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How to Add Animation Behind a Blue Screen

Movies can take audiences to fantastical worlds---and even more fantastical worlds can be made with blue-screen effects, also called chroma key. Real-world actors perform in front of an evenly lit blue (or green or red) screen and pretend they are in the location described in the script. Meanwhile, animators create the setting on a computer. During the post-production process, editors remove the blue-screen background and replace it with the animation.

Things You'll Need

  • Computer
  • Blue-screen video footage
  • Animation program
  • Non-linear video editing program
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Instructions

    • 1

      Open the blue-screen video footage alongside an animation program. Examine the lighting on the subjects in the raw footage and animate a background setting that will be lit similarly to the subjects. Animate the entire frame to account for any movement the subjects make in the raw footage. Save the animation as a video file.

    • 2

      Open the non-linear video editing program. Open two video layers in the time line. Import the blue-screen raw footage and animation footage into the program. Lay the animation footage onto the first and lowest layer. Set the raw footage into the second layer above it.

    • 3

      Select the raw footage on the time line. Open the chroma key function and use the eyedropper tool to select the specific blue of the screen. There should be a slider to remove degrees of the color; drag it all the way to the extreme that will entirely remove the color from the footage. Render the footage and export it as a movie file.

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