Chroma key, commonly known through its blue or green screen backdrop, is a visual effects and post production technique that composites two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues, letting a performer appear to be anywhere at all without leaving the studio. The bluescreen method traces to 1930s work at RCA, and Larry Butler's bluescreen process for The Thief of Bagdad won the Academy Award for special effects in 1940; Petro Vlahos received his own Academy Award in 1964 for refining the underlying techniques, and American and British television networks began switching to green backdrops in the early 1970s. Chroma key work remains commonplace in filmmaking and video games, and is the standard technique behind live television weather forecasts.
Facts
Introduced Year OriginDeveloped as a blue screen travelling matte process at RKO Radio Pictures in the 1930s. Larry Butler's genie-escape scene in The Thief of Bagdad (1940) is credited as the first proper use of the technique, winning that year's Academy Award for Best Special Effects; the name Chroma-Key was RCA's own trade name for the process on its NBC broadcasts. 1 Connections
Associated With
Bluescreen compositing traces to 1930s work at RCA, refined afterward by named individual pioneers (Larry Butler, Petro Vlahos), neither of whom has an entry in this atlas yet.
Source Wikipedia
Additional Source Wikipedia: RCA CorporationChroma key, Development section, RCA origins of bluescreen compositing
In Medium
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationChroma key, Process section (general definition; the live article carries no "Development" or "Contemporary Uses" heading, corrected from the locator recorded at mint time)
The principal subject is filmed or photographed against a background consisting of a single colour or a relatively narrow range of colours, usually blue or green because these colours are considered to be the furthest away from skin tone.
Chroma key, History section ("From bluescreen to greenscreen" subsection), Thief of Bagdad Academy Award
Credited to Larry Butler, a scene featuring a genie escaping from a bottle was the first use of a proper bluescreen process to create a travelling matte for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), which won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects that year.
Wikipedia: Chroma key, Terminology section
also referred to as colour keying or colour separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC), or by various terms for specific colour-related variants such as green screen or blue screen
Chroma key compositing (Wikipedia), From bluescreen to greenscreen section
Credited to Larry Butler, a scene featuring a genie escaping from a bottle was the first use of a proper bluescreen process to create a travelling matte for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), which won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects that year.
View the Source Wikipedia: RCA Corporation
Associated With: Radio Corporation of America, Chroma key, Development section, RCA origins of bluescreen compositingView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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