WHAT IS A MOVIE GREEN SCREEN? (In the Entertainment industry.)

Malibu Green Screen / Photo Credit: Dume Studios - Premiumbeat

WHAT IS A MOVIE GREEN SCREEN? (In the Entertainment industry.)

Bruce Bisbey…please follow me at: https://dumbdogproductionsllc.blogspot.com or https://www.facebook.com/DumbDogProductionsLLC/ thank you.

WHAT IS A MOVIE GREEN SCREEN? 

A green background in front of which moving subjects are filmed and which allows a separately filmed background to be added to the final image. Green screen is a visual effects (VFX) technique where two images or video streams are layered—i.e. composited—together. Think about behind-the-scenes clips or bloopers reels from Hollywood movies. It’s hard to miss the sheer amount of green you see on set.

Green screen basically lets you drop in whatever background images you want behind the actors and/or foreground. It’s used in film production (and also in news and weather reports) to relatively simply place the desired background behind the subject/actor/presenter. When a background isn’t available—like a fictional, alien, historic, futuristic or even just hard-to-access location—green screen comes to the rescue!

Why Green?

Technically, you can use any color background. A vibrant, almost neon green is the standard choice because it’s strong and usually a distinctly different color from anything on the subject (e.g. the actor’s clothes, eyes, hair, accessories). Through the magic of video effects and technology, you can superimpose your subjects onto virtual backgrounds, place them over animated digital backdrops or transport them to a desert oasis.

But green doesn’t work for everything. You wouldn’t be able to film Kermit the Frog against a green screen—he’d disappear! In this case, you’d typically use a blue screen, the “second-in-line” color. The key rule is no matching colors! The background has to be a completely different color from the subject. Otherwise, if let’s say your actor is wearing a bright green tie in front of a green screen, he’ll end up with a transparent strip down his chest where the tie is supposed to be!

In the visual effects world of Hollywood, blue screens are far more common than green. In fact, you can key out any color; red, yellow, purple or pink, blue and yes, green. When it comes to green screens and blue screens, both backgrounds are used for the same purpose: to use Chroma Key technology in order to place subjects in front of a projected background. During this process, editors are able to film people and objects in front of a static background, remove the color of the background from the images, and replace it with a new background. The colors green and blue are not present in human skin tones which makes them ideal for the Chroma Key process as opposed to the color red. Generally, the only difference between using a green screen as a background and using a blue screen as a background is the color itself—but more filmmakers are moving from blue to green for other specific reasons.

The use of digital cameras. When using a digital camera instead of film, you obtain better results from a green screen shoot because of the cleanness and luminescence of green over blue. Using green instead of blue results in less noise when keying out the footage.

Color spill. While the green or blue screens will be removed during editing, some color will “spill” onto the subjects, especially around the edges. This can create a thin line around the person, or make areas like their hairline look odd. Depending on your shoot, color spill can be better or worse depending on the color of your screen. Blue screen tends to have less spill than green, and also happens to be easier to color correct than green.

The prevalence of blue. Subjects and objects are more likely to be blue than green. For example, people are more likely to be wearing blue clothing than green clothing. You get better results when the background color is not heavily present in the subject you are filming (which is why red screens and yellow screens don’t exist).

Lighting. Blue screens have a lower luminosity as compared to green screens. This means they are better suited to low-light shoots, but also makes them trickier to light. If you want the blue screen to key properly with the least amount of adjustments necessary you'll need to set your camera to a higher f-stop than you would were you using a green screen. This also means it is more difficult to shoot a large scene on blue screen as opposed to green.

Sources, References & Credits: Google, Wikipedia, Wikihow, WikiBooks, Pinterest, IMDB, Linked In, Indie Wire, Film Making Stuff, Hiive, Film Daily, New York Film Academy, The Balance, Careers Hub, The Numbers, Film Maker, TV Guide Magazine, Blurb, Media Match, Quora, Creative Skill Set, Chron, Investopedia, Variety, No Film School, How Stuff Works, WGA, BBC, Daily Variety, The Film Agency, Best Sample Resume, How Stuff Works, Bright Hub, Career Trend, Producer's Code of Credits, Truity, Production Hub, Producers Guild of America, Film Connection, Variety, Wolf Crow, Get In Media, Production Beast, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, UCAS, Frankenbite, Realty 101, Liberty Me, Careers Hub, Sokanu, Raindance, Film Connection, My Job Search, Prospects, David Mullich, Gear Shift, Video University, Oxford Dictionaries’, Boredom Therapy, The Bold Italic, Nicholas Persac, The Guardian, Jones on art, Allison Meier,

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Malibu Green Screen / Photo Credit: Dume Studios - Premiumbeat