Ok, it's official. I have the coolest job around. Last week our set up to do green screen chroma-keying arrived. Chroma-keying is the process by which a background can be inserted into a video digitally. It's the basic method that everyone from the weather guy to George Lucas uses. Believe it or not, we got the entire setup for around $300. Thanks to Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State and State Librarian, we got cool video editing software through the Project Next Generation grant; that was the high ticket item. We just had to buy the stuff to make our little mobile studio. The picture above shows Youth Services Supervisor Camille Rose and me ready for our close ups. Our first use of the technology will be to create a welcome video for our soon to be released Teenzone website. Camille and I are going to be inserted right into the home page. You can be certain I'll be blogging on that when it's done. The possibilities for promotional videos make me dizzy!

Steve Bertrand
Assistant Director