VFX Research: Green/Blue Screen

The next technique that I wanted to look at was green and blue screen as this has become a very important part to film and is an excellent way to be able to create a scene which is in a virtual world. The term of green and blue screen is actually known as chroma keying, which is the technique of layering two images or video streams together based on colour backgrounds; the colours typically being green and blue.

When processing the video or image the colour in the background is made transparent and replaced with another image behind the actor. Any colour can be used as a background, as long as it is of a uniform colour, but green and blue are more commonly used as they differ so much then the natural hue in human skin tone, and no part of the subject in shot can include the colour of the background.
But the main reason as to why it has become so popular in the last century is due to how affordable it actually is as screens can be picked up nowadays for under £20.

In film making, a process known as 'travelling matte' was used before digital compositing, which is how green and blue screen are used and added into actual films, but this proved to be a very long and complex process so it was beneficial to change. Green and blue screen was first developed in the 1930s and was first used to create basic backgrounds for films and different effects, but it wasn't until the 40s and 50s when it was developed further. Nowadays it is more common to find a film that does have some elements of CG instead of one that doesn't. Even films that don't will have lots of editing done to them in post-production that will alter the entire look to there footage, but for the better.

For me, I definitely want to use green screen in my project, as this is what we have available to us, especially after our induction into it, as it is such a fantastic technique that can easily be used for any film project, especially one of my size as I don't have a large budget. I am now really excited to get filming on green screen and really want to ensure that I can create something that is truly wonderful and challenges some smaller films that have been produced commercially.