Making the Green Screen

• Before you can start making a green screen movie, you will need to understand how to make a green screen. You can purchase green screen backdrop material and make a backdrop that is any size you need. If you cannot afford real green screen material, then you can use a green bed sheet or any large piece of green fabric so long as the color is uniform throughout the fabric and there are no imperfections such as tears or stains.
  
  

Lighting

• To film green screen effects that you can use in your production, the lighting on and behind your subject needs to be soft and uniform. If you are not an expert in studio lighting, then you can shoot your footage outside on a sunny day against the green screen backdrop. The best times to shoot are from mid-morning to mid-afternoon when the sun is overhead.
  
  

Stop-Action

• Stop-action photography is used to give the illusion of motion to inanimate objects. For example, to give the illusion that a toy action figure is walking, you would film the object standing still in the first frame of the movie. For the second frame, you would move one leg a step, and the third frame would be the next step and so on. With green screen, you can have your action figures battle each other in exotic locations all over the world.
  
  

Context

• If you are making educational videos or any kind of video describing a place, person or an object, then you can film your discussion against a green screen and then edit in images of the objects you are discussing to give context. This can be helpful for instructors doing online videos for students, or for students who are doing a video log of their experiences to send to their friends and family back home.