Introduction

Without leaving the relative comfort of your home studiobe it your den, basement, garage, office, attic, kitchen, or bedroomyou or your loved ones can travel the world to frolic in the fields in France, rock out the outback in Australia, make it big in New York, New York (if you can make it there virtually, you can make it virtually anywhere), or even march with the penguins in Antarctica.

With the international clips available from such vendors as Artbeats and the Footage Firm, you can purchase (for a surprisingly reasonable price) beautiful and interesting, high quality (even HDV versions) clips of virtually any location in the world, both of cities and the countryside, for you to go to. For example, you could "visit" Chicago, Illinois; Las Vegas, Nevada; Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada; Athens, Greece; London, England; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; or even Papua New Guinea. Like Johnny Cash, you'll be singing, "I've been everywhere, man..."

By using the Green Screen Key in Premiere Elements, you'll be able to drop out, or "key out," the green background behind the actor to reveal any location that you choose. While the location in the background can be a still photograph, especially in cases where the actor is standing in front of a building or monument, using video clips adds to the realism. One factor to consider when using the Around the World Effect is the lighting. If the light on your actor appears to be coming from the east, and the light in the background clip is coming from the west, it looks strange, especially if shadows are noticeable. In this chapter, you'll learn how to use Premiere Elements to brighten your traveller and help match the actor to the background clip.

For this project, we'll be "travelling" to New England in the fall, then to the city of San Francisco, and finally to a beach in the beautiful state of Hawaii. We'll be dealing with some unique challenges matching the clips up in terms of lighting, movement, and other considerations. You'll learn a lot along this journey that you'll apply to your own projects ahead.