How Green Screen Worked Before Computers
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- tomscott.com - / tomscott - For those of us who grew up in the age of CGI, green screen is just "a thing that computers do". But how did effects like this work before the age of pixels? With the help of some suitably shiny graphics, here's a quick summary.
Thank you to Matt Gray - mattg.co.uk - / unnamedculprit - for sterling work getting the camera and lighting right!
As a jerk with a laptop and a copy of After Effects - I'm jealous of your ability to do that in an Afternoon.
check the end title card
"...okay, maybe two afternoons"
Dixavd As a jerk with a few computers but no copies of any crazy expensive and buggy Adob€ programs, I can still do it thanks to free video editing programs.
@20PercentRendered Shotcut is awesome.
@@fRQpcM5uDJ Thanks
@@fRQpcM5uDJ I'm checking it out
This is great. On a similar note you should read about how they restored the classic Dr Who series 'Daemons'. They had an official 16mm monochrome film print, and a fan in the US had recorded a colour version on U-Matic video tape which was much lower resolution. The restoration team rigged up a system where the luminance signal from the film was combined with chroma signal from the tape and produced the version we can now watch on DVD.
Feed me more delicious anecdotes, Scott Manley.
Wow, what a great explanation!
Ooh, that's a clever way of doing it!
My favorite video game science nerd and history/linguistics science nerd in the same place.
im speechless. how did I find you here
... okay, maybe two afternoons.
+Rom Levtov I saw that before I saw your comment.
+Pacvalham i didn't care before i wrote i don't care
ToMeK3001pro so, now you care?
@@Pacvalham I thought, "One afternoon?" and felt inadequate before I saw either your comment about their comment or the caption on the actual video, albeit years after you saw it.
ZeroByter ...... you noticed that too eh ? 🧐🇬🇧🤔👍🏻🤝🤓❤️😂
Wow that old tv effect was amazing
Ikr
@@Ignited_YT no
@@chlkrisz ikr
@@dripguy6073 hmm
@@Ignited_YT I don't get it :/
I love how laid back he is! He acts like your just a friend!
he looks like that cartoon kid from jumanji
*you're
KiliK AH yes, I'm sorry. Here let me correct myself. *You're* bloody annoying.
thanks
KiliK *You're* welcome
My friend owns that Quantel Paintbox that the BBC used in the 80s.
One of them anyway, I think they owned three in the end as they were in such demand (mostly for title sequences).
***** I know you get this a lot but I feel compelled to say "you're everywhere, Larry" :-)
Aaronage
That's pretty much the only response I get on videos now :(
***** Here's a different one: I love what you do, and watching it makes me happy. :D
***** Any time, friend. After all, it's true. C:
About the only thing I know about that is Degas Elite on our Atari ST could open Quantel Paintbox format files. I don't know what exactly you would have expected to be able to _do_ with them...
looking at doctor who special effects, they might still use that paintbox
+karottenkoenig Ouch!
+karottenkoenig *Air Horns*
*used to be.
They were only used for some of the micro-budget yet revolutionary 60's Dalek stories.
I remember a Tom Baker episode where the bad guy was green bubble wrap
I was hoping this would come back
A travelling matte... as opposed to the guy who sometimes accompanies Tom on his wild travels. That's a travelling Matt.
grayscreen
@@kayyayeare gayscreen
Very cool!
After 5 years, this comment still haven't gotten any likes.
Thank you Shake the Future, very cool
6 years....
4 replies including this one....
We called the television version Chromakey. In North America p, we started out using blue screen. With very careful lighting, proper camera angles, and well adjusted cameras it worked not half bad. Later, we shifted to green screen for chromakey, and that seemed to get better results. Occasionally we did work out moving both cameras in sync. In addition to these matting formats, film and television also used front and rear screen projection. Any one or more of these might be used in a movie or program, or even in one scene depending on the desired effect.
screen projection is coming back :) And it looks amazing these days as they use self lit pixels. the possibilities are amazing
Otherwise known as colour separation overlap at the BBC.
