Chroma Keying

Chroma Keying

Chroma keying or more well known as ‘green/blue screen’, it is a special effects technique where the user can layer together two separate video’s or images, most famously would be weather forecast broadcasts but it Is also commonly used in films and video games, an actor or actress acts out a scene in front of a coloured screen, anything that is the colour of the screen is replaced by another image making it appear as though the actor/actress in that location, the obvious thing to remember is that anything that is that colour will show up with the image on it which can limit other colours in a scene, particularly clothing and this can be a time-consuming process. However if you want your actor/actress to have a missing limbs or even floating head it will work perfectly.

• Usually screens are green or blue because these colours are furthest away from skin tone.
• It was developed in 1930 and is credited to Larry Butler.
• The first movie which used chroma keying in a simpler way as it is now would be ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ (1940) which won Academy Award for Visual Effects.

These are just a couple of examples:
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