As an aspiring VFX Artist, you must have seen tons of behind-the-scenes footage of movies that use advanced VFX techniques to create fascinating visuals for the audience. Something common in all of them is the usage of blue and green screens. Sci-fi, period and fantasy genre movies use them all the time. Before we dive into it further, first let’s understand the concept of chroma keying. It is the process of shooting video on a solid colour backdrop which is later replaced by the required footage or CGI. It isn’t strictly a post-production process as shooting on a screen on set is the first part of the entire workflow.
But why only blue or green? Blue and green are on the opposite ends of the color spectrum. Red and orange which correspond to the skin tones, so by using blue or green you have lesser unwanted effects when keying a person on screen.
Should you choose the blue or the green screen for chroma key compositing? This essentially depends on the lighting of scene to be shot. If it’s a daytime background, then green in the ideal choice as it blends seamlessly. Blue as you’d have guessed is best for replicating nighttime. Apart from that the choice actually isn’t that simple.
Blue is a higher frequency colour than green and thus gives a more distinct keyed image with greater contrast.
The blue screen is also the most common choice of the compositor as it has less depth than green screen and so it does not stand out in the real world. The blue screen can be created using silk or fine fabric coated with an emulsion of fine particles of a light reflecting material. Most people like to use velvet for this purpose, but fabric such as muslin can also serve as a good option.
Talking about the counterpart, green color is processed the cleanest with the most luminance. The result is that you will be able to pull a clean key with the least amount of noise, and often, without a complicated lighting setup. Conversely, because of green’s brightness, it can also lead to more ‘spill,’ meaning the green color may reflect and bleed over on your on-screen talent. It isn’t that big of a problem and one of the easiest ways to avoid it is to ensure distance between the actor and the screen.
credits: (c)Disney Studios
Now it may seem as though blue is superior to green, which to some extent is right. But it does have its own downsides too. Blue screen will require twice as much light as green screen thus it’s an expensive choice. This difference in luminosity results in less colour spill than green. You would not want your post production to be messy after all.
In conclusion even though blue gets the upper hand, the green screen is still the most popular choice for chroma key compositing since it’s cheaper and has lesser depth with respect to its surface. Nevertheless, you may need to use both screens in various circumstances. The ideal solution is not just one.
Fascinated with the behind-the-scene intricacies about film-making? You can become an integral part of the process too. Get trained in VFX fundamental and advanced techniques at Arena Animation.
Check out the career courses in VFX here and take the first step ahead in your career pursuit.
Actually, my experience was great at Arena Animation Sayajigunj! They helped me to get my VISA faster than expected.
Right from childhood, I had a profound interest in the field of arts. I made various sketches in different styles like Dot Painting, Charcoal Drawing, Pencil sketching, Watercolor, and Pastels. As I grew up, my interest in this field also matured. I got attracted more towards the art of visual effects in movies. The visual effects in Harry Potter and Avatar blew my mind when I saw the fictional characters and creativity portrayed in the surroundings. All these positive aspects made my interests inclined towards Visual effects.
After my higher secondary education, I decided to opt for the Visual Effects (VFX) stream. Eventually, I enrolled in the VFX program at Arena Animation Sayajigunj in October 2017.
After completing my first term study in December 2018, I got placed through Arena in January 2019 at Trace VFX Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai To get hands-on experience and gain practical knowledge, I decided to complete my certification in the VFX program after getting some work experience.
During my 1.5 years at Trace, I worked on various Hollywood films and web series like Artemis Fowl, Cats, Snake eyes, Cursed, American Gods, etc., for MR.X, MILL Film, MPC Film & Episodic as a Jr. Matchmove/RotoAnim artist. I received credit on the silver screen for the Hollywood movie Artemis Fowl. My curiosity about learning VFX in detail increased as I learned more about it in my work life. After leaving my job in July 2020, I continued my VFX program at Arena Animation Sayajigunj and completed it in January 2021. My dedication led me to complete the program earlier by six months.
