Introduction to Chroma key & Adobe Photoshop + Short film

Tuesday 27th September, 2016

Dear Diary,

Today I got the chance to make a short little film using a green screen background, When me and my class mates were in the TV studio.

The concept of the film was very straightforward. I decided that the film would just be about someone who was committing suicide, by shooting themselves in the head.

I was playing the character that had shot themselves in the head. To make the scene look a bit more realistic, I had decided to get a prop which was a fake plastic gun. The scene was easy to record and I had previously helped set up the lighting so no shadows were present. Overall the scene took less than a minute to record.

The editing process

The editing process was very complex and confusing to me, it took a lot of time for me to get use to adding a picture and making sure it looked clear enough as a background. Eventually, I got used to how to edit the green screen on premier pro, It just took a lot of patience and exploring with the effects control.

STAGE 1

At this stage, I got rid of the green background and was beginning to experiment with the settings. As you can see from the picture the black background wasn't smooth enough, and when I was being played you could see a green fuzz around me. I had to look at ways to make it look smooth, so it could look a bit more realistic. Even though I was not going to use this background I still thought it was crucial to at least spend some time altering it and perfecting it. As this could help me in the future if I do end up using a black background in my work. I feel like I should not leave the background fuzzy just because I'm not using it. I see it as a perfect opportunity to learn how to deal with these problems instead of skipping them.

STAGE 2

At stage 2, I had fixed the fuzziness in the black background and began re-arranging and looking at the clips that I was going to use for my final edit. As you can see from the picture the black looks way smoother and blends in really well, this is because I went to '' Matte cleaner'' in effect controls and decided to alter the background and experiment with the settings.

STAGE 3

(For the image search I just googled dark bedroom)

Stage 3 was about looking for perfect pictures for my background, I needed to find out what theme I was going for, was I going for a scary theme? or a mysterious theme? Eventually I found a image that I liked, but unfortunately the resolution of it was not clear enough or big enough. It looked really blurry and pixelated, so I decided to choose another image. I found the theme I was going for which was mysterious and decided to choose a picture of another bedroom. I then found a better image with a better resolution which fitted perfectly to my theme. I wanted the room to make it look like the person who was committing suicide, was emotionally un-stabled and living in un-settling environment (which was her bedroom)

STAGE 4 LAST STAGE

The last stage involved me editing and cutting clips. Also in this stage I was looking for music and some sound effects to add to my work. I found a voice sound effect from a song that I really wanted to use, so i downloaded the mp3 and added it to my work. I also was looking for realistic gun shot sounds on youtube to add to my work. Eventually I found the sound effects I wanted.

I did not feel it was necessary to add anymore effects than this, as my film was 2 seconds long,

very short and simple.

I finally finished editing and here I present to you my final edit!

Evaluation

I believe that this activity was very fun to do. It allowed me to develop more skills and gain more confidence in using premier pro for other stuff besides text and the basics.

In my opinion, I really like how my short film turned out, However I wish I could have made it longer or an actual short film on it. It made me think that it in the future I would love to produce an action / horror movie. I am proud of myself and impressed that I went from being new to premier pro to a confident user in it. I also really like the start of it when you see a shadow, a silhouette of me with the gun being placed at my head, it makes me look mysterious and unknown, I just wish it would have looked a bit clearer as you can't really see that I am holding a gun.

Improvements?

In my short film, I do see some defects I know that its not as perfect as I think it is. In some of the scenes you can see that my hand looks blurry and my face looks distorted and squashed. I do understand where I went wrong with this, as when I was experimenting I altered the settings way too much. I did this because I wanted to make sure their was no green fuzz around my head. As for my hands I believe that my hands caused shadows in the green screen which is why my hand didn't seem to blend in well.

I now know in the future, to not alter the settings too much! and also to make sure the green screen is evenly lit as possible, but I know these things are possible. You could have a green screen that is perfectly lit but there would be still minor shadows present.

---

Introduction to Adobe Photoshop

Not only was I introduced to Chroma key, I was also introduced to Adobe Photoshop. On Adobe photoshop I learned how to make a speech bubble present in my editing for annotating and labelling purposes.

The experience I faced with using Adobe photoshop was fun and sometimes complicated. It took me two times to fully be confident and comfortable with creating a transparent bubble. I have previously used photoshop before and other softwares like gimp, so I find doing the basics on Photoshop quite easy and accomplishable.