The BBC called it CSO, for Colour Separation Overlay, because they HAD to be different 😅
Chromakey was a trademark of RCA. Sure, everyone in the TV industry in North America called it that, but it was a trademark, much like Kleenex is.
fun fact, a greenscreen is often called a chromakey in russian
It actually sounds super fun to watch a live, green screen performance, with two cameras actively filming scenes.
Tom Scott: "These days, green screen is easy"
Microphone Boom: "Are you sure about that"
Boom comes out extremely easily with garbage matte
Yessss
Congrats, you made an otherwise clean comment section suck with your unfunny comment format.
Novastitous shut up nerd
CODMarioWarfare Oh, “nerd”, how original and insulting.
i love these subtitles. You speak so fast! Thank you some Finnish guy who went through and translated this video! Kiitos!
Konsta Toivonen SUOMI!
You can slow the videos down, you know.
I like to watch English videos without subtitles but Finnish subtitles is always good bonus 🙂
I thought Finnish people spoke English very well like sweeds
The subtitles were just a Finnishing touch. ;-)
...I’ll show myself out now...
Legend has it... The green screen is made with a blue screen...
Blue, Green or sometimes Yellow.
@@martinhughes2549 maybe just blue and yellow
@@meetaverma8372 what if it's not a color?
@@beinzheans3918 *gasps* *puts on a tinfoil hat*
"Today a jerk with after effects can do that in an afternoon"
_Edited by: Tom Scott_
Well played sir.
There it is: 2:01
I knew he couldn't get through an entire video without some kind of British mention.
Tom Scott, professionally British.
What's wrong with it? Americans always mention usa
Why is BBC a news company 🤦🏼♂️
@@fenrix155 why not
milk before cereal? how about no milk? Look up bbc on urban dictionary
@@fenrix155 I got the joke
Every time I heard 'traveling matte' I was thinking of Matt Gray on holiday.
Incredibly well done. I've taught this to a couple of film classes but kids always have trouble grasping the concept of the sodium yellow light. Your explanation was excellent.
Something else to consider - we can look back at this and see how clever that was. Imagine being in that time and coming up with something so brilliant. Wow.
Nice job. I need to subscribe to your videos.
this video still holds up 10 years later. Tom has some special talent, thank you Tom.
The Disney sodium vapor process camera is still a step above modern green screen technology when it comes to mattes for gauzy or translucent materials. They only were able to make one as the prism inside of it that split the sodium light was never able to be duplicated correctly, but that one camera was used on a number of movies until the 90's.
A person who can relay this kind of knowledge in what seemed like one take, deserves all the success that comes their way
in the vid he talks about that TV signals werent transmitted in separate RGB channels and that it needed backwards compatibility. long ago, in the dark ages of TV, black and white TV's were commonplace but colour TV's were seeping in, they wanted to make sure B/W tv's would still work with colour signals. the colour TV signal has a few extra differences which are ignored in B/W sets because they either couldnt handle the faster signals or filtered out in the front end/IF strip (if not you would get "chroma dots", the "colourburst" which is in the back porch of the horizontal (line) sync pulse is usually 8 cycles at 3.58 (NTSC) or 4.43(PAL) this sets up the crystal in the colour set but is ignored in B/W sets, the chrominance signal (colour information) again is ignored in B/W sets but the phase shift of the signal compared to the colourburst (which sets the local crystal oscillating) is used to determine what colour gun(s) in the picture tube is fired, the luma signal determines how bright the gun(s) needs to be.
I know this comment is 4 years old but technology connections made a video on how compatible color was developed and it's real cool
This comment has some words I understand in it
I really enjoy your editing on this. I don't know how I'm just now seeing it, but I love it. You did such a good job explaining, but also it was very high quality and fit for the descriptions you gave, Excellent!
I always feel really good about myself when i've already watched the mystery video at the end of nerd³'s videos
Totally Not A Cylon That's how I got here, too. I hadn't heard of Tom Scott, and I initially misread the username as "TomSka", which really confused me for a little while. XD
Totally Not A Cylon GO AWAY!
lampadein Oh, um... sorry? I'll be going...
Totally Not A Cylon No, come back! The cylons will get you otherwise!
You know what I like more than materialistic things?
