Chroma Keying Practical - 11/01/2024

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 As our first practical back after the winter break, we were tasked with using the green screens set up in the room next to our homeroom to create a stop motion animation which we would then chroma-key onto a separate video backdrop. Do do this we were instructed on how to and subsequently set up several lights around the room to properly light the green screen for filming, with three lights set on the left, right, and in the centre of the room. We then set up two cameras similarly to how we did for our video projects in December, which we then connected via HDMI cable into an audio mixer, which for this practical was a Blackmagic: Atem mini pro. This audiomixer would not only allow for us to chroma-key the footage live, but also control which camera was being recorded at a given time, which helped us to get a feel for how working on a television set with similar green screening would operate. Below is a couple pictures showing off the setup we used for the practical as well as the audiomixer.



For the work we would produce from the practical, we were instructed to create a stop-motion short video of us moving around in peculiar ways, such as sliding on the floor, floating and so on. To do this we filmed ourselves as we moved around the greens screen set, doing each pose individually for these moments to be cut out and spliced together later on in editing. For my animation I decided to make the motions of ice skating around the set, involving making the pose, stepping forward, posing again, and repeating this until I had about 40 or so frames to work with. 

Our videos were edited in Adobe Premiere Pro 2024 using the Ultra Key effect to remove the green screen for us to place the footage we filmed onto another backdrop. Due to our lighting not being perfect there were some very obvious instances of the keying not working perfectly, such as visible shadows and the accidental keying of our clothes, skin and hair. This isn't to much of an issue however, since this exercise is more about learning the basics of keying than creating a perfect edit of our footage, so being mostly transparent is good enough for this session. Below is a screenshot from the editing process I took of my footage in Premiere Pro.



For the background to my keyed video I took an old photo of the ocean seen from a plane window back in December of 2022, as with the context of my video it could easily be interpreted as a frozen lake with snow on it, which helps keep my footage look fitting, if still a bit silly looking for my tastes.

Overall I enjoyed creating the stop motion video, and using the green screens was a fun experience. I believe that what I've learned from this will help me improve future artefacts made with similar green screen assets and improve my digital media skillset. Below is a Google Drive link to the short stop motion animation I made using the footage from the workshop edited together in Premiere Pro.

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