How Blue Screens Work

     For many, blue screen effects can be difficult to understand. Using the VideoCD cover we'll breakdown the one photograph as if it's a single frame of film for a movie. 

    We will assume that some of the images would be in motion for the film. There are ten images used to create the completed picture below.

Here are the images.

The Completed Image

     The base image (one frame) already has a background layer laid down with an effect done to it. All the other images show how many pieces are used to create the one photograph.

     The Viper text above has had a 3D effect done to it. Then I add a shadow effect to it, and the viper logo next to it. The viper shadow going up to the right and the logos shadow down, to the right. 

     The viper cast photo above has had something done to it as you can tell. I layered an effect over the image similar to the background image above. 

     The Viper images used were cut from photographs I found on the internet. The two Viper logos were found the same way.  The DVD and VideoCD logos were from previous cover sheets I created.  

   Once again, here is the final image. You can see now how the individual pictures were laid down on top of the other to create the VideoCD cover for the television series, VIPER. For a feature film this would be just one frame of a film. The computer would do this for each frame of film.  Working with a blue screen is different from working on a photograph, but hopefully you can get the feel of what is involved with Blue Screen. 
     Fans take for granted what the Special Effects and CGI men and women do behind the scenes to get a feature film ready. It's time consuming and meticulous work. It took several hours to created the one image above. There are 24 frames in a single second of film and each frame has movement.

Tim

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