Now Having done my research, I was very clear about Canada as my chosen country for higher education. I prefer to study in Canada to gain multicultural exposure, high quality of education, latest study modules, and recognition of my degree back in India. Collaboration of Arena Animation & Vancouver Centre of Entertainment Arts – Langara College, Canada to help me a lot for my international career. and also I got A special scholarship of CAD 19,500 as I am an Arena Animation student. And It will be a lot to me. Once again Thank you Arena Animation.
Langara CEA is situated in Vancouver, a hub for Hollywood movies with plenty of studios located alongside the city. The faculty themselves have worked in many Hollywood movies, and what else can be better than getting trained under their supervision.
My main aim is to start up a studio in my hometown, and for that, I need supervision from the best college and experience in studios.
I recommend all students who are Ready to graduate from Canada – Visit Arena Animation Sayajigunj once which is best Vfx Training Institute in Vadodara.
Rotoscoping is one of the oldest animation techniques that allows producing realistic footages. Traditionally, animators traced over motion picture footage, frame by frame. In the visual effects industry, the process, even though similar, has a different purpose.
Rotoscoping is mostly used today to create a matte or mask for an element, so that it can be extracted and placed on a different background. It may even be masked out to change colours or any other set of reasons. It is widely used than you may realize. Rotoscoping helps filmmakers create scenes that would otherwise be impossible, challenging, expensive, or dangerous to produce in real life.
Read on, to find out about the industries that employ trained, skilled and certified rotoscoping artists for various job roles.
VFX studios
In bigger VFX companies, rotoscoping artists are sometimes attached to a show along with a Compositor or 2D Lead to direct them on the projects. If not on one show, then their services are used on different shows that the company is in charge of. In smaller companies, the roto artists gain experience by being a Junior Compositor and doing their own roto and prep work along with the compositing work.
Film Production Houses
There are more things than you can imagine that goes into the making of a film. Rotoscoping artist are often required at film production houses. Something as simple as tracing hair on an actor’s head is done by them. Even with the availability of advanced digital technologies, the makers of Guardians of the Galaxy used traditional rotoscoping techniques by using footage of a real racoon called Oreo to bring ‘Rocket’ to life.
Animation Companies
It was the legendary filmmaker Max Fleischer who invented the technique of rotoscope back in 1914 when he animated Popeye The Sailor and Betty the Boop. A few years later, when Disney used the footage to get a sense of a character’s movement, instead of tracing over the live-action footage. Many animators have come up with their own style of rotoscoping through over the years. And is still being used to create a variety of animated assets.
Gaming Companies
Game developer Jordan Mechner of Smoking Car Productions invented digital rotoscoping while creating the adventure game The Last Express. He had even used rotoscoping in his previous game projects Karateka and Prince of Persia. Since then, the gaming industry has always been another important sector where rotoscoping artists can build a career in.
As Rotoscoping continues to be a vital process within the animated and live action film production pipeline, there is huge demand for skilled roto artists. By completing a Vfx Film Making career course and getting the right skills, you can get hired by some of the top companies in the above-mentioned industries.
Whether you are an aspiring VFX professional or a superhero movie enthusiast, you are here because you are impressed by the visual effects of the original MCU series, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
The MCU, for more than a decade has been carrying the Torch of legendary CGI epics. But lately they have been trying to shift your attention from heavily CG-ed wars to grounded and realistic TV series like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. These shows have given us CGI scenes so perfect that none of us could have ever doubted it to not be real. From the aerial chase in the first episode and a few others that we would be exploring shortly. And who other than Weta Digital could have been trusted with such epic sequences amidst the global pandemic!
The show received a total of five award nominations including a nomination for a 2021 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects. The VFX team involved was supervised by Charlie Tait who alongside Eric Leven have been part of the Weta digital team for over two decades. You may not have heard his name but we are pretty sure that you would have enjoyed his work, which includes Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool, Alita: Battle Angel, and Game Of Thrones Season 8. K
Meant for theaters, the production had a blockbuster budget with each of the six episodes reportedly costing $25 million and featuring a total of 2,500 visual effects shots.
Here are our top 3 favourite breakdowns of the VFX shots:
Madripoor
Establishing shots of Madripoor were entirely CGed with Hong Kong as the key reference for it. The uniquely shaped sky-scrapers and the dense slum was a mixture of on-set special effects and VFX. It’s amazing how they could show the stark contrast between the slum life and the riches all through CG, since Madipoor was essentially a pirate city.
