Learning about video production

Over the last ten weeks, I have been teaching green screen filming to a wide range of faculties at my school. We have had multiple classes in English, Sport, Commerce, and Geography come through and use the green screen. Originally, this started when faculties kept borrowing my green fleece fabric for puppet making to use as a green screen with limited success. Fortunately, I found in a resource catalogue a proper green screen kit with 4 soft box lights which I purchased for my school.

I also purchased a new camera kit for the filming that we are doing at the school for the various projects the school is involved in regarding Teacher Professional development and student teacher experiences. The camera kit contains a XA35 Canon professional camera, a boom microphone, a camera mounted microphone and lapel microphone. Combining the two kits, also gives students an opportunity to use professional equipment, and for me, the opportunity to use professional grade equipment to continue practising my monitor Puppetry skills.

When all the equipment arrived, and I started setting it up, the first thing I needed to learn was how to light the green screen properly. I found a wonderful Lynda.com course that helped me understand how to light the screen properly.

Given the number of students who wanted to film using wide shots, it became necessary to purchase a matching additional green screen from Fotogenic to use as a green floor mat.

I was very surprised that the green screen kit bags did not have built in storage space for the actual screen. I feel that it is very important to keep both of the green screens clean and store it tidly with its frame. I ended up purchasing a Gurli cushion cover from Ikea. It is a perfect size for storing both of the screens folded neatly. It’s also bright green, making it very easy to spot in the storeroom.

20171212-052248.jpg

The scariest thing about the green screen setup is how easily the lights can fall over and the globes inside smash. When the globe smashed, I was worried that the large 125W globe would be very expensive to replace. I was pleasantly surprised when the replacement globes from Fotogenic were less than $40. To prevent the light stands falling over in the future, I will be purchasing the appropriate sandbags for the lights so they are less likely to tip over when knocked.

The next amazing thing I learnt while creating the green screen filming kit was how using a teleprompter really helped improve student focus and performance while on camera. The idea for adding a teleprompter came from observing the performance of a year 8 student who is a public speaker and debater. His group was creating a mock- news report, and this student was the news anchor. He delivered all of his lines off the cuff, with enormous confidence, almost directly into the camera. If we had a teleprompter, his performance would have shifted his eye focus directly into the camera, making it professional.

Given in this day and age of ask google and learn from YouTube, I found a number of tutorials online that allowed us to use a school iPad as the prompter display, an old picture frame, 2 science retort stands, a paper box with lids and some black fabric.

20171212-053506.jpg

The teleprompter apps we have been using is called Teleprompt+3 which is a paid app that works with Apple Watch. This app is great because it links directly to Dropbox and Google Drive, so students could share their script with me and I could bring it up on the iPad with very little delay. The other app we have been using is Parrot Teleprompter which is a free app. Parrot works very well, and I copy the scripts using email or the google drive app and paste the contents into the app. Both apps are easy to use, the speed of the prompter can be changed for the student, as well as the colour and size of the text. In class, we used both an iPad Air2 and a IPad Pro. The most challenging part of the teleprompter setup we were using, was that we could not change the height of the prompter easily. The deputy principal was really excited at how I had created my own prompter, that he wants me to purchase a professional prompter for the school filming kit on an adjustable stand!

Here are some examples of the fun I have had filming with the students at my school:
https://www.facebook.com/MacquarieFieldsHS/posts/1951851818203471
https://www.facebook.com/MacquarieFieldsHS/posts/1915277931860860

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar