Idle question ...

[seawasp]

... What would a filmmaker do if they needed to insert a special effects shot that would normally use the nice green screen background ... in a scene in which the events were occurring in a studio shooting a scene using green screen?

Comments

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression it was technically possible to use most any color for the green-screening effect, with green just in common use because it isn't usually needed for actors or sets or costumes. So, if I have it right, they'd green-screen it in by setting up a second screen of some other not needed color, and put the effects on the alternate-colored screen.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

These days, yes. Now that we're into the Computerized Digital Everything age, you can pretty much pick any color you want to make 'invisible' and play your background layer behind it in realtime. There are any number of virtual studio systems that will do this.

Now that you bring it up, I'm not sure if any production software allows for more than two layers (two layers and one marker color is easy and pretty much every studio can do that in realtime). If for some reason you wanted to have foreground actors, an intermediate layer (actors optional), and a background layer, you might have to send the video through the system twice. This is straightforward enough to set up but you might not be able to watch the results in realtime. Then again, this year's software may allow for an arbitrarily large number of layers; I haven't asked the question lately.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Blue screening was once the most common.

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

Probably use a blue screen or else go very old school and do a matte painting of the fore studio or something similiar. For that matter with modern computers you can block out a section of film for special treatment now.

ok, your trying to drive me crazy

[ancientone.livejournal.com]

thinking about that question. Hmmmmm. I have no idea. change the color of the screen??

[terry austin (from livejournal.com)]

Depends on the level at which the filmmaker is operating. At the higher levels, they don't necessarily even need a green/blue/whatever screen any more. I recall seeing a special on the making of one of the crappy Star Wars movies in which Lucas was editing out a character from an existing shot - in real time - with no special set up for doing so. Just "This scene is too crowded, let's take that guy out." In real time. That was new, as I recall, and took then state of the art hardware to do in real time, but that was quite a few years ago so I'm sure it's standard in big studio production software now.

[gary-jordan.livejournal.com]

They did that very thing in one of your favorites, "Groundhog Day." They have Andy McDowel playing in front of the weather bluescreen Phil uses and looking at the results on a TV Monitor.