Credits: (c)Weta Digital and (c)Marvel Studios
Canyon chase sequence
It was the first of the sequence to make us realise the brilliance of MCU’s execution of fight scenes. But what makes it unique from the ones we saw in the movies was the different visual language using the GoPro mount.
Credits: (c)Weta Digital and (c)Marvel Studios
Digital double of Walker
The Walker you saw running and jumping through the window was a CG John Walker. A stunt double enacted the fall through the window on the car but the dents, exploding car windows, and the smashing through the house window was CGed. It might seem simple to create it but calculating the intensity of the smash is challenging.
Some scenes had digital doubles of both Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan. And since they have been in the MCU for a long time, they have become a few of the recognisable faces in the industry. Thus there wasn’t any room for the slightest of the mistakes in creating their CGs.
Credits: (c)Weta Digital and (c)Marvel Studios
Truck battle
The trucks were absolutely stationary! The only thing moving was the CGI-Ed road. The road was moved at the required speed (120km/s) while adding bits of rocks, dirt and dust being kicked up subtly to enhance realism in the scene. In addition to that the sequence was shot in Atlanta (USA) and thus sign boards and surrounding environment was required to be transformed to that of Germany.
Credits: (c)Weta Digital and (c)Marvel Studios via beforesandafters.com
Marvel is stepping up the game for other superhero franchises like The Boys (Prime) and the DCEU. We believe there are much more surprises waiting for us in ‘Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness’.
Pruthviraj Talanpuri was always creative in his mind. From kindergarten, he was fond of Toonami cartoons. Later on, with the advent of life, he started gaining interest in animations. He used to search google and try to learn many things. He got very confused. He thought his parents won’t understand his diversion towards animation, hence he opted for science and mathematics in his 10 + 2 studies. Like a normal science student would do, he chose engineering in graduation. But, computers could not be separated from him, hence completed his Bachelors in engineering and technology in the Computer Science branch from Babaria Institute of Technology, Vadodara.
While during engineering he came across an animators group in his college. He was highly influenced by them. He took help from them and found out that his dreams can get wings in Arena Animation Sayajigunj. Later he searched on Google about Arena Animation Sayajigunj and found out it was the best institute in animation and VFX.
The very next day he came to our institute and had counseling with us. After completing his engineering he immediately enrolled himself in the animation and VFX course with Arena Animation Sayajigunj which is a 3 years course. He enrolled for Advanced Animation International Program AAIP (VFX) here in the Arena Animation Institute Vadodara.
The faculties and mentors here in Arena Animation are so helpful that they cleared every doubt of mine at every step. Arena Animation Sayajigunj has Gujarat’s biggest infrastructure facilities including Green Room, Recording Studio, VR Gaming Zone, 5 Highly Advanced computer Labs, 1000 Student capacity to name a few.
The platform equips every student to represent their creative abilities and skills during the placement drives. They make us job ready professionals with appropriate interview training and relevant skills to kick start a successful career in the areas of Animation, Gaming, VFX, Filmmaking, Broadcasting Multimedia, and every other area that falls in the Media & Entertainment industry. Arena Animation Sayajigunj invites the top recruiters namely Pixel Studio, Shemaroo, Torrecid and more of such thriving companies in the VFX industry.
He states that “ My life was changed when I enrolled here in Arena Animation Sayajigunj and it was the best decision of my life. I consider myself lucky to get counseling from top mentors and to be a student under them. Earlier I had a vague knowledge of VFX. But here in Arena animation Sayajigunj, my mentors provided me with correct knowledge and guidance and it seriously helped me to kickstart my career in VFX and the animation industry.”
He also added “ I am thankful to Arena Animation Sayajigunj that I am working in JCB International as a 3D Lighting Artist. I earn money from what I love doing. I will always recommend Arena Animation Sayajigunj to all the like-minded people.”
We were overwhelmed by the response we got from Pruthviraj Talanpuri and by stating his example we can say that you can achieve anything in life if you have passion and patience for it. We hope Pruthviraj the best of luck and may he achieve the highest!
