Digitial News Production: Green Screen Workshop, Adobe Illustrator & After effects tutorial

Green Screen Workshop

The Green screen allows you to get creative with your visual pieces. It's a medium that allows you erase visual you don't need in your visual and key in new ones. For example, you might shoot an interview in a studio but you don't like the atmosphere/surrounding and want something more relevant to your topic of discussion for the interview. You can use a green screen to get rid of that backdrop and add a new one, be it an image or graphic design studio setup.

Below is a video that fully helped me understand the process as I couldn't view the workshop. Adorama are an American media technology company that specialize in Selling media products and train people in their usage to ensure good use of the product. I watched their green screen video and many others that help in fields like this.




Key things to remember when using a green screen to key in Images to your footage.

• Green is perfect for Keying particularly with a DSLR as they're more compressed in data.
• Make sure no wrinkles are visible to avoid unwanted texture and bad shadows for keying
• Never place the subject to close or far from the green screen to avoid the green reflecting on the subject and also to avoid losing the green backdrop. 
• The subject should be placed forward to allow room for a foreground and background lighting which is good for filming. 
• Tweak the lights to your advantage to eliminate shadows in the green screen and create an even background.
• Adjust camera aperture to maximize  good lighting on the subject

Source: Adorama

 I was thinking of using Adobe Illustrator CS6 but later decided it was a bit technical and far too advanced for me to use without good understanding of it for this project. I have since decided I will be using Imovie to help me successfully lay my image in place of the green screen.

Below is a screenshot of my finished design for my green screen and how it looks in my final piece.

Fiction Adaptation (Poem Background and Visual Ideas)

For You Dear 

Friend // Anthony Anaxagorou

Background

For you dear friend tells the story of a broken character going through a wave of dark emotions like Loneliness, Self Loathing and Depression, but is told by someone (Anthony) that seems to have a connection with this person in the story. 

Throughout the poem these themes are touched on in manners that evoke questions in the mind of the reader. e.g. :

• Why does this person feel these emotions? 
• Why are they so detached from the “light” and so drawn to the “darkness”?
• Who is this person? Is it someone particular? 
• Could it be anyone?

The poem features a number of juxtaposing in words. Such as:

• “I know what it's like to wash your face and still feel dirty.”
• " I know what it's like to be loved and still feel hated."

These literary devices will be of good use when trying to bring the contrasts in this poem to light visually. 

My thoughts on the poem 

My understanding is that this poem is metaphor for what we become as we grow older. As a child there is a love, nurture and freedom that is guaranteed. But unfortunately this privilege wears off when we form into adults. Love is no longer guaranteed and all the feelings someone impacted on our lives when younger, we now have the task of impacting on ourselves. We become fully aware of things we were oblivious to and in a way it creates an opposite mind and being from that in an innocent child.  We become coins and have two sides, presumably one that is dark and the other light. In the case of the person in the poem the darkness seems to have taken over trapping them in an infinity of black and instilling in them the inability to see the brighter side in anything. I feel as though this character has gained nothing in all their doings and has only lost a piece of his or her self each time.

Visual Ideas
After a lot of brain storming and wider research I decided i want to adopt a certain look for my piece. I quite liked the image of a girl in the middle of the frame, a lot of distortion and symmetry. Because the poem features juxtapositions between good and bad, light and dark etc I want to replicate this effect in my visual by using colour to contrast between scenes. One can light and nicely coloured, with brights, warm lighting, subtle camera movements etc. Whilst the other will be washed out and gloomy. not highly saturated and dark imagery to really emphasize on the contrast in the words of the poem.

I found some pieces online and others that I love to show an example of how I expect my colour grading to look. In these images you can see a clear difference, in the colours, the set, lighting and frame size etc. I really like the way they played with their visuals. They both evoke feelings that you cant get from dialogue alone. The visual pieces really compel you towards the story thanks to colours, moods etc.

Fiction Adaptation (Rules of adaptation)

Adapting Novels and Poems to screen & Visual and Narrative Ideas

 For an adaptation to be successful, it needs to include all the elements necessary to make it connect in a manner that tells the story in your own way yet still retaining parts of its original form. e.g. storytelling. According to Michael Hauge the foundation of story telling is simply character, desire and conflict. That the underlying system of all stories is this: emotionally involving characters must overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in order to achieve their compelling desires.

In other words, the character must have a personal conflict - something they need but don't have that only tackling the obstacle will give them e.g. validation, love, revenge, wealth etc. However these inner desires and motivations don't mean much without an objective that is the way they go about attaining these things for example - in beauty and the beast Belle is the beauty who thinks there is so much more to the average life they all live in her small town and more to marriage than mere advantages and she indulges in mystical books to escape the ordinary. But this desire wouldn't mean anything without the problem which was her father getting caught by the beast and thus leading to her imprisonment in exchange for her father's freedom. Without this Belle wouldn't have come about the mystical castle and the Beast. She wouldn't have been exposed to an opportunity to have a different life if those inner motivations weren't attached to a problem.

Rules of Adaptation

So with this in mind, the best way to make a successful adaptation is to: 

• Ensure your story has a well defined concept - The goal of the protagonist must be outlined visibly and the audience must be able to know what represents success for the main character. 
• Avoid too many scenarios/obstacles - Storytelling is more concise when there is one clear goal, problem and solution. It gives the audience something to root for. e.g In the book about John Nash he faces a number of trials and tribulations but these aren't in the film adaptation a beautiful mind. The film focuses tightly on his and his wife's battle with schizophrenia. His Inner motivation - His love with her, Problem - His disease, constant barrier in their marriage. Solution - Accepting that his friend Charlie wasn't real and reconnecting with those that weren't and also his devotion to a number of works. 
• Your interest must lean more towards your adaption and not the original piece - The goal is to get emotion from the audience, not to impress readers of the original work. Adapting novels, poems, passages etc is all about your understanding and interest of the piece but also creating something fluid, a piece that works well as a story and not just all your favourite parts. It's like making a story within a story still the same - in a way -  just more brief. 

