If you’re making home based business videos to promote your product or opportunity online, you may find it to be challenging at times. I know I’ve always been “video challenged” and have looked for ways to do it better.
There are many things that go into making a good online video, but two things you must have before you start are a good background, and decent lighting.
Many home business entrepreneurs make short videos taken inside their home or home office, while others seek outdoor locations to provide an interesting and varied background. What can you do, though, if your indoor lighting or background isn’t sufficient and outdoor shots don’t work for you?
Take a look at my video in the top right corner of this page. You’ll see me against a blue sky background with a sign that says “Opportunity Ahead”. There is a technique called “green screen video” or “chroma key” that you can use to achieve this effect. (Update on 8/24/12 – I “retired” the video mentioned here with the “Opportunity Ahead” sign, but still use green screen technology for many of the videos I do. The presentation below shows how).
Green screen or chroma key video works like this. You set up a green background against a wall or on a frame (usually a thin wrinkle-resistant blanket backdrop made for this purpose). Then, you stand or sit in front of the green background and record your video.
After recording, you can import the video into a consumer video editing program like “Adobe Premiere Elements” and easily replace the background with an image of your choice.
The advantage – if you lack good lighting or background for your video, you can use this technique to do some pretty amazing things. I know it sounds a bit technical, but you don’t have to be a geek to figure it out.
Here is how I created the video on the top right of this page.
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About Eldon Beard
Elton, many thanks for making this video it was very useful and it was great the way you show the green screen. Also I like the pace that you speak it is not to quick . All the best Rosemary
Thank you Rosemary. I guess I speak slowly because I am from Texas. 🙂
Very easy to follow explanation. I have heard of this and seen other explanations, but several things made your explanation easier to follow. One of them was the advantage you mentioned about the audio port in the camera. In other was the way the software works to merge the two elements. I only wish I had enough space in the house to set something like this up!
Hi Richard,
Space is definitely required, and I don’t have a dedicated area for this right now. What I do is set the screen and camera up for a weekend, say, and focus on doing a few videos then. Since it’s pretty easy to set up and take down, I don’t have to leave it up all the time (although that would be nice).