Green Screen Movies with Nursery




It's never too early to start using technology! I should know, my 3 year old can't keep her hands off my smart phone and tablet!

I don't teach Nursery but after a staff INSET I did on using technology in the classroom, I was approached by the Nursery teacher who explained the children were learning about Fairytale stories. Her original plan for one activity was to dress them up and get them to act out Fairytale plays, however after watching my INSET, she changed it from performing a play to creating a Green Screen movie!

We set up a little studio in Nursery using two Green Screens for the floor and wall.

You can buy a Green Screen from Amazon here.

I then filmed the children using the app DoInk. This app is not free but I have downloaded other green screen apps and find this one is the best. I think the price has also reduced recently and is available for £2.99. This app is also only available on IOS app store for Apple devices.

Image result for do ink

It is incredibly easy to use and works by layering background videos or pictures with film from the camera. You can import the film after you have recorded it or record with the 'virtual' background visible.

In order for the children to see their background you would need to set up a screen that displays what is on your iPad so they can see what you have replaced the 'green' with. A good way of doing this is using screen mirroring to an Interactive Whiteboard. A mirroring program such as Air Server does need to be purchased separately onto the whiteboards for this to work.

Back to mini-Hollywood CGI set and the Nursery children were brilliant and although they needed a lot of direction and were very confused as to why they were performing in front of a green sheet, when they saw the final result on the iPad, they thought it was magical and amazing!!!

I'm hoping to do more Green Screen work with older year groups this year. My plan is to devote a wall in the new Computing Suite to being a permanent green screen where we can film. If you don't want to buy a screen, you can always paint a wall green or any other colour as DoInk has a colour wheel that replaces any wall colour with the CGI effect.

Image result for do ink green screen

Using Green Screen brings so much more realism to children's performances. It looks so much more effective than just standing at the front or even in front of an interactive whiteboard with a background picture on it.

I also have plans to combine Green Screen in with my Animation topics so look out for those blogs in the future...

Unfortunately, I didn't capture any video clips of Nursery's movies but here is a selection of photos. 





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