A Green Screen shoot for the Irrigation Association's "Pioneers Video" (Photo by Mark Schulze)You are making arrangements for an event in a new city and the last thing you want to think about is video. However, all your corporate department heads will be gathered in one convention arena at the same time, and you cannot afford to let the opportunity pass. You must gather interview footage of everybody while you can, if only for historical documentation. So to green screen or not to green screen… that is the question.
In the early days of green-screen interviews, a production crew would show up with a cumbersome neon green backdrop and take an hour and a half to set it up. Now there are portable green screens that are easily erected in a fraction of the time. But do you need it? Many corporate event coordinators are tired of bland convention walls, ugly draping or reflective and immovable art found in hotel rooms and convention halls where interviews are traditionally shot.
The green screen offers a happy alternative. The digital editor who stitches your interviews together can place any backdrop you desire behind the interviewee. For instance, your CEO who hails from San Antonio could have the Alamo in the background. Or the representative from Maui can have a gorgeous tropical waterfall behind her. You get the picture. You can also change out the background in future presentations.
You will need to make sure that the production crew properly lights the interviewees and green screen, as lighting is everything in a production. And you will also need to make sure that the editor can expertly key out the green so you don’t get any green pixels showing through and around a fuzzy blonde head of hair. Please make sure your interviewees are not wearing anything green!
If you are well organized, you can gather quite a few interviews in one day. Our record stands at 36 interviews in one day (each interviewee had two or three lines to deliver to the camera).
In order to qualify a video production company or editor, ask to see examples of their work. They will generally have a demo reel or two online at their website, or available on DVD. Check ours out at Crystal Pyramid Productions.
In the early days of green-screen interviews, a production crew would show up with a cumbersome neon green backdrop and take an hour and a half to set it up. Now there are portable green screens that are easily erected in a fraction of the time. But do you need it? Many corporate event coordinators are tired of bland convention walls, ugly draping or reflective and immovable art found in hotel rooms and convention halls where interviews are traditionally shot.
The green screen offers a happy alternative. The digital editor who stitches your interviews together can place any backdrop you desire behind the interviewee. For instance, your CEO who hails from San Antonio could have the Alamo in the background. Or the representative from Maui can have a gorgeous tropical waterfall behind her. You get the picture. You can also change out the background in future presentations.
You will need to make sure that the production crew properly lights the interviewees and green screen, as lighting is everything in a production. And you will also need to make sure that the editor can expertly key out the green so you don’t get any green pixels showing through and around a fuzzy blonde head of hair. Please make sure your interviewees are not wearing anything green!
If you are well organized, you can gather quite a few interviews in one day. Our record stands at 36 interviews in one day (each interviewee had two or three lines to deliver to the camera).
In order to qualify a video production company or editor, ask to see examples of their work. They will generally have a demo reel or two online at their website, or available on DVD. Check ours out at Crystal Pyramid Productions.