A Portable, Wearable Green Screen?

I've been asked a few times to give some more information about my DIY portable green screen for video production. Which is actually kind of embarrassing due to the extreme primitive nature of its construction... but here’s the scoop:

I was slated to do the Google Summit Demo Slam, and I had decided that my topic would be color keying, since it’s my favorite WeVideo feature. I was trying to figure out a way to demonstrate how to use a green screen without actually having a green screen, or somehow make it work to setup a green screen within a 3-minute Demo Slam timeframe.

I considered a 3-fold “science fair”-type project board, but this would have still required me to have a surface (like a table) in which to set it on behind me. I decided to instead try and paint a standard piece of foam core with green paint. The original idea was that during the slam I could just hold it behind me and film via webcam, then demonstrate how to do color keying.

I painted 3-4 coats of acrylic paint on the board and let it dry. It did, unfortunately, warp the board a little bit, which was less than desirable. But the color looked pretty good, so I pushed forward.

I logged in to WeVideo and tried recording from my webcam while holding the board behind me, but it became obvious pretty quickly that there was no graceful (or steady) way to hold up the board behind me while filming. Frustrated, I explained the situation to a group of my 7th graders and asked them what they thought I should do. We started brainstorming ideas for mounting or hanging the board behind me (like, “Can we attach it to a selfie stick somehow?” “How about putting it on a backpack?”), which inspired my very rudimentary solution: bend a couple of wire hangers into shoulder mounts and attach it to the foam core with tape!

If you look carefully, you can see the top of the hanger wire (you know, the hook part) underneath the tape.

This is what the final result ended up becoming: a curvy piece of painted foam core with haphazardly bent wire hangers as a shoulder mount. Embarrassingly primitive, but funny nonetheless, so I brought it with me to the GAFE Summit and used it as a prop in my Demo Slam. Fortunately, it got lots of laughs and attention, even if it didn’t end up winning the competition.

I didn’t actually USE the portable green screen contraption to film, as it still has some limitations:

• It’s not quite large enough to span the webcam’s view all the way to the edges of the frame.
• The foam core only reaches to the top of my shoulders, making the green screen only useful for neck-up situations, which is… limiting, to say the least. 

Therefore, I have some ideas for improving upon my design for the future:

• Buy colored foam core and skip the paint part, which would eliminate warping.
• Use a larger piece of foam core, so it will cover the edges of the camera frame. 
• Attach a green piece of fabric to the bottom of the foam core, which would create a “cape” of green behind me, which would allow me to film from the waist-up (ish) and still have green background behind me. 

I’m not necessarily convinced that the portable green screen is better or easier than just toting a green fabric sheet around with me (that’d certainly be more compact!), but it does make for a great conversation piece! So there you have it. If you decide to make your own (probably improved!) version, please share it with me!

-Mrs. L.

2017 IL Winter Google Summit: My First Tech Presenter Experience

I've definitely attended my fair share of tech conferences in my past 15 years of teaching. This was the first time I actually presented at one! It was like jumping into the deep end, and hoping that you can swim...!

It all started with my ridiculous YouTube video for my 8th graders that I use as an intro to their video assignment. I will always act like a total goofball fool if it means that it might entertain and motivate my students. I don't really consider that other people, like adults, or even other education professionals might watch it. I just figure that they don't have much reason to... although if I was that embarrassed by it, I definitely wouldn't have posted it online in the first place. 

Nevertheless, somebody at WeVideo watched the darn thing. And then contacted me. And asked if I wanted to be an ambassador for them. It sounded super cool, so I said yes! They even did a little blog on my experience with WeVideo and made me the October "Educator of the Month" - this was extremely cool, as I feel like I sometimes can under the radar within my own district. It's nice to get noticed sometimes!

Part of this ambassador gig involves representing WeVideo at select events as needed. I've presented at art teacher conferences, and at in-district PD events, so the thought of it wasn't totally foreign. I agreed to do a presentation at the IL Winter Google Summit hosted by EdTechTeam. This year it was held in Des Plaines, IL, which is not too far from me. Yeah, I could handle that.

...and then it happened.