Old memes.
that meme died ages ago... you may as well say darude sandstorm while youre at it
I know but it fits
Darude Sandstorm
It's an older meme sir, but it checks out.
TheNorwayPlayer I was just about to clear them.
Extremely well done. That's a lot of effect work to put in to one video!
Despite the changes, there still remains 1 rule: No wearing green in front of a green screen.
that seems obvious
@@theAstarrr why not red screen?
@@theAstarrr what about a shirt with that flag?
@@theAstarrr We've *always* been able to use any colour screen we want. But we stick with blue and green because they have the least overlap with the colours inherent to human skin tones, which makes it much easier to pull a clean key.
@@annedrieck7316 Because of the red in flesh tones.
2016, and Powerpoint already has the technology to do this even if the back is full with patterns or some weird scenery.
(though for pictures only, not video)
if you have the time you could edit frame by frame.
aGamingMonkey Who would want to do that...
YSC doesnt work with slightly different shades
AKA difference matte. If you want it in videos, but Final cut Pro! :D
*2010
Albeit less reliably back then. You guys are lucky having a more reliable picture green screening system. Meanwhile I'm stuck using PowerPoint 2010...
Somehow i always wind up watching these videos at 3am
And then you had the complex process used in TRON....
Yes
ooo ?
the amount of rotoscope used the movie was insane, such dedications
About 2 minutes in he mentions "the BBC used a bit of kit called the Quantel Paintbox for Doctor Who as early as 1980"
Perhaps different kit, but they were greenscreening (CSO) the heck out of Doctor Who about a decade before that. See "Terror of the Autons"... also "Inferno" I think...
first 'computer' use I believe is what he was getting at.
frollard
Yes.
The reason I was made redundant at Quantel was down to the improvement of computer technology, the writing was on the wall for Paintbox, Picturebox etc. Back in the 90s when film and TV people,were the only ones to know about Green Screen/Blue Screen (more widely used back then)/Chroma Key/Colour Separation Overlay
I always wondered how they did this back in the film days. This was an excellent summary!
I think this was one of the best video editing I have ever seen. So smooth and clear.
Although i had knowledge about all these. Your presentation technique was so cool that i couldnt leave the video in between. Great work scott 🙌👏
That was one of the strengths of the Amiga computer.
The video signal from the computer corresponded exactly to the television standard.
In addition, the scanning of the signal could be controlled by an external video source.
Now all that was needed was a device that switched between the synchronous video signals.
This allows writing, images or animations to be inserted into the video signal.
I had film classes in college in the late 90's and we shot on B&W 8mm film using a Bolex camera. We did talk about travelling mattes and how to in in-camera effects like that but it was considered an advanced technique for my class so we weren't required to do it but it was an option. Being an animation major I didn't really go over the top with my film classes.
Repeatedly press left arrow key at the beginning of the video for a hot beat
Thezdai-thezdai-thezdai-thezdai-thezdai-thezdai!
You're a genious
Yep, used to be an UltiMatte operator and I now feel ancient- great videos bro!
This is fantastically done. I remember as a kid reading through Cinemagic magazine which had a discussion of building your own optical printing rig. Amazing how much technology has changed in the past 30 years.
Next Video: How Blue Screen Worked Before Windows 8
that was clearly a joke lmao
Answer: Windows Vista
@@LMDProductionsOfficial they skip 9!
@AthaariqArdiansyah
Time Traveler Plot Twist:
Blue Screen never left...it's still alive and well in the 31st century.
2:30 Green Tom really be hitting different SHEEESH
0:28 if your film looks like that then something is clearly wrong with it
Wonderful! Thanks for the video.
I also didn't know Tom Scott had his channel that did stuff like this. Before this, I only knew him from the Computerphile videos he was in. .
i like how the editor is showing off his skills :D
HOLD UP. Are you saying this entire video was made in an afternoon? Holy crap, if anybody is familiar with video editing that means Tom Scott is productive af. I mean I guess it was one take, and I guess he had a good mic setup, but still any time I've ever tried to make anything it takes like forever. And he has several very elaborate and smooth effects going on. Including a picture in picture of after effects with his cursor changing the settings in a way that is reflective of what is happening on the video itself.
