Using multiple layers to create a world
In my most recent video project, I interviewed the Dashing Pirate of Sioux Falls. Since 2020, Mort has been making deliveries on Door Dash and Grub Hub dressed like a pirate. He tells jokes and engaged customers with improv acting as a way of spreading joy and increasing the delivery tips he gets.
I loved the idea for this theme! However, the only location I could think of locally that was pirate-themed was the water park at the Ramada Inn, which had far too much background noise to work as a recording space. In addition, the water park is open to the public, and Mort attracts a lot of attention with his costume. When we shot the B roll footage, some of the guests were still asking about the Dashing Pirate and BlackByrd after they had left.
The best alternative I could think of to “shooting on location” was filming in a quiet studio in front of a green screen in order to have a crisp sound quality and a blank slate for the background that could be filled in to suit the theme.
In a previous project, I had used a still image with the green screen, but I wanted this one to have subtle motion in the background, so I looked at stock footage on Youtube. Finding free-to-use, simple backgrounds is as easy as searching things like “palm trees stock footage” or “beach stock footage”.
This video explains how to use the Ultra Key in Adobe Premier Pro to get the green screen effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAA2l7-_kFQ
I tweaked the settings a little because there’s some shadows in the video.
The “aggressive” setting made the green background more transparent– it’s helpful to use that setting if you have a green screen background with some shadows in it.
Not bad over all! But there was an issue with the corner of the screen where the camera captured the corner of the green sheet on the wall:
I decided the easiest way to cover this was to put a couple of “happy little trees” in the corners, as Bob Ross would say:
The trees covered up the imperfections in the original layer of green screening, in addition to adding more character and life to the scene!
Both layers were used in a loop, and the B roll cut aways were on an overlay, which covered everything for some parts of the video.
I still love using more traditional techniques like drawing a background (I once drew several 10×10 ft backgrounds in the German Expressionist style for a black and white 8mm film). However, green screening is a fast, fun, and less messy alternative to drawing out an entire backdrop– this time, I didn’t have to clean liquified charcoal off the floor of my apartment when I was done spending weeks drawing the backdrops!