Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Green screen TV magic on the Morning Blend

The chromakey, or 'green screen', is one of the great wonders of modern television (and video, too).

A graphics computer replaces anything on the TV screen that corresponds to a specific color.  Most often, its green that is used but most every color can be utilized.  At KGUN, its usually either green or blue.  Then, what is not that color can be seen in front of the graphic (in this case, the three people standing there).  Its the same way the weather forecast maps and graphics are shown during the newscasts.

We shot a segment today on the Morning Blend that will air this week promoting the Critics Choice Movie Awards on the CW and we utilized the chromakey / green screen (we used blue today).

I thought you'd find it interesting to get behind the scenes photos.  Entertainment reporter Jim Ferguson is with hosts Ann and Amanda in front of the blue wall and Lee is working the camera.

Check out the shoot in the studio photo below, and a photo I took of a monitor in the studio where you can see the background graphic that was keyed to the blue wall behind them.

TV magic is so magical.

Jim, Ann and Amanda in front of the green screen (today it was blue but works the same way).

Here's how it looked on the monitor with the computer generated graphic added in place of the blue behind them.