Most people want to look into the camera straight on. Regardless of background, you can give yourself a bit of a three-dimensional look by the way you look into the camera. Having some room to move looks and feels nicer.

It can also make you feel quite claustrophobic. If you’re flat against a wall, you tend to look two-dimensional. My own setup is not an optimum room because although I’m not completely flat against the wall behind me, I would prefer to have more space behind me. All that space was a bit out of focus, you didn’t notice it, but she looked much more three dimensional against it. She was at a countertop, and she had about six, seven meters, about 25 feet of kitchen in back of her. One Canadian parliamentarian did her first meeting from her kitchen.

So if you don’t want to drop money on a green screen, are there certain things that you can do to make your background look professional/professorial?Īdam: One thing you can do is make your background have some depth. That is, you should curate your background. There have been some articles in higher ed publications about how, as a professor, you should have certain “professorial” things in the background. Liz: For those who don’t want to use a virtual background, the question then becomes what should be in the background. don’t make your virtual background the same color as your hair or as the clothes you’re wearing – otherwise you will get the “hair on fire” or “disappearing arm” effect.One Canadian MP wore very bright clothing with a strong graphic print and also had a very colorful virtual background. You don’t want it to be boring, and you don’t want too much going on, either.Adam’s real background – not completely blank, but uncluttered enough to make his virtual background workĪnyway, once you’ve got a good plain background to project your virtual background on, then you also want to think about the virtual background you choose. The problem was it was very close to him, so it looked like a hostage-taking. One young member of Parliament here in Canada put up a plain white sheet behind him, presumably to hide junk or just he thought it would be better-looking and more professional. A plain white sheet is okay if you don’t have green.īut… don’t have a flat bland background directly behind you if you’re not going to use a virtual background. If you don’t have a green screen, then the blander your background, the better. The reason they use green is because that really bright green is very unusual. The way a virtual background works with a green screen is that it selects that color green and says, OK, everything that isn’t that color is meant to be in the video and everything that is that color should be replaced by the virtual background. Google Meet would probably work a bit better if you did have one.

And I will eventually put a hook across the wall behind me so I can clip it up.Ī green screen improves the look of your virtual backgrounds, but it’s not strictly necessary. What’s the best way to make virtual backgrounds work well so that you don’t look like your hair’s on fire or parts of your body are disappearing? Do you need a green screen?Īdam: I did purchase, sparing no expense (from China – it took four months), a green screen. Liz: A lot of faculty have been using virtual backgrounds – and for equity and privacy reasons, students are being encouraged to use them too. Use space behind you to create depth Using a Virtual Background Use a green screen or plain sheet with virtual backgroundsĬurate an interesting, but not distracting, real background Montreal faculty member Adam van Sertima – a self-described “Dad, philosopher, art historian and Games Studies specialist” who teaches film courses – sat down with Liz Allen-Pennebaker of the Core Division and CLT to share his filmmaking expertise with all of us at Champlain who want to up our video conferencing and video recording game.

Realistic zoom virtual background