Jebus, I feel like this is like 30 hours of video editing work minimum, the fact he can do it in "an afternoon" which means at works 6-8 hours is freaking INSANE.
0:50 Bad Apple
You had ENTIRELY too much fun editing this, methinks.
I pretty much lost it at the VCR tracking thing. Great stuff!
green t-shirt
Anyone else want a video about how they did color backwards compatibility in broadcasting?
Basically they converted RGB to YCbCr, so that they could still broadcast the luminance channel (Y; black and white) like before with the 2 chroma channels (Cb and Cr) plastered on top.
This way black and white TVs could still receive the luminance channel and display it normally while color TVs would receive all 3 and convert them back to RGB. This color scheme is still in use today. Even h.264, the most commonly used codec in the world (RUclips uses it too), is internally using YCbCr.
*****
Cool, thanks!
+Ryan Mitchell and the reason they still do it, even though it's all digital now, is they can compress the chroma more aggressively without drastic perceivable degradation.
What is the mores code that starts at 0:16??
Tom, you should definitely do a video about the "long story" of colour TV transmission, and how PAL is so much cleverer than NTSC. You could even call it "British TVs were better than all other TVs, and here's why". (Ok, so PAL wasn't just a British thing, but pattern matchiiiiing)
(Also you should do more of the podcasts with "classic" trivia question cards, they were great.)
Another clever green screen technique was to use retroreflective beads. These were used to reflect an image from a projector back in to the camera lense. Because they only need a small amount of light, the projector didn't need to be powerful so the projected background didn't shine on the actor/actress.
I like going back and watching old movies, like lord of the rings in high definition.
You can literally see green!
***** It is by movie techniques standards.
Liarra Sniffles I refuse to accept that.
***** Why?
Are you saying that the CGI in those films was on par with transformers?
***** I was talking about the recent transformers, but whatever.
Idk why you don't want to accept that CGI has improved so much that it's like comparing the raw horse power of a carriage to that of a sports car.
It's not like I said the movies were bad or anything either.
By far the weirdest troll I've met so far, muted.
Liarra Sniffles I dont't want to accept CGI has improved? Well, it's not like I've said the CGI in Lord of the Rings had been surpassed or anything. Oh wait, that's exactly what I said.
All I'm saying is that obsolete CGI ≠ old movie.
Fun fact, the Muppet character 'Uncle Travelling Matt' from the Kids Tv Show 'Fraggle Rock' was named in honour of the 'Travelling Matte' process which was heavily used by the show.
3:25 *Spelling of "Attribution" is wrong.*
That was excellent! You’re explanation, and the we you visualized it was just perfect. Well done for an afternoons’ work.
A copy of Winamp playing Cartoon Heroes by Aqua can be seen near the beginning.
Wow the high contrast technique is quite clever! I wouldn't have thought of that...
Thanks Bud Bundy, but I still don't understand
Me too
This is among my favorite videos. Thanks Tom!
Hey! 2:46 That's Tromsø, Norway!
GangGang
I like and appreciate how you used video effects to accompany your historical overview. Keep up the genius.
I've never heard "travelling matte" before, but I know Uncle travelling Matt from Fraggle Rock. Is this a pun?
Yup! The technique was used on the show for his very segments! Also, because his gag was to mis-interpret what he was seeing in the world (because after all, the puppeters couldn't see it), it's a bit like the Newsflash segments on Who's Line Is It Anyway.
Green screen intrigued me since I was young, and the wonder of how this was done before computers popped in and out of my head from time to time. Thanks for addressing this -- super neat and clever stuff!
This must have been fun to edit. :D
6 years after this video was put out and I’m only getting recommended now
Thank you Captain Dissilusion very cool
@Rufus Isaakov how the hell did you find it
@Rufus Isaakov but why the hell did you wanna find? =)) do i know you?
@Rufus Isaakov cool fanboy, appreciate that
so do you do all these research and made this amazing video? im surprise you know just about everything! thanks for great videos!
Welcome to another episode of: Tom Scott/ his editor flexing their skills
Ultra Editing skilles there, Credit to the editor
Yes
Can someone just clap for the editing on this vid?!?! I mean 2:02 is just wonderful.
