"Green Screen at S.C. State" Prezi Presentation

SCSU's colors are red and white but today in Columbia the school color was green as S.C. State senior communications major Kris Bennett and I gave a Prezi presentation at South Carolina Educational Television to members of the South Carolina Media Educators Association.

I gave an overview on the Communication Program's television studio. Three of the studio's four walls are painted bright green to allow for chroma key, which is a special effects/post-production technology for layering or compositing color hues. Think local TV weather reports in front of a big map- the meteorologist is standing in front of a green screen.

I also highlighted some of my classroom green screen projects and students who come to the studio to shoot against the green walls for various school, club and other projects.

Kris spoke about the "Bulldog Bite" YouTube show she produces on campus for her fellow SC State students.

At SCETV in Columbia with senior Kris Bennett

Here is the Prezi I put together for our presentation to the S.C. Media Educators Association.

Lighting- It's Essential to Quality Video Production!

In my television production class we are getting into lighting. Proper lighting must be achieved or your video is going to look shabby and unprofessional. We are fortunate at South Carolina State University to have a wide array of studio and field lighting gear, including some Smith Victor KT1500U lighting kits like the one below.

Communications senior Jasmine Dodd checks out a field lighting set up

Students will be doing an exercise in three point lighting. They will post photos of themselves and classmates in various lighting arrangements. Three point lighting is a professional configuration commonly used by both photographers and videographers.

SC State student Khadijah Johnson used our TV studio for a project having to do with her hair fashion business.

Khadijah Johnson backlight! 

Tweaking the light locations and brightness levels can help achieve desired effects. In this case, her hair is highlighted by some backlighting. 

I'll try to get a nice smile out of Khadijah next time! 

Action Sequence Video

In my Television Production and Editing course textbook, Chapter 4 is titled "Shooting Video in the Field." The video assignment I gave the students is one of the options in the chapter, which is to "shoot a simple sequence in which you edit action in the camera. Shoot only those scenes you want to use on the air, in the order you want them to appear, with action as closely matched as possible."

With the help of S.C. State communications major Lynn McGrier, we produced this video. The simple concept is to shoot Lynn going in and out of shots, as she leaves a classroom and makes her way out of the building.

A little bit of editing was necessary to make the clips and sequences tighter. I also added title and end pages and found a piece of music on my favorite royalty free music website to accompany the action. Fun little Friday class exercise for the students and I! 

SC State's TV Studio Comes To Light!

In my television production class, the students are learning the thought and planning processes in videography. Whether for film, television news, sports or features, or commercials, there are common processes. Among them is the idea of sequences and steps in accomplishing an act.

As a demonstration, I put together this video showing the various steps involved in opening and turning on the Communication Program's television studio.

Once the raw footage was shot, the next step was to trim each shot to three or four seconds and arrange the clips in an orderly, logical flow. Editing is much easier when the video is shot in sequential order. That's not always possible, but in this case it was.

Communication Program Get New Audio Equipment

S.C. State's Communication's Program continues to make improvements in facilities and resources.

This week the program took delivery of three high end Allen & Heath XB14-2 Compact Professional Broadcast Mixers. The consoles have vast audio mixing and broadcast capabilities. They will be used in classes taught by Mr. Gil Harris, a longtime SCSU instructor and Bulldog football public address announcer.

Program director Dr. Shafiqur Rahman praises the school's Title III staff for helping acquire this professional equipment that will enhance the learning experience of communications students and help consolidate classes to the second floor of the former Crawford Engineering building.

Communications Instructors Gil Harris (left) and Patrick Harwood with the new broadcasting equipment

Time Lapse Videos (iPhone 5)

One of the many cool and fun features of smart phones is the time lapse video capabilities. I've only done a few of these, but they are neat to do. Minutes of video is condensed to six seconds. Here are some examples. I call this first one, simply, "I-26", a route I am very familiar with through my daily commutes from North Charleston to Orangeburg (and back). This was taken in June 2015, my first-ever iPhone time lapse effort.

Next is time lapse I made in August 2015 at a spooky old abandoned house I came across off Highway 17 north of McClellanville. The videos are six seconds in length.

Finally, here's my "Day at the Beach" (Sullivans Island) time lapse made this summer. For some reason, this clip is only two seconds, so watch quickly!

I'm looking for more opportunities for time lapse videos!

Green Screen Fun: Where Do You Want To Be?

Our TV studio's "green screen" walls have been in demand this semester. Already this semester, three or four students and student organizations have booked time for various video and still photography projects.

So this got me thinking that my Electronic Media Production II students should be exposed to the capabilities of green screen or chroma key technology, as it's also called. What this allows us to do is superimpose a background to the photo or video shots against a solid green backdrop. Blue also works.

Here are a couple before and after examples. I processed in Adobe Premiere Elements, which we have in our Dell and student computer labs in Crawford.

                 

I used PhotoShop in the second image to crop the black border.
Here's another version of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. This one has some action of me running! Thanks to my students Stephen and Marcos for taking a few shots of me against the studio green screen.  One tip, it would look better if I was shot from farther back so I would be smaller in the action shot.

In the shot below, I had the camera back several feet from the above one, when taking the photo of me against the Green Screen. I may have been too close to the wall in the one below. Some green is bleeding over on the outline of my shirt. 

In Adobe Premiere Elements, here are the steps to take your green screen image/video and put it against the desired background:

For still shots, the final step, missing from the above, is to hit the camera icon to save as a still shot the image the cursor is on in Adobe Premiere Pro.It will be saved as a bmp file format, which can be uploaded or inserted to your Blogger post. 

Here is a screen capture of where the two shots should go. Your green screen background shot goes in Video 2 and your background image in Video 1. 

o remove the Green Screen effect, right click on taffected clip, go to Remove Effects (note: you must have that clip highlighted or clicked on for this step to work)