Never green screen with a frog

This fun film was made by teachers from Elm Park Primary school on the recent ATI. (Apple Teachers Institute) Made in about 5 hours, after careful planning, it high-lights the pro's and con's of working with green screen in animation. Works and looks great in full screen mode.



The film industry use green and blue as their chroma key, because actors (Human not frogs) don't have any green and blue colour hues in their skin tones. So with animation projects, technically you could use any colour background to key-out.

Tips for working with a Green Screen;

1-Use green paper with a matt finish from the art department.

2-Make sure it's crease free.

3- Don't include any green in the models that you intend to animate, best stay away from some yellows that have green hue connections.

Lighting is key!

4- If you can, use a white room with no windows or a blackout, then use ordinary classroom lights. Mixing the light source can cause problems with some cameras and software. Light has different colour temperatures, daylight is blue and florescent can be more orange.

5- If you can't blackout windows and have to use daylight (The above film was made this way) Choose a location where there is a good natural light source. BUT not if there are clouds being blown in front of the sun or trees moving in the wind. Essentially the best natural light is flat light (a cloudy day) with an even light. Strong sun can cause harsh shadows which you want to avoid. A room that is north facing and doesn't see the sun direct would also work well.

6- Keep models 5 inches away from the green screen, so shadows don't fall on the green screen. Shadows will mean a slightly different shade of green which will result in a messy outcome.