots or shadows.
Green screen video made easy
When you’re trying to work out how to do green screen video the first place to start would be with your actual green screen. This can be a material which you hang or stretch behind where your talent is going to stand. It is really easy to find from various sources including eBay, either small cuts of green screen material, or quite large sheets of the stuff. On the other hand, what you could do is to buy some paint of the right colour which is a putrid bright green. If you have a nice flat wall that you can paint with this vomit coloured, vomit inducing colour of paint, it could be a perfect solution for your chromakey background. Obviously one of the cons for this would be that you don’t have any mobility, but it’s something that you could consider for a more permanent video studio.
Lighting for green screen video
It really is all about the lighting, because if you light it correctly, then green screen on iMovie is simplicity itself. I must have got the lighting just right with the last green screen movie that I did with iMovie. After importing the video clips, I was able to use all of the default settings within green screen iMovie and I was done. I have found that when you are doing green screen, depending upon the talent that you are shooting, that you might need to test with both a dark background and also with a light background in your video editing software.
Getting the green screen iMovie editing right
If all is not correct when you have used the default settings of iMovie, then you can make adjustments to suit the green that you have created with your background and lighting. You can make adjustments to better suit the exact colour of green and also make adjustments for the edges around your subject. You may need to do some twiddling and fiddling with the settings in your green screen video within iMovie. Certainly you may find that a bit of practice is required to get it just right. You want to get rid of any fringing around the edges.
There are quite a few instructional videos on how to do green screen on YouTube videos. Here is a green screen on iMovie how-to type video to get you started. Do make sure that in iMovie you have it set to show advanced tools. You will not have access to iMovie green screen effects otherwise.
Green screen Final Cut Pro
In the video on this VideoMagical post, we are looking at green screen iMovieediting. In Final Cut Pro X, you will find that the chroma key green screen editing is just as easy as it is with iMovie. One of my green screen tips in Final Cut Pro is that you can do samples of the green screen at various points during the movie. So that if I have found an area that for some reason at one point during the move does not work, then I can make another selection of the green, to improve the green screen editing. Still bear in mind though, that if you have got good lighting for green screen you will have less tweaking of the settings to do.
Selling the illusion with green screen on YouTube videos
If you have your talent standing in front of a scene that is windy, then you might want to use some sort of blower to move their hair in a realistic way. The actor will also be required perhaps to react to objects that are not really there. It will be the attention to small details in your green screen movie, that will help to sell the illusion to the viewers.
Green screen background videos
Once you have managed to key out the green screen background then you can add green screen background videos. You want to try and make it so that your talent will to fit into the background scene that you add. If the background video is of a sunny summers day, then your talent will need to be dressed accordingly as well as being lit suitably. You may also want to take into account the shadows and the direction of light, so that the foreground and the added background will match. Green screen video will be a great addition to help you make that viral video for YouTube
