The Making of “Why Math?”

Several people have asked me about how I made the “Why Math?” video. When I set out to make it, I was determined to only use the tools and materials that the faculty at my school have readily available. Here is how I did – and did not – meet my goal.

Materials used:

Video Camera – I used a Sony Handycam that I checked out from our school library.

Green screen – In order to make me appear in front of the background images, I used a technique called green screening. While one can buy an official green screen, I just use green bulletin paper off of the paper cart.

Lighting – I used household lamps and florescent shop lights.

Background Images – I drew on a SMART Board using the Notebook software and then exported the pages to picture files.

Video Editing Software – I was determined to use iMovie since that software is on all of our faculty laptops. I was thrilled when I found out that iMovie supports green screening and also picture-in-picture. Unfortunately, you can only use one effect on a video clip. So my dream of not using anything special came to an end when I broke down and used Final Cut Express.

Learning how to do it – I learned from many different teachers via short YouTube videos.

While it did take a lot of time, I am expecting the next video to go much faster now that I know how to do it!