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CLASSROOM CINEMATOGRAPHY SERIES
Practice Green Screening
Grades 4-12 • Subject areas: art, media literacy, critical thinking • Lesson time: 40 minutes
Lesson Overview
Use green screen or chroma key technology to transport your video projects to fantastic settings. Green screening allows
you to place your content in front of any photographic or video backdrop. For your classroom, that might mean making
animated figurines climb over the rocky mountains, it might allow students to give a “live” news broadcast from
Washington D.C. or Beijing, or it may enable students to pose as actors in the major events of world history.
Lesson Objectives
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To explore the process of green screening, and examine its use in contemporary media.
To add technology and video to existing curricula.
Materials
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Video camera(s)
Microphone(s)
Internet access or pre-loaded background images
TV or projector for finished student films
Computers, Chromebooks, or iPads with video editing software
A large bright green backdrop. Construction paper or fabric will work if you are not
able to purchase a roll of green backdrop from your local photo/video supplier.
Setup Activity
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Watch examples of green screening, including
behind the scenes videos for animation films,
newscasts, and student projects (see our
Green Screen technical tutorial for links).
Discuss: where have students seen green
screening in mainstream and online media?
Review the Roles in a Film Production and
Shot List Handouts (available in the FilmEd.
Lesson Exchange).
Activity
Green Screening:
You may wish to set up the work area in advance of the lesson. Mount your backdrop on a wall
or a table surface (for figurine animation) and make sure that the area is well let. Set up a
camera so that the green surface comprises the entire frame. Depending on the age and skill
level of your class, you may wish to break students into small groups.
Students place objects, cutouts, or their own bodies between the camera and the green
backdrop. Using the group work guidelines in the Roles in a Film Production handout, students
will capture live footage or stop motion animations. Student actors may speak in front of the
green screen, create a reenactment, or move animation objects.
Photographic or video backgrounds (e.g. photos of landscapes, historical photos, city streets,
crowds, etc.) may then be digitally inserted behind the foreground elements using iMovie,
Windows Moviemaker, or other standard motion graphics software. For more information on
the technical process of replacing green screen with your chosen background, consult our
Technical Tutorial on Green Screening.
Students should consider frame composition when placing objects against the green screen,
being mindful of their intended backgrounds and how they want the footage to look. You may
encourage students to repeat the process several times.
Depending on your resources and the skill level of your class, you choose to watch final films as
a group.
Follow-up Discussion
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What did you learn about the filmmaking
process through this exercise?
What did your group do well?
What would you do differently if you were to
repeat the process?
Follow-up Activities/Homeworks
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Look for examples of green screening in the media. Identify instances where
filmmakers, TV broadcasters, and online media-makers are using green screen, and
evaluate its effects.
Journaling assignment: what was your experience with the green screen project? Can
you think of any ways you might use green screening on your own?
Framework For Assessment
Students may present small group work to the class to demonstrate that they have engaged with the assignment and
grasped the learning goals. You may choose to supplement discussion with a short writing assignment to encourage quieter
students to articulate their experience with the lesson. You may choose to assign formal grades to homeworks or follow-up
activities.
Common Core Standards
in this Lesson
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Filmmaking lessons may provide an entry
point to the Common Core’s framework of
creativity, collaboration, critical thinking,
presentation and demonstration, problem
solving, research and inquiry, and career
readiness.
The Classroom Cinematography series
equips students to analyze the “extensive
range of print and nonprint texts in media
forms old and new,” as outlined in the
Common Core definition of workplace
readiness.