Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 Green Screen Storytelling Technical Reference - using iMovie and eZeScreen How to blend live storytelling performance that was recorded in front of a green background with still images and other digital media. Note: This tutorial assumes you have some experience with iMovie.

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 1.Plan and prep. Especially important is building a “Picture Table” that specifies how long you want each background picture to appear. 2.Create movie segments. This involves splitting the main movie into separate segments that exactly match the length of time that the pictures will appear. 3.Import your background pictures. FYI: these don’t have to be still pictures. They can be animation, movies or any digital media. 4.Blend movie segments. Add the movie segments to the pictures. This blends the two by replacing the green in the movie with the pictures. 5.Export the movie. Save your movie then “export” or “share” it. Otherwise others won’t be able to watch it. Basic process For green screen storytelling, eZeScreen is not intuitive- in fact, it’s backwards. That is, you add movies to background pictures, rather than vice versa. However, once you get used to the process, it’s easy. Here are the basic steps: This process is covered in detail in the following slides.

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 Plan and prep 1.Make pictures accessible. Put the pics you are going to use for your background somewhere handy (I put them in iPhoto) and “rotate” right side up (which you can do in iPhoto). I recommend students create pictures using landscape orientation (lying on their side) because they fill a computer screen better. STEPS I. Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export 2.Open main movie file and “Extract Audio” (under Advanced menu). The audio and video should now appear in separate tracks. 3.Write down picture times. Have paper and pencil handy as you watch your movie and determine where pictures should appear. As you do, create a “Picture Table” like one shown here. Typically stories are anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes long, but for purposes of demonstration I am using a 12-second excerpt from a story created and told by Brett Dillingham called, “What Billy Wumperville Saw.”

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 II. Create movie segments 1.Overview. You need to create separate movies that are the same length as the pictures that will appear as the background in your story. This seems confusing, given that you haven’t added the pictures to the movie yet! But that’s the way the software works. STEPS I. Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export 2.Split the movie at each point at which you want a new picture to appear. Do this by placing the movie play head at the split points and selecting Split video clip at playhead from the Edit menu. In the example here, you would split the movie at 9 seconds; your movie would then be in two segments. Most students use 3-4 pictures, thus their movies would be spit into 3-4 segments. Note: because you extracted the audio earlier, it will not be split.

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 II. Create movie segments, continued 3.Copy segment 1 into its own movie file. Select your first movie segment, copy it (Command C), open up a new movie in iMovie, and paste the movie segment into the new movie file. 4.Export or “share” the movie as full quality. Go to File, and select either Export or Share. From the Compress movie for menu select Full Quality. I recommend naming this file “seg1-moviename,” where “seg1” stands for “first movie segment” and “moviename” is the name of your main movie file. 5.Create the rest of the movie segments. Repeat the process above for the rest of your movie segments. STEPS I. Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 III. Import still pictures into your main movie file 1.Overview. Now it is time to replace the green behind the storytellers with the pictures they have created. The first step is importing the background pictures into the movie and setting them to the appropriate length according to your “Picture Table”. 2.Delete original movie. Delete the movie segments in your main movie to make room for the still pictures. Your video track should now be empty (but your audio should still be there). 3.Import your pictures. Import the pictures that will replace the green in the main movie. Use the dialog box to ensure each picture is the right length according to your “Picture Table” (the first will appear from 0 to 9 seconds, etc.) To import pictures in my version of iMovie, I select Media, then select Photos. Note: your pics don’t have to be in iPhoto. I put them in iPhoto before importing them because it helps me stay organized. STEPS I. Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 IV. Blend movie segments with pictures 1.Overview. With the pictures in place in the main movie, we now add the movie segments. eZeScreen will “see” the green background of the movies and replace it with the still pictures. 2.Blend movies with pictures. Click on the first picture in your main movie file. Go to video effects or effects (depending on your version of iMovie). Select eZeScreen. Click on Configure, then Choose Movie and browse to find “seg1-moviename.” Select Pick which allows you to determine the color you want to replace. Place the crosshairs somewhere on the green and click. 3. Adjust tolerance, transparency, smoothing settings. Adjust these with the sliders. I start each at half, then play with them until I get the best results. You want the picture as bright as possible with no bleed thru (the picture showing up on the storyteller). When you’re done, click OK which returns you to iMovie’s main edit screen. STEPS I.Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 IV. Blend movie segments with pictures, continued 4.At the iMovie main edit screen, click on Apply. Clicking OK in the eZeScreen menu takes you back to iMovie’s main edit screen where you need to click Apply in order to “apply” all of your editing to the movie segment you were working on. You will asked if you want to Convert the still clips. Select Convert. You will see a red line filling from left to right at the bottom of the movie segment. This means iMovie is “rendering” the clip, which is movie-speak for blending the picture and movie clip. 5.Repeat process. Now repeat the process above for each movie segment/picture. STEPS I.Plan and prep II. Create movie segments III. Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export Reminder- Click Configure to begin the editing process; when you are finished and return to the main iMovie edit screen, click Apply.

Green Screening with eZeScreen 3/24/07 V. Finalize and export your file 1.Add credits, music other media to your story. 2.Save file normally. 3.Export or “share” the movie. You have a number of options for sharing the movie, all of which present “file size versus movie resolution” trade offs. The “ ” option produces very small files but they appear very small on your screen. Full quality produces very large files but are high resolution and fill most of your screen. Ideally, if you have the storage capacity, or can burn projects to CDs or DVDs as you go, save them as Full Quality. 4.Your green screen storytelling movie is now ready for viewing as viewing, burning to a CD or DVD, etc. Note: eZeScreen comes with a short overview that I should have also sent you. If I didn’t, let me know. STEPS I.Plan and prep II.Create movie segments III.Import pictures IV. Blend movie segments V. Export