The End of Green Screen

It’s the opening screen of Adobe’s new Presenter Video Express. It might look like a really simple software program without a lot of functionality, but it is most assuredly In this case, looks are deceiving and this screen is deceptively simple. You can either continue working on a past project or click on the start a new project button (hint: It’s a plus sign in a green button at the bottom of the screen. Presenter Video Express is an amazing new program on several levels.

Presenter Video Express (PVX) ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR A GREEN SCREEN. Yes, you read that correctly. PVX eliminates the need for green screen production. Sorry about that green screen manufacturers, but PVX is going to eliminate the need for your product. In eLearning, our budgets are usually considered ‘micro’ budgets (or lower as in mini-micro?) for video production. Even with a studio, great green screen shots aren’t the easiest thing to get. You need some expertise to use it. Adobe has made this really simple in PVX. All you need is a blank wall and a webcam. That’s it. You can make “green screen” video anywhere. The how-to of Presenter Video Express will be in a different post, but suffice it to say, Adobe’s engineers have managed to write a brilliant algorithm that will make you look like network TV. After you click on the green button at the bottom of the screen, another button appear that says “Make my background awesome” When you click on that, the software turns on your webcam and it takes a snapshot (after a countdown so you can get ready). After it snaps your picture, you draw a line from the top of your head to the bottom of the screen and a second line across your shoulders. If you’re sitting in front of a blank wall or plain fabric, no matter the color, you can extract yourself and put whatever you want in the background. Still image, video, motion graphic…whatever. Instant green screen. No software program that I know can do this so simply.

This is just the beginning of the capabilities of PVX. How about some interactive questions? Yop, you can add them in. How about publishing your whole lesson to HTML5 or Captivate or Presenter inside PowerPoint? Yop. You can do that too. It’s just an amazing program for eLearning and I believe it’s going to be an actively used in video production everywhere. It takes maybe 15-20 minutes to learn it. In the world of video production software, this is almost no time at all.

NEXT: How to use Presenter Video Express to do things you never expected to be able to do!