This is a really well done video! Nice work tom!
Sodium light monochromatic? And there was me thinking sodium was famous for its twin spectral lines.
He mentions it's use in street lights, that means he is referring to low pressure sodium lamps that do in fact only give monochromatic light(It gives two lines 0.6 nm apart, unnoticeable to the human eye). High pressure sodium lamps are a different story.
LiamE69 589 nm + 589,6 nm... They're nearly identical...
I thought sodium was salt
Sodium Chloride is common table salt. Sodium, on it's own, is an elemental metal.
And the lights everyone is talking about are Sodium Vapour Lamps, commonly used as street lights and security lights due to the high brightness and a colour that's invisible to insects.
(but makes everything look like a post apocalyptic dystopia)
@@QlueDuPlessis they are also highly efficient. Replacing sodium vapour lamps with LED saves way less electricity than people think
Well 9yrs ago bro was best editor on youtube
I can just sense his inadequacies...
And again a new old video made it to my recommands
Best visual aides you've ever had.
A triple star.
Will watch again.
At 2:47 it was so flawless I almost believed you were in the middle of Tromsø in Northern Norway, wow.
Before the guy with the laptop came along there was the Amiga computer, VCRs and the Newtek Video Toaster.... Also for decades.
+Michael Sykes Before that we had to use an abacus and write on the ground with sticks.
+Henrik Nykvist Thats true.
But no abacus or stick was ever used to edit video or movies.
So where is your point?
Michael Sykes I edit videos all the time using only an abacus and stick.
Henrik Nykvist
If that method works for you....
I use Sony Vegas Pro a calculator wrist watch and sometimes even a stick, a USB-stick.^^
This! This is genuinely one of the questions I'd been asking myself for a few years now. Big thumbs up for this video
I'm paused at 3:03 and it's the cutest thing.
Actually, sodium lamps emit 2 wavelengths, both a very similar yellow light.
Awesome job!
One of the big problems with less expensive analog video keying gear was that it tended to be a bit slow. The result was that it switched from background to subject a little bit to the right of where it should have, and the same at the other side of the subject. This added a little visible edge on the right side of people, especially visible on meteorologists on the local tv news.
Early video artists (e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik) intentionally amplified this "problem" by looping it through the effect repeatedly, to distort images for artistic ideas. For example, a round ball would appear to become squashed. It wasn't very fancy, but it was fun.
Make a video about how they made the original King Kong. That is pretty cool.
+Ola Nordmann That's stop motion overlayed over pre-recorded movie footage.
One of your best yet, thank you! Very informative and extremely well done.
0:39 tried to rub the black point on your face away .
Great video. I can tell you really put a lot of work into the editing
My grandpa had a big analog video chroma deck thingy, it was huge and it had a lot of buttons and rockers, but worked really well.
I don’t know what everything means and why I’m here but recommended did bring me here
Watching this after corridor crew.
Your delivery is fantastic! Great video.
I'm more interested in how they do it WITH computers?
After Effect, KDEnlive, Piviti all have chromakey effects that will find the color and cause it to be transparent, take a gander.
***** I think he means more along the lines of "How do you program the computer to do it?"
Legend says Robin is still wondering about it to this day.
Very cool video Tom, it's refreshing to see how passionate you are about this. Thank you.
* appreciates KeyLight more*
love the editing
0:45 TOM APPLE
TOM APPLE
Thanks for letting me see Tom without a red shirt!
1:58 how did you do that? the hidding behind the glass trick? it looks so cool
record footage put footage on a usb or pc idk use pc output and various adapters and connect to old tv you can see something similar in lgrs fallout in bw tv video
It's just compositing in After Effects - adding some extra reflection layers on top of Tom and desaturating him to make him look like he's on a screen, and compositing *that* into the screen of that old TV (which is just a still image).
Still looks neat
I remember watching a behind the scene documentary for one of the original Star Wars where they explained the first method you mentioned here. Wonderfully interesting stuff :)
They used a lot of different techniques. This kind of thing was used for the space ships dogfighting, where as filling in backdrops on static shots was done with painted glass.