Often used in the movie and TV industry to either add in a background that doesn’t actually exist, would be too inconvenient or dangerous to shoot in, or simply to superimpose a background graphic that would be difficult to film in any other manner — like a weather map, the green screen or blue screen has become an industry standard. The process is more correctly referred to as chroma key compositing or simply chroma keying… but any way you slice it, it’s just layering two images together.
How it works
Put simply, the subject is filmed (or photographed, as this works for still images too) in front of a single color backdrop. In most cases, blue or green is used, as these colors are not found in (healthy) human skin tones. The background color is then replaced by the alternate footage using a computer process — any bits of the image that are green (or blue, depending) are removed and “covered up” by the new background image or video.
In order for this to work well, the background must be very evenly lit — shadows or darker areas of the background might be dark enough to not be recognized by the equipment that replaces the background image. This can result in visual errors where areas of the color background can be seen through (or in place of) the replacement background.
It also is important to note that one should avoid wearing any articles of clothing that closely match the color of the backdrop being used, as they would end up being replaced with the background video — as amusingly demonstrated here by Andy Richter on the Conan O’Brien show during his visit to the Weather Channel in 1997.
Green vs blue
For many years, blue was the color of choice for chroma key effects in the film era — mainly because it is further from red in the visual spectrum than green, and 70% of the human skin tone (of all skin colors) is comprised of red hues. Green has becoming increasingly popular during the digital era, as the image sensors in digital video cameras are most sensitive to green, mimicking the human eye’s increased sensitivity to green light. Green has also become preferred as it won’t conflict with a blue sky in an outdoor shot (causing part of the sky to be replaced by the background video) or with common clothing colors like the blue in denim jeans — or even blue eyes.
Try this at home, kids
Once available only to Hollywood due to cost and difficulty, home video buffs can set up and use chroma key backdrops pretty much anywhere. Using affordable commercially available software (such as Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere Elements), it’s possible to make your very own green screen videos with a couple clicks of the mouse. If you’re more into still photography, the process is even simpler — just “magic wand” the background in Photoshop (or your editing software of choice) and delete the background.
Top green screen photo is of the SheKnows.com studio
Movie magic
Often used in the movie and TV industry to either add in a background that doesn’t actually exist, would be too inconvenient or dangerous to shoot in, or simply to superimpose a background graphic that would be difficult to film in any other manner — like a weather map, the green screen or blue screen has become an industry standard. The process is more correctly referred to as chroma key compositing or simply chroma keying… but any way you slice it, it’s just layering two images together.
How it works
Put simply, the subject is filmed (or photographed, as this works for still images too) in front of a single color backdrop. In most cases, blue or green is used, as these colors are not found in (healthy) human skin tones. The background color is then replaced by the alternate footage using a computer process — any bits of the image that are green (or blue, depending) are removed and “covered up” by the new background image or video.
In order for this to work well, the background must be very evenly lit — shadows or darker areas of the background might be dark enough to not be recognized by the equipment that replaces the background image. This can result in visual errors where areas of the color background can be seen through (or in place of) the replacement background.
It also is important to note that one should avoid wearing any articles of clothing that closely match the color of the backdrop being used, as they would end up being replaced with the background video — as amusingly demonstrated here by Andy Richter on the Conan O’Brien show during his visit to the Weather Channel in 1997.
Green vs blue
For many years, blue was the color of choice for chroma key effects in the film era — mainly because it is further from red in the visual spectrum than green, and 70% of the human skin tone (of all skin colors) is comprised of red hues. Green has becoming increasingly popular during the digital era, as the image sensors in digital video cameras are most sensitive to green, mimicking the human eye’s increased sensitivity to green light. Green has also become preferred as it won’t conflict with a blue sky in an outdoor shot (causing part of the sky to be replaced by the background video) or with common clothing colors like the blue in denim jeans — or even blue eyes.
Try this at home, kids
Once available only to Hollywood due to cost and difficulty, home video buffs can set up and use chroma key backdrops pretty much anywhere. Using affordable commercially available software (such as Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere Elements), it’s possible to make your very own green screen videos with a couple clicks of the mouse. If you’re more into still photography, the process is even simpler — just “magic wand” the background in Photoshop (or your editing software of choice) and delete the background.
Top green screen photo is of the SheKnows.com studio
loading...