I discovered that another part of the deal involved participating in the Demo Slam. A Demo Slam is a friendly competition where participants give a 3-minute (or less) presentation on a tech tool or trick, but in a really engaging way. The crowd actually votes on who's the best. So a good hook or creative angle is key. And of course, at the end of the slam, you get to actually say, "Slam!" - mic drop. 

Sounds like fun, right? Yes, absolutely... to watch. To participate? I immediately began FREAKING OUT about it. Although I teach, and I often act like a total weirdo in front of my students, adults are a completely different world. And they'd be JUDGING me. Ooooof. 

My topic was already decided-ish. It was going to have to do with WeVideo. My favorite part of WeVideo is the color keying tool, so I decided to focus on that. I started to brainstorm about how I could demonstrate using a green screen in a portable way. I started by painting a piece of foam core with green paint; I thought that I could hold it behind me and shoot via webcam. But when I tried it, holding the screen was just too awkward and it wouldn't work. 

What does one do in a situation like this? Ask a seventh grader, of course! I ran the concept by a group of students in my class, and together we brainstormed a way to "mount" the green screen on my shoulders using two wire hangers bent so that they fit over my shoulders. It was pretty hilarious, if not completely practical. I had pretty much decided to ditch the green screen contraption altogether until a coworker suggested that I use it in the presentation, even if just as a funny prop. I decided to go with that.

So, by the day the Summit came, I had spent at least a full week freaking out and planning and testing and running through slides and re-running through slides. And making my husband sit through practice runs. He's a champ. My main presentation was entitled "Planning For Video Projects, Featuring WeVideo," and I was feeling pretty confident. I had demo "student" accounts for teachers to try out, complete with a bunch of photos and video clips that I had pre-loaded into the media libraries for the demo accounts to use. 

Want to check out my presentation? Here's a quick overview:

The presenting part seemed to go pretty well, until the second half where teachers logged into the student demo accounts to find NONE of the photos or video clips that I had spent so much time loading prior to the day! Worst. Nightmare. Realized. I was mortified. A quick call to my WeVideo contact (hey awesome customer service!) helped me figure out and fix where I had made a minor mistake in the sharing locations. The rest of the session went fine, but I was feeling pretty down and discouraged for having this issue after all of the planning and testing I had done in the days before in order to prevent just such a thing from happening. How could I have missed that? On a positive note, I'll never make that mistake again!

Algonquin Middle School in Des Plaines (where the Summit was held) has an amazing makerspace classroom that they call the "Dream Lab." In it, they have some of the same robots and tech gadgets that I am lucky to have in my room, plus much much more! The dream lab has a lot of supplies like paint and art materials, LEGOs, sewing machines, a Cricut machine, and even several GoPro cameras!

I drool over spaces like this. I wish that every school had a room like this, and teachers could either bring their classes down, or check out materials and take it to their own room, and I could be the organizer of it all. I could help students with their projects and coach other teachers to incorporate maker concepts in their classrooms. Ugh. I need to stop daydreaming.

So back to the Summit. I gave my presentation, and you heard how that all went, but I still had a Demo Slam to tackle. I was scheduled about 2/3 of the way down in the order, so I had a little bit of time to observe how things went with others. One interesting thing that happened was that the sound system went out. Like totally out. A portable mic/sound system was brought in. It was okay, but not great. Thankfully, I really only needed the mic.

Then it was my turn. It sort of went so fast that I don't even remember too much... "Blah blah, green screen, remove the background... Look! I'm on the moon! Look! I'm in a video game!" And then I put on my ridiculous green screen contraption and the crowd went nuts. I was so excited to hear them giggle at its ridiculousness. I threatened them that they'd "better not steal my idea because I'm going on Shark Tank!"

...and Slam. It was over.

I didn't win the Demo Slam, but I feel like it went really well. I felt good, and I was so proud of myself for getting up there and just going for it. It was such a great counterpoint to my slightly imperfect session earlier in the day. A bonus was that I even got a Twitter shout-out from Jennie Magiera! It made me feel like a cool girl:

In the end, I'm really grateful to have this experience "under my belt," as I'll be presenting again in about a month at the ICE Conference! Let the freaking out commence. :)

- Mrs L.