Nowadays, content creators are increasingly creating content in the form of photos and videos using green screen techniques, Stewart and Alina channels are examples of several channels that use green screen techniques for their content. Apart from content creators on the YouTube platform, there are content creators on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and other social media that use green screen techniques for their content. The use of these techniques is to support the needs in terms of editing. Especially with video packaging that applies green screen techniques, it is considered to make the resulting content more interesting because it can display a variety of visuals. Its easy use has triggered the rise of content creators who use green screens in every content they create. By using the green screen technique, a content creator does not need to go to the mountains just to get a mountain background. To create a video that applies the green screen technique, a video editor only needs to provide a green cloth as a video background then proceed with the cameraman taking video objects with a background that was previously green. With the help of editing software, an image/video that has been taken can be changed to any background according to the needs of the content being created.
The use of the green screen concept was first applied in 1898 by George Albert Smith [1], who used a black cloth to make an object disappear. Meanwhile, the most famous application of the green screen was in the movie “The Great Train Robbery” in 1903. In this film, they painted the train windows black to add scenery scenes while the train was running. In addition, the application of green screen was also applied in the 1940s in the movie “The Thief of Baghdad” [2], but because there was no software capable of editing using the green screen technique, the video editor edited the results using only an optical printer and hand-drawn matte [3]. The invention of the green screen was very helpful in terms of video editing. In the early years of green screen creation, making videos using green screen was expensive and took a lot of time because no software or software could optimize the green screen which was the basis for making green screen. However, gradually due to the increasing prevalence of films using the basic green screen, many application developers have created software that can maximize the use of the green cloth. With the development of the times, the use of green screen is not only able to change the background in the video, but the green screen is also able to change objects so that objects can move according to the wishes of the content creator. Taking videos with a green background is the basis for applying a green screen, so why is the green background the basis, and can you change the green background to a green screen base with a background of another color, pink for example? These questions that are asked quite a lot by people who want to learn how to make videos.
Answering the question, the green background can be replaced using other colors as applied to the first use of green screen by George Albert Smith in 1898 who used black cloth to make an object disappear. The application of a green color layer is due to the saturation produced on the surrounding objects or objects. Green does not have a color spectrum, and no human skin color is green [4] so it is more efficient to combine with various objects. The screen with a green background is the best choice at this time to apply a green screen but besides green, blue can also be used because the key to the current green screen technique is the chroma key [5]. The merging of objects using the chroma key is the basis that perfects the application of the green screen itself. This chroma key is a special technique & process for combining two different image or video streams based on color hue criteria [5]. Currently, there are many editing software that can use chroma key techniques both on PCs and smartphones. The software that has been developed to date is quite a lot and currently, Adobe After Effect, Adobe Premiere, and Sony Vegas, which are familiar software used.
References
[1] F. Gray, “Smith the showman: The early years of George Albert Smith,” Film History, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 8-20, 1998.
[2] M. Husinsky and F. Bruckner, “Virtual Stage: Interactive Puppeteering in Mixed Reality,” 2018 IEEE 1st Workshop ons Animation in Virtual and Augmented Environments (ANIVAE), 2018, pp. 1-7, doi: 10.1109/ANIVAE.2018.8587270.
[3] T. Mulack, Special visual effects: Planung und Produktion. Gerlingen: Bleicher, 2002.
[4] Blacer-Bacolod, Donnalyn, “Student-Generated Videos Using Green Screen Technology in a Biology Class,” International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 12, no. 4, 2022.
[5] P. P. Kotgire, J. M. Mori and A. B. Nahar, “Hardware Co-simulation for Chroma-Keying in Real Time,” 2015 International Conference ons Computing Communication Control and Automation, 2015, pp. 863-867, doi: 10.1109/ICCUBEA.2015.172.
By: M. A. Munandar, Editor: I. Busthomi