The Green Screen Handbook

Real-World Production Techniques

Jeff Foster

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317673576
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

The Green Screen Handbook, Second Edition is a comprehensive how-to manual that walks you through the many integral techniques required in preproduction, production, and postproduction to use green screen effectively. Step-by-step instruction and time-saving tips cover matting and keying basics; lighting and digital camera essentials; setups using fabric, portable background panels, and paint; broadcast TV hardware switchers; professional HD and major motion picture compositing; multi-colored screen composites; directing storyboards and talent; working with virtual sets; motion tracking; and much more.

Additionally, this new edition has been updated to include:

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• Coverage of the latest digital camera technologies, lighting gear, and compositing and editing software

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• Advice on using apps for portable devices that will help you light and shoot better green screen

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• Examples and case studies of real-world green screen and compositing projects in film and television productions

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• An extensive companion website (www.focalpress.com/cw/foster) featuring downloadadble project files and streaming video tutorials

You can't afford to miss out! The Green Screen Handbook, Second Edition is a one-stop shop for all of your green screen solutions.

Part 1 Exploring the Matting Process

Chapter 1 Mattes and Compositing Defined

Chapter 2 Digital Matting Methods and Tools

Chapter 3 Basic Shooting Setups

Chapter 4 Basic Compositing Techniques

Chapter 5 Simple Setups on a Budget

Chapter 6 Green Screens in Live Broadcasts

Chapter 7 How the Pros Do It

Before you can understand how to shoot and composite green screen, you first need to learn why you’re doing it. This may seem obvious: you have a certain effect you’re trying to achieve or a series of shots that can’t be done on location or at the same time. But to achieve good results from your project and save yourself time, money, and frustration, you need to understand what all your options are before you dive into a project. When you have an understanding of how green screen is done on all levels you’ll have the ability to make the right decision for just about any project you hope to take on.

Chapter 1 Mattes and Compositing Defined

DOI: 10.4324/9781315770833-2

Since the beginning of motion pictures, filmmakers have strived to create a world of fantasy by combining live action and visual effects of some kind. Whether it was Georges Méliès’ ground-breaking work in the silent film A Trip To The Moon in 1902 or Walt Disney creating the early Alice Comedies with cartoons composited over film footage in the 1920s or Linwood Dunn and Carroll H. Dunning combining stop-motion miniatures with live footage for the visual effects for King Kong in 1933, the quest to bring the worlds of reality and fantasy together continues to evolve. With computer technology pushing the envelope more every year, filmmakers are constantly attempting to outdo their predecessors with more realism and fantastic visual effects.

Often misrepresented today as chroma keying (which is a process relegated to a video switcher that turns off a specific color value in a video channel), the matting or traveling matte process uses a sophisticated series of elements that allow you to make complex extractions and composites. Although the industry may still refer to a matte as a key or keying, it’s rarely suggested that an actual chroma key be used unless it’s a crude and simple video production. With software and hardware matting and compositing available today, you’ll seldom use such archaic technology.

Georges Méliès pioneered early silent movie VFX with elaborate sets, painted mattes, animation and stop-motion in his 1902 film A Trip To The Moon

Linwood Dunn was pioneering matte techniques used in RKO Radio Pictures 1933 film King Kong

In this opening chapter, I’ll share some of the history of compositing and matte-making techniques so you’ll better understand where this technology came from and why it’s still important today. There could be an entire book written on VFX history, but I’ll focus on only the lineage in a specific series of events that lead to modern day mattes and keying.

The Road to the Modern-Day Traveling Matte

Let’s start with the earliest compositing techniques. They were developed by Frank Williams, who used a black-backing matting process, which he patented in 1918. The process required the foreground actor to be evenly lit in front of a black background and then copied to high-contrast films, back and forth, until a clear background and a black silhouette were all that was left on the film. Using a contact print with the silhouette matte film and the intended background footage together, a composite could be created. This process was used in many of the action silent films and continued to be used through the 1930s for the series of The Invisible Man features.

The Early Days

In 1933, John P. Fulton used this technique in one of Universal’s most timeless and memorable stories, H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. Actor Claude Rains wore black velvet under his clothing and gauze bandages and was shot against a black background, and the composited shots were cleverly created to sell the illusion (see Figure 1.1). It was such a success that several sequels were created in the years following the original; they used the same process, even though more sophisticated techniques had been developed.

Figure 1.1 In 1933, John P. Fulton of Universal used effects for The Invisible Man that awed audiences for generations as being technologically far ahead of their time

Walt Disney set out in the 1920s to do a series of cartoons called simply the Alice Comedies. These were short films that used footage of a live actress shot against a white background. The film was run through an animation camera a second time to expose the animated characters and backgrounds (see Figure 1.2). Some of the scenes were done frame by frame from a series of stills to get closer interaction with the live actress and the animated characters.

Walt wanted to do something more than just add cartoons to an existing film, as Max Fleischer had done in some earlier films (although Walt invented the rotoscope process along with Max’s brother Dave). Disney wanted to put the live actress into an imaginary world, and he created a feature-length film called Alice’s Wonderland, which was never picked up by a studio. His Alice Comedies continued, with various actresses playing the Alice role in these silent films.

Figure 1.2 The first Disney composites combined live film footage with cartoon characters and backgrounds

Walt’s top animator working at the Disney studios at the time was Ub Iwerks, who helped solve issues with the multiplane animation cameras to achieve better lighting exposure for the Alice cartoons. Ub was also responsible for helping Walt develop characters such as Oswald the Rabbit and what would eventually become the icon for the Disney empire, Mickey Mouse (see Figure 1.3). He and Disney parted ways for a time due to a dispute over a third-party contract, and Ub ventured out on his own.

Figure 1.3 Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in the early days

As shown in the documentary Brazzle Dazzle Effects on Disney’s Pete’s Dragon: High Flying Edition DVD (http://movies.disney.com/petes-dragon), Ub returned to Disney in 1940 and remained until the end of his career, working in Disney’s film technologies processing lab.

In 1944, Disney and Ub developed new ways of mixing animation and live action in color with the feature film The Three Caballeros. This fantastic production used several techniques, including clear animation cells composited onto live film footage, rear-screen projection of animation behind live actors and dancers, and a color removal/transfer process. This process wasn’t quite as sophisticated as what was to come: it used a dark background that, when duplicated onto black and white negative film, could hold a luminance matte of the actor from the color film; a crude extraction could then be made. Using the optical printers at the time, this footage w...