(Digital News) Pre-Production: News Package and Live OB ideas

We want our news topics to be broad and concise, fun but still informative and something relevant to everyone. Hence why we've chosen some exciting topics to look out for our news program. Below is a list of content for our news program highlighting what exactly we're talking about and what we hope to include in the program in regards to sources and experts.



Studio - Introduction, and coming ups, packages and Live news.

The Intro would be a short but nice graphic video illustrating what our brand name.
Then we'd do an oral list of things coming up: Dating Locations, Rugby World Cup, LFW Aftermath and The Segway Craze (Live)
Online dating (News Package)
Segway Event (Live)

For the News package we decided to go with dating as the overall topic and visit a view subtopics within it's vast scope.

News Package: Dating (Evolution of dating) 

This package will include the following:

• From Love Letters to Selfies and Crude Texts we look at how love communications have changed over time.
• A quick look at statistics of use and success in Big Dating websites and Apps like Tinder, Eharmony and Match.com
• A summary of the pros and cons of new technology in love communications e.g. online dating websites and apps. 
• Whether it has furthered success in finding a partner or worsened face to face communication. 
• Opinions of people younger who have used the website and older couples more used to former means of communication e.g. love letters and secret visits. 
• Advice and top ten safety tips from a renown sex, love and relationship blogger. 

Live OB package "Segway Craze":

For our Live OB package we decided to cover the new Segway Craze taking the world by storm. It has appeared across numerous social media sites like Vine, Twitter and Facebook. In fact, it's so popular that there are events being hosted to bring together users of this phenomenon and first time users also.

In this live OB we will look at the following:

• A correspondent at a Segway event - Interview people at the site asking about the use, what they think of its popularity etc. 
• An interview with the organizer of the event
• Back to the future - hinting this would happen much earlier on? (suggested by helen)

(Digital News)Pre-Production:Ideas Lab

 Finding our Niche

Having decided my group we began immediately finding ideas about the kind of brand we wanted to be. Eventually we decided to form a lifestyle news program - after looking around the room for inspiration - as most of our interests fell under this category. I looked at other brands online Like TMZ, PerezHilton, and E!news All of which had some aspects we wanted to integrate into our brand such as fashion, music, film , love nd relationships, fitness and health,trending topics online and all other things lifestyle. We figured that given we were a lifestyle brand we wanted to deliver our news differently. Sites like Enews and TMZ tend to converse with the audience as opposed to a formal script write up like BBC and Sky News. I feel our Niche will be our You decide feature in which case the audience decide the topic for the  next program. Also our brand image and our method of delivery for news.

Once we knew what we wanted for our brand we looked at the aspects we needed to cover such as:our logo and colour scheme, topics for News Package and Live OB, Mock up stories etc.

Brand and Designing

We decided after numerous attempts to go with NewsTrends. Given that our top choice was taken we had other names such as TrendTV TrendzTV, PushTV, Newztrend, Newstrend, and Newstrends. (A lot of variations of one word!). We are a funky and lively lifestyle brand and want our image to reflect our personality. So after a bit of mood board research online we decided on pastel and bright colours. I did a little mock up of what might work for our brand name using these colours.

In addition, we looked at the types of sets we desired for our brand. A set design would include things like the desk a news presenter sits at and the background behind. But this is for more formal news programs. Given that we our a lifestyle brand we were leaning more towards a comfy environment with colorful cushions and artistic back grounds etc.

 BBC NEWS Set Design

Rachael and Wendy Williams ( Lifestyle shows) Set Design

(Digital News) Pre Production: TrendTv Presentation (Now Newstrends)

A presentation of our ideas from the idea lab.

Includes new updates on Ideas like the target audience and our brand statement.
"Making it our duty to pull you out from under the rock."

Digital News Production: Unit Introduction and Understanding of the project tasks.

Introduction 

The Digital News unit will focus on the key origins of news programming, and the methods used to create an outreach to all people of the world. Throughout this unit we will learn the importance of News within its genre and also how things have evolved since its inception.


Project Brief 

One of our main challenges in this unit will be to use the knowledge and experience gained to produce the following in a group:

* To design our own digital online news brand/channel via a website or video channel service e.g. Youtube. 

 - an original title sequence/branded strapline/GFX that fits our channel identity
 - a promotional package/ a presenter led teaser that gives an idea what our programme is about. 
 - an appropriate branding/banner at the top of the screen.

* One News Package per group - 2'00-3'00 duration

* One live OB report with a news reporter on sight/location (recorde as live but may include pre-shot material)

* Films must be published alongside a website with lots of written material about the stories,  our video channel and other relevant updates concerning the news brand. 

Individual Project challenges/Tasks are as follows: 

* Regular updates on my research and development Journal (20% of overall mark)

* A 1500-2000 word report (A critical reflection on the project with a less personal undertone and more formal.

Skills I will acquire throughout the duration of this project: 

-Storytelling (Creating good narrative)

-Sourcing Contributions

-Sourcing Locations

-SWEFF

-Self criticism of work 

-Planning theoretical work 

-Script-writing for news

-Sequencing and actuality

-Ensuring Good coverage for post production

-Factual Accuaracy 

-Interpreting information and finding good news stories

-Team work

-Time and Project management