Video: You’ve probably seen countless behind-the-scenes videos of visual effects wizards spending months turning boring green screen footage into amazing movie shots. But did you know that the hardware exists to fake live video in real time? Is anything real any more?
This pre-visualisation setup uses a massive green screen, a motion-tracked camera, and some custom computer hardware to enable directors to see a performer interacting with a virtual environment while everyone is still on set. There’s a lot of expensive gear in use here, but in the long run this method may be cheaper than having to do reshoots, or extensive post-production, if the captured green screen footage isn’t exactly what’s needed for a final shot.
Movie-making aside, you can also find setups such as this one used for TV news and many kids’ shows. Why would a network pay for separate studios and standing sets for multiple shows when they can all just share a single green screen set and composite in different virtual environments as needed?
[YouTube via Likecool via On-Set Facilities]