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63-523: Set in 2100s of the Star Trek science fiction universe, an early faster-than-light starship sets out to explore a galaxy filled with aliens. When a strange, symbiotic alien creature boards Enterprise and captures several crew members, Ensign Hoshi Sato attempts to decipher the creature's complex language. On board Enterprise , there has been a minor diplomatic incident with the Kreetassans. As

126-426: A garbage matte to expose only the window areas. In order to have figures in one exposure actually move in front of a substituted background in the other, a travelling matte was needed, to occlude the correct portion of the background in each frame. In 1918 Frank Williams patented a travelling matte technique, again based on using a black background. This was used in many films, such as The Invisible Man . In

189-598: A "key". Green is used as a backdrop for TV and electronic cinematography more than any other colour because television weather presenters tended to wear blue suits. When chroma keying first came into use in television production, the blue screen that was then the norm in the movie industry was used out of habit, until other practical considerations caused the television industry to move from blue to green screens. Broadcast-quality colour television cameras use separate red, green and blue image sensors, and early analog TV chroma keyers required RGB component video to work reliably. From

252-410: A bit silly and the weirdness of the threat never quite comes across. Not a bad episode, but not a terribly exciting one either." Keith DeCandido of Tor.com gave it 8 out of 10, in his 2022 rewatch, and notes "what’s particularly strong about this episode is that it gives us two genuinely alien aliens." Den of Geek recommended this episode and " Fight or Flight " as important episode to watch for

315-427: A bright and saturated image. There are several different quality- and speed-optimised techniques for implementing colour keying in software. In most versions, a function f ( r , g , b ) → α is applied to every pixel in the image. α  (alpha) has a meaning similar to that in alpha compositing techniques. α  ≤ 0 means the pixel is fully in the green screen, α  ≥ 1 means

378-484: A chroma-key background and inserted into the background shot with a distortion effect, in order to create a cloak that is marginally detectable. Difficulties emerge with blue screen when a costume in an effects shot must be blue, such as Superman 's traditional blue outfit. In the 2002 film Spider-Man , in scenes where both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are in the air, Spider-Man had to be shot in front of

441-480: A classic film. He rated the episode 2.5 out of 4. Michelle Erica Green of TrekNation said the episode was redeemed for her by the unnamed alien, calling it "one of the most interesting we've seen on Trek in years" and was pleased that Sato finally had a large part to play. Television Without Pity gave the episode a grade B+. The book Beyond the Final Frontier reviewed the episode, and said "the alien looks

504-463: A computer can use these markers to compute the camera's position and thus render an image that matches the perspective and movement of the foreground perfectly. Modern advances in software and computational power have eliminated the need to accurately place the markers ⁠— ⁠the software figures out their position in space; a potential disadvantage of this is that it requires camera movement, possibly contributing to modern cinematographic techniques whereby

567-416: A default value of 1.0. A very simple g () is ( r , min( g , b ), b ). This is fairly close to the capabilities of analog and film-based screen pulling. Modern examples of these functions are best described by two closed nested surfaces in 3D RGB space, often quite complex. Colours inside the inner surface are considered green screen. Colours outside the outer surface are opaque foreground. Colours between

630-608: A feature on the making of this episode, which had been originally intended as a pilot episode for a PBS show titled "On The Set". Enterprise (NX-01) Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 948654982 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:48:32 GMT Chroma key Chroma key compositing , or chroma keying ,

693-446: A field monitor, to the side of the screen, to see where they are putting their hands against the background images. A newer technique is to project a faint image onto the screen. Some films make heavy use of chroma key to add backgrounds that are constructed entirely using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Performances from different takes can be composited together, which allows actors to be filmed separately and then placed together in

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756-425: A filter or the high contrast film's colour sensitivity to expose only blue (and higher) frequencies. Blue light only shines through the colour negative where there is not blue in the scene, so this left the film clear where the blue screen was, and opaque elsewhere, except it also produced clear for any white objects (since they also contained blue). Removing these spots could be done by a suitable double-exposure with

819-460: A green screen and the Green Goblin had to be shot in front of a blue screen. The colour difference is because Spider-Man wears a costume which is red and blue in colour and the Green Goblin wears a costume which is entirely green in colour. If both were shot in front of the same screen, parts of one character would be erased from the shot. For a clean division of foreground from background, it

882-515: A green top to make it appear that the subject has no body), because the clothing may be replaced with the background image/video. An example of intentional use of this is when an actor wears a blue covering over a part of his body to make it invisible in the final shot. This technique can be used to achieve an effect similar to that used in the Harry Potter films to create the effect of an invisibility cloak . The actor can also be filmed against

945-433: A narrow frequency band, which can then be separated from the other light using a prism, and projected onto a separate but synchronized film carrier within the camera. This second film is high-contrast black and white, and is processed to produce the matte. A newer technique is to use a retroreflective curtain in the background, along with a ring of bright LEDs around the camera lens . This requires no light to shine on

1008-420: A quarter of the time needed for other methods. In principle, any type of still background can be used as a chroma key instead of a solid colour. First the background is captured without actors or other foreground elements; then the scene is recorded. The image of the background is used to cancel the background in the actual footage; for example in a digital image, each pixel will have a different chroma key. This

