Do you remember (older people) the Silhouette Blends from Electric Company? Two people framed the screen with their silhouetted profiles contributing parts of words to make one word together. The sounds they formed came on the screen as if from their lips. It was a fascinating way to hear and see words form. Here are some examples below.
Why an art teacher likes this effect:
figure-ground illusion
Click this image for lesson resource
This figure-ground illusion creates a push and pull in your eyes as you focus on the profiles or the vase to decide on the subject of the image. I have had students create this project physically and digitally. See both examples here. They learn to draw a profile and a vessel with pattern and detail to help make the vase appear to be 3-dimensional.
Examples of Optical Illusion Vessels
Making Video Figure-Ground Illusions
Now that we have iPads with the Do Ink Green Screen app and the Do Ink Animation app we have everything we need to create videos that focus on the figure ground illusion. Better yet, we can introduce the concept of SILHOUETTE and how the green screen app responds to complementary colors to create them. We can add the students' voice to this lesson where students share ART VOCABULARY as they partner up to make silhouette blends like those made by Electric Company.
Making the Silhouette Blends
1. I had two volunteers face each other in front of the green screen. I tried to crop the two faces into just profiles as they spoke their parts but realized two things..
- They didn't want to stand too close to each other (and I didn't want to force them to either).
- They were slightly different heights which made the video effect asymmetrical.
2. I put the video into the green screen app and selected "RED" the complementary color of green from the chroma key color wheel and adjusted the sensitivity level as needed. This made the boys' profiles into silhouettes. I preserved this effect by exporting it as a video to the camera roll.
Choose RED section of the color wheel to create a silhouette. Adjust "sensitivity" level if necessary
Export video to camera roll to preserve this effect
3. Now that we have the start of our silhouettes, I need to fix the symmetry between their profiles and add the text animation. I created the animation in the Do Ink Animation app by choosing a new composition. Using the "i" to pick a color for the background. Then using the "T" choice to bring in and move the text timed to the video audio and placed level to the lips so it appeared as if they were created by their spoken words.
Text animation made in the Do Ink Animation app composition mode.
4. Then I put the silhouette and text together in the Green Screen app. This app allows for three layers, so there is room for me to import the silhouette video twice so I can crop and resize each to make them fill the screen symmetrically. Text is on the lowest layer.
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Silhouette video is loaded twice into the Green Screen app by Do Ink. Each profile cropped to fill the screen symmetrically. The text video is on the lowest level. The Green goes away automatically so all I see are silhouettes over a clean color with text.
Think of the possibilities...
You could have students partner up to make silhouette blends based on your curricular vocabulary, spelling lists, or phrases that reinforce learning in your class. The tiny videos can be inserted into class videos, shown to students to quiz them on concepts, or used as a review game.
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