The magic of film and video often lies in its ability to create fantastic worlds new to our eyes. Characters can walk around in a landscape of video effects and impressive technology unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, and all rendered through digital backdrops. The secret to pulling your subjects out of this world and placing them elsewhere is green screening.
Green screening, also called chromakeying, is essentially a process that designates a single color in a video, and electronically replaces it with a second image. Projecting characters into the digital domain is powerful and eye catching in advertising. Edit House Productions uses this technique to give our clients a unique aesthetic and visual appeal that sets them apart. Here, we’ll outline the process for you and give you insights into how we create some of our compelling commercial content.
Your first question might be, so, why the color green? While “green screening” is the most common way of referring to this process, chromakeying can be applied to any color in the spectrum. You can key out blue, pink, yellow, whatever you like, but for practicality’s sake, green is a great choice. It’s all about contrast. In order to isolate a color, it must be distinctly different from the other colors present. The shade of green used for green screening isn’t commonly found in skin tones or worn by talent, so that makes it a good choice, because any clothing that matches the background too closely will punch a hole in the subject- probably not the special effect that you are going after.
If you’ve successfully shot your video on a smooth, single colored green panel, and effectively lit your subject, then pulling the key isn’t too complicated. Using your preferred editing system, you can simply import the footage and apply a chromakey filter.
While using a green screen can be complicated to the unfamiliar, it’s creating the digital world and later applying it to your video footage that requires the most creativity and a significant amount of skill. Our award winning editor on-staff at Edit House has demonstrated a great deal of agility in bridging the gap between the real and the imagined by creating immersive digital worlds. Imagine the new possibilities that could be developed for your advertising materials if you had someone on your team with the skill to apply this technology! With Edit House, you are free to pursue those ideas- give us a call and we’ll commit your vision to video.
James Blackburn has been working for Edit House Productions, LLC, for over five years, assisting in various video productions. He has over 17 years of experience on both sides of the camera. James has always loved film; he’s worked on over 200 movies and TV shows as an actor and behind the scenes. He has also won 3 Rocky Mountain Regional Emmy Awards for videography and editing.
Here at Edit House Productions, James Blackburn assists with productions, setting up and tearing down equipment, writing scripts, monitoring sound, creating graphics, and editing video content. His experience and enthusiasm bring much value to the Edit House Productions Team.
He has been in a happy relationship with his significant other, Karen, for 27 years, and they have one cat named Magic.
When he isn’t working, he also loves outdoor adventures, spending time with family and friends, and is a long-time member of the New Mexico Gunfighters Association. You can see James as a Gunfighter in the Queen Latifah movie, “End of the Road.”
He also has a YouTube channel with almost 1,000 videos called the James Blackburn Experience that follows his life on various adventures.