Film Language Tag: chromakey process

A process developed in the 1950s for producing traveling mattes that replaces one color (or narrow range of color) in an image with a new image. Chromakey is used in both film and video. In film it began as an optical effect, but is now more often produced electronically. The most common use is in televised weather reports where the reporter stands in front of a blue or green background and the background is electronically replaced with the weather information (charts, maps, live shots from out of doors, etc.).To be most effective, the subject must not be the same color as the background. Blue and green are the most common colors for chromakey mattes because human skin tones do not naturally contain significant amounts of these colors. (Blue is most common for film- and analog video-based effects, while green is more common for digital effects.) Kroon, R. W. A/V a to z: An encyclopedic dictionary of media, entertainment and other Audiovisual terms. McFarland, 2014.