Getting Binky the Gerbil (see photo), leader of the Gerbil Liberation Front, to drive down the highway for GLF's latest video, "Chew," wasn't easy. I ended up combining footage of Binky in his car and in front of a blue screen with footage taken from a car driving down the highway. Most of the work was done in the editing room. On tonight's "Screen Savers" I'll show you how I used the blue-screen technique to achieve a combined video effect.

Blue screen, a relatively inexpensive way to achieve Hollywood-style effects with basic equipment, offers creative possibilities that can make a video project more interesting and fun. Yes, it's hard to achieve "perfect" blue screen, but if you want to make a video of your friend flying through space, try the technique. It takes just three steps.

1. Shoot video of your friend against a bright blue background.
2. Take footage of outer space or some other background.
3. Combine the two videos in your computer. High-end video-editing programs such as Adobe Premiere let you use the blue area in your first video clip as a window so you can bring in other video.

OK, maybe that was a little too simple. You'll need to do a little planning to get your blue-screen video right. Ultimately you want to end up with two separate video clips: a "foreground" clip that will show in the front layer (something similar to the one shown above) and a "background" clip that will be combined with the other video clip.

• Blue-screen basics
  You need to have a blue background. Either buy a costly "official" blue-screen background from a company such as Composite Components Company or create a bright blue background with paint, paper, poster board, or some other material.
  
  
• Even lighting
  To get a good blue-screen effect, you want to have the blue background as evenly lit as possible. You want light coming from different directions so you have as little shadow as possible.
  
  For the foreground video clip, gather whatever lighting you can. Borrow lamps so you can direct light in a certain direction. Try borrowing one of those hanging lamps from your neighbor's collection. Or if you're serious, look in the Yellow Pages and find a place to rent lighting.
  
  
• Stock footage
  For the background video clip you can use stock footage from a place such as Artbeats, or you can film your own. When you film, remind yourself which area of the screen is blue in your foreground clip so you know what part of the background will show through in your finished video.
  
  For example, in Binky's video the blue area was toward the top of the screen, so I knew the highway showing through the blue area would feature a street sign and probably not the road itself.
  
  
• Import and edit
  When you have your video clips imported into a program such as Adobe Premiere, place the video clip with the blue background in one video track and the background video clip in another track. Use your transparency effect (sometimes called compositing) to combine the two video sources.

Todd Kelsey is co-author of Macworld DVD Studio Pro Bible and representative for the Gerbil Liberation Front.

Gerbil Liberation Front CDs, DVDs, and T-shirts are available at the GLF store.