Having fun with iMovie and Green/bluescreening

In the AIM program that I use, there is a huge emphasis on using drama to contextualize the vocabulary taught through gestures. My boys love to act out these fun, silly plays, in full costume (I teach in an independent all-boys school). I have been filming them for many years, providing the links to parents so that they can watch their sons perform. Lately, with the support of Jamie McCrae, (the wonderful Head of Media and Visual Arts at my school), we have been filming our plays in front of a blue screen. Why blue and not green? Well, as you will see when you view the videos below that there are some green characters in the plays (a frog, a lizard, and an alligator, to be exact). Green on green does not work: the green clothing would appear as being transparent. So we had to use a blue screen.

Jamie came into my classroom to observe one of our filming sessions and to take pictures. He later wrote an email of reflection to our administration:

 "...I have had the opportunity today to observe and assist Sylvia as she worked with her students to create blue screen movies for French. There were many things that excited me about the experience. Some of them are as follows:

1. The students were so excited and engaged in the experience, that I am sure they had no idea they were "learning".
2. The French being spoken was so authentic. The boys knew they would see themselves in the final video and I am sure that this aided in them "learning" the part they were responsible for.
3. The classroom has been transformed into a blue screen studio, and Sylvia, working with a simple flip camera, has been able to engage her students in such a real experience, one that I am sure they will never forget. "

After I edited the videos with iMovie, I sent the links to parents. I received so many positive comments from them!

If you film in front of a blue or green screen, it is very easy to superimpose the video onto different backgrounds in iMovie. The backgrounds I used are from Google images.

Because of the excitement generated with this technology, I started an iMovie Club at my school for grades 5 & 6. We have had 2 sessions so far and the boys have started some great projects. I prepared a step-by-step tutorial for them to get started with iMovie. Click here to see it (scroll to p. 12 to learn about using a blue/greenscreen). Click here to see where I ordered the Bluescreens (I used two: one for the wall and one for the floor. I hung up the one on the wall with thumbtacks and weighted down the one on the floor with bricks.)

Technology... gotta love it!