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Reverse Bluescreen
Reverse bluescreen is a visual effects technique pioneered by Jonathan Erland of Apogee Inc., John Dykstra's company, for shooting the flying sequences in the 1982 film ''Firefox (film), Firefox'', directed by Clint Eastwood. Its objective is to enable the matting of subjects that confound the conventional process, such as those exhibiting reflective surfaces. It derives its name from the fact that it reverses, or inverts, the basic chroma key, bluescreen process. Erland received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for this technique. Implementation The patented technique is a variant of the traditional bluescreen Matte (filmmaking), traveling matte process for composite photography. The basic bluescreen process calls for filming a subject in front of the solid blue backing, which consists of a translucent blue plastic sheet in front of banks of fluorescent lights. This process poses a problem. A reflective surface on the subj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Screenshot Of Firefox (1982)
A screenshot (also known as screen capture or screen grab) is an analog or digital image that shows the contents of a computer display. A screenshot is created by a (film) camera shooting the screen or the operating system or software running on the device powering the display. Screenshot techniques Digital techniques The first screenshots were created with the first interactive computers around 1960. Through the 1980s, computer operating systems did not universally have built-in functionality for capturing screenshots. Sometimes text-only screens could be dumped to a text file, but the result would only capture the content of the screen, not the appearance, nor were graphics screens preservable this way. Some systems had a BSAVE (bitmap format), BSAVE command that could be used to capture the area of memory where screen data was stored, but this required access to a BASIC prompt. Systems with composite video output could be connected to a Videocassette recorder, VCR, and ent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visual Effect
Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX. VFX involves the integration of live-action footage (which may include in-camera special effects) and generated-imagery (digital or optics, animals or creatures) which look realistic, but would be dangerous, expensive, impractical, time-consuming or impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer-generated imagery (CGI) have more recently become accessible to the independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and relatively easy-to-use animation and compositing software. History Early developments In 1857, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "special effects" image by combining different sections of 32 negatives into a single image, making a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dykstra
John Charles Dykstra, A.S.C. (; born June 3, 1947) is an American special effects artist, pioneer in the development of the use of computers in filmmaking and recipient of three Academy Awards, among many other awards and prizes. He was one of the original employees of Industrial Light & Magic, the special effects and computer graphics division of Lucasfilm. He is well known as the special effects lead on the original ''Star Wars'', helping bring the original visuals for lightsabers, space battles between X-wings and TIE fighters, and Force powers to the screen. He also led special effects on many other movies, including '' Batman Forever'', '' Batman & Robin'', ''Stuart Little'', '' X-Men: First Class'', ''Spider-Man'' and ''Spider-Man 2''. Education and early career Dykstra was born in Long Beach, California. After studying industrial design at California State University, Long Beach (where he was a member of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity), in 1971 he landed a job working with Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Firefox (film)
''Firefox'' is a 1982 American action techno-thriller film produced, directed by, and starring Clint Eastwood. The cast also includes Freddie Jones, Kenneth Colley, Warren Clarke, and Nigel Hawthorne. Based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Craig Thomas, ''Firefox'' is the only film appearance of Thomas' character Mitchell Gant. The film recounts Gant's mission to secretly enter the Soviet Union, hijack a cutting-edge fighter plane, and fly the aircraft back into American hands. Although the story is largely set in the Soviet Union, Cold War considerations meant that Eastwood's and Fritz Manes' Malpaso Company used several locations in Austria, including Vienna, for many scenes. One source states that the film was shot on a $21 million budget, the largest-ever production budget for Malpaso. Another source indicates that over $20 million was spent on special effects. The effects have been called "particularly innovative," as the "reverse bluescreen" technique was in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clint Eastwood
Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western (genre), Western TV series ''Rawhide (TV series), Rawhide'', Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's ''Dollars Trilogy'' of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Dirty Harry (character), Harry Callahan in the five ''Dirty Harry (film series), Dirty Harry'' films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Eastwood's greatest commercial successes are the adventure comedy ''Every Which Way but Loose'' (1978) and its action comedy sequel ''Any Which Way You Can'' (1980). Other popular Eastwood films include the Westerns ''Hang 'Em High'' (1968), ''The Outlaw Josey Wales'' (1976) and ''Pale Rider'' (1985), the action-wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chroma Key
