Storytelling activity: my experience

 27/11/23, 20:37

My experience in the storytelling activity was both great and frustrating, hehe. Let me share a bit about the whole process.

During the meeting with my teammates, we decided to try to use the green screen in order to enhance the storytelling quality and engagement. So, the first thing I did, next day, was to try it out. First, I downloaded the program (Sony Vegas), which took me a long time, as for some reason it wasn't working. 

Moving on, I planned how I wanted my scenes to look. Since the setting in my scenes had to do with trains, stations, landscapes and little houses, I thought that I would use the green screen for the train, the station and the little house. As for the landscapes, I searched some videos in my gallery from my trip to San Miguel. I also asked my classmate to record for me some mountains because, well, I live in San Salvador, and all you can see are houses, buses and pollution.

So, my next challenge was making the green screen work. This proved to be really annoying. I tried out different cloth colors, and the only one that kind of worked was a light blue one. So, I studied my script, dressed up as a 40s lady (actually the hair was kind of tricky to get right), and was ready to go.

Long story short, after shooting my scenes, the video didn't work. To be more specific, the effect didn't work because there were to many shadows in the blue light cloth and also because it was a blue light cloth. Apparently, it had to be totally blue.

I was so frustrated and disappointed. I thought, "I spent my whole day doing this, and it didn't work!"

When all hope was lost, my mom found a cloth of a darker shade of blue. I didn't think it would work, but, to my surprise, in the camera it looked really blue. I was so happy! Here's a photo of it:

So I began to edit it, adding different backgrounds and sound effects. This part was really fun, and I thought that it was actually worth all my previous suffering 😂.

Here's an inside-look:

Overall, it was a great experience. What's more, now I know how to use the green screen effect! 😁