By now, many people most movie producers or professional studios use green screen technology to produce high-definition movies with CGI (Computer Graphic Imagery) animations or other effects to attract the audience’s ongoing appetite and fascination in sci-fi movies or variety shows. So in this article, I will go more in-depth in explaining what is green screen technology, the benefits, and the reason why it is more commonly used in 3D Virtual Studio Set than blue screen.
First of all, A green screen is made from a type of fabric called nylon spandex that comes with chroma green pigment which is stretchable and is usually supported by hangers or stretchers that usually has a length of more than 300cm – 500cm or longer depending on the studio requirements.
It is widely used as custom backgrounds for live-motion projects or used for special effects which we commonly see in Hollywood sci-fi and animation movies since the 90s’. During the shooting, the actor or actress will stand in front of the green screen background and do the actions which the CGI programmer and other movie effects specialists will add the visual effects and digitally removed the background color. This is known as “chroma keying” in which producers and specialists will do the editing during the post-production to merge and blend the actual person to the CGI effects, making it realistic and captivating.
To explain it further, “Chroma keying” is the process to produce a special visual effect that composite or combines two or more images or video streams and replaced the green screen background with another CGI effect or pre-recorded video footage. This process may be time-consuming and requires a lot of photos or video display in
high definition to create and replace the green screen background during production.
Another reason for using green color as the background is the fact that green color can easily differentiate any of the natural skin tone or hair color of a human or animal. Thus, it’s much easier to do the editing without accidentally removing the body parts of a person or animal during post-production. The only exception to using the blue screen as the alternative is when you are using a green prop or stage clothing during the production.
Other advantages of using the green screen technology in 3D virtual studio sets are that it has better clarity visually, the ability to easily interact with virtual elements, able to show the content creatively, versatile enough to shoot multiple scenarios using the same person, easy to make new changes as and when needed, provide consistency in light control during the event production and saves time and money in the long run.
Until some genius can invent a better technology to replace green screen technology, most if not all professional studio houses like Spring Forest Studio will continue to use green screen for their live streaming 3D virtual studio productions in years to come.