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a Visual effects, visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues (colorfulness, chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to background subtraction, remove a background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the newscasting, motion picture, and video game industries. A colour range in the foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as colour keying, colour separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC), or by various terms for specific colour-related variants such as green screen or blue screen; chroma keying can be done with backgrounds of any colour that are uniform and distinct, but green and blue backg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matte (filmmaking)
Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image (e.g. actors on a set) with a background image (e.g. a scenic vista or a starfield with planets). In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge sections of painted canvas, portraying large scenic expanses of landscapes. In film, the principle of a matte requires masking certain areas of the film emulsion to selectively control which areas are exposed. However, many complex special-effects scenes have included dozens of discrete image elements, requiring very complex use of mattes and layering mattes on top of one another. For an example of a simple matte, the director may wish to depict a group of actors in front of a store, with a massive city and sky visible above the store's roof. There would be two images—the actors on the set, and the imag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composite Photography
Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today, most compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation. Pre-digital compositing techniques, however, go back as far as the trick films of Georges Méliès in the late 19th century, and some are still in use. Basic procedure All compositing involves the replacement of selected parts of an image with other material, usually, but not always, from another image. In the digital method of compositing, software commands designate a narrowly defined color as the part of an image to be replaced. Then the software (e.g. Natron) replaces every pixel within the designated color range with a pixel from another image, aligned to appear as part of the original. For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fluorescent Paint
Luminous paint (or luminescent paint) is paint that emits visible light through fluorescence, phosphorescence, or radioluminescence. Fluorescent paint Fluorescent paints 'glow' when exposed to short-wave ultraviolet (UV) radiation. These UV wavelengths are found in sunlight and many artificial lights, but the paint requires a special black light to view so these glowing-paint applications are called 'black-light effects'. Fluorescent paint is available in a wide range of colors and is used in theatrical lighting and effects, posters, and as entertainment for children. The fluorescent chemicals in fluorescent paint absorb the invisible UV radiation, then emit the energy as longer wavelength visible light of a particular color. Human eyes perceive this light as the unusual 'glow' of fluorescence. The painted surface also reflects any ordinary visible light striking it, which tends to wash out the dim fluorescent glow. So viewing fluorescent paint requires a longwave UV lig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blacklight
A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp that emits long-wave ( UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet filter material, either on the bulb or in a separate glass filter in the lamp housing, which blocks most visible light and allows through UV, so the lamp has a dim violet glow when operating. Blacklight lamps which have this filter have a lighting industry designation that includes the letters "BLB". This stands for "blacklight blue". A second type of lamp produces ultraviolet but does not have the filter material, so it produces more visible light and has a blue color when operating. These tubes are made for use in " bug zapper" insect traps, and are identified by the industry designation "BL". This stands for "blacklight". Blacklight sources may be specially designed fluorescent lamps, mercury-vapor lamps, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, or incandescent lamps. In medic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motion Control Photography
Motion control photography is a technique used in still and motion photography that enables precise control of, and optionally also allows repetition of, camera movements. It can be used to facilitate special effects photography. The process can involve filming several elements using the same camera motion, and then compositing the elements into a single image. Other effects are often used along with motion control, such as chroma key to aid the compositing. Motion control camera rigs are also used in still photography with or without compositing; for example in long exposures of moving vehicles. Today's computer technology allows the programmed camera movement to be processed, such as having the move scaled up or down for different sized elements. Common applications of this process include shooting with miniatures, either to composite several miniatures or to composite miniatures with full-scale elements. The process is also commonly used when duplication of an element whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Effects
Special effects (often abbreviated as F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the fictional events in a story or virtual world. It is sometimes abbreviated as SFX, but this may also refer to ''sound effects''. Special effects are traditionally divided into the categories of mechanical effects and optical effects. With the emergence of digital filmmaking a distinction between special effects and visual effects has grown, with the latter referring to digital post-production and optical effects, while "special effects" refers to mechanical effects. Mechanical effects (also called practical or physical effects) are usually accomplished during the live-action shooting. This includes the use of mechanised props, scenery, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and atmospheric effects: creating physical wind, rain, fog, snow, clouds, making a car appear to drive by i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