1071-463: A reasonable match. For outdoor scenes, overcast days create a diffuse, evenly coloured light which can be easier to match in the studio, whereas direct sunlight needs to be matched in both direction and overall colour based on time of day. A studio shot taken in front of a green screen will naturally have ambient light the same colour as the screen, due to its light scattering. This effect is known as spill . This can look unnatural or cause portions of

1134-483: A scene featuring a genie escaping from a bottle was the first use of a proper bluescreen process to create a travelling matte for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), which won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects that year. In 1950, Warner Brothers employee and ex- Kodak researcher Arthur Widmer began working on an ultraviolet travelling matte process. He also began developing bluescreen techniques: one of

1197-622: 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 backgrounds are more commonly used because they differ most distinctly in hue from any human skin colour . No part of

1260-440: A technological perspective it was equally possible to use the blue or green channel, but because blue clothing was an ongoing challenge, the green screen came into common use. Newscasters sometimes forget the chroma key dress code, and when the key is applied to clothing of the same colour as the background, the person would seem to disappear into the key. Because green clothing is less common than blue, it soon became apparent that it

1323-467: Is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to 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

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1386-405: Is achieved by a simple numerical comparison between the video and the pre-selected colour. If the colour at a particular point on the screen matches (either exactly, or in a range), then the video at that point is replaced by the alternate background. In order to create an illusion that characters and objects filmed are present in the intended background scene, the lighting in the two scenes must be

1449-451: Is also important that clothing and hair in the foreground shot have a fairly simple silhouette, as fine details such as frizzy hair may not resolve properly. Similarly, partially transparent elements of the costume cause problems. Blue was originally used for the film industry as making the separations required a film that would only respond to the screen colour, and film that responded only to blue and higher frequencies (ultraviolet, etc.)

1512-496: Is best to have as narrow a colour range as possible being replaced. A shadow would present itself as a darker colour to the camera and might not register for replacement. This can sometimes be seen in low-budget or live broadcasts where the errors cannot be manually repaired or scenes reshot. The material being used affects the quality and ease of having it evenly lit. Materials which are shiny will be far less successful than those that are not. A shiny surface will have areas that reflect

1575-409: Is some use of the specific full-intensity magenta colour #FF00FF in digital colour images to encode (1-bit) transparency; this is sometimes referred to as "magic pink". This is not a photographic technique and the extraction of the foreground from the background is trivial. The biggest challenge when setting up a blue screen or green screen is even lighting and the avoidance of shadow because it

1638-437: Is sometimes referred to as a difference matte . However, this makes it easy for objects to be accidentally removed if they happen to be similar to the background, or for the background to remain due to camera noise or if it happens to change slightly from the reference footage. A background with a repeating pattern alleviates many of these issues, and can be less sensitive to wardrobe colour than solid-colour backdrops. There

1701-407: The focal length of the lenses used can affect the success of chroma key. Another challenge for blue screen or green screen is proper camera exposure . Underexposing or overexposing a coloured backdrop can lead to poor saturation levels. In the case of video cameras, underexposed images can contain high amounts of noise , as well. The background must be bright enough to allow the camera to create

1764-437: The 1920s, Walt Disney used a white backdrop to include human actors with cartoon characters and backgrounds in his Alice Comedies . The blue screen method was developed in the 1930s at RKO Radio Pictures . At RKO, Linwood Dunn used an early version of the travelling matte to create "wipes" – where there were transitions like a windshield wiper in films such as Flying Down to Rio (1933). Credited to Larry Butler ,

1827-541: The Kreetassan vessel departs, a clear, amoeba-like entity crosses to Enterprise , and systems begin to malfunction on a ship-wide basis. Crewmen Rostov and Kelly are both trapped in a cargo-hold by the entity which has now grown tendrils. Captain Archer , Commander Tucker , Lieutenant Reed and another crewman go to investigate and are all caught as well, except Reed who escapes through the cargo-hold-hatch, severing one of

1890-405: The actor in front of a blue screen together with the background footage, one frame at a time. In the early 1970s, American and British television networks began using green backdrops instead of blue for their newscasts. During the 1980s, minicomputers were used to control the optical printer. For the film The Empire Strikes Back , Richard Edlund created a "quad optical printer" that accelerated

1953-566: The background as the subject moves. Prior to the introduction of travelling mattes and optical printing , double exposure was used to introduce elements into a scene which were not present in the initial exposure. This was done using black draping where a green screen would be used today. George Albert Smith first used this approach in 1898. In 1903, The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter used double exposure to add background scenes to windows which were black when filmed on set, using

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2016-453: The background other than the LEDs, which use an extremely small amount of power and space unlike big stage lights , and require no rigging . This advance was made possible by the invention in the 1990s of practical blue LEDs, which also allow for emerald green LEDs. There is also a form of colour keying that uses light spectrum invisible to human eye. Called Thermo-Key, it uses infrared as

2079-478: The camera being more sensitive to green light. In analog television , colour is represented by the phase of the chroma subcarrier relative to a reference oscillator. Chroma key is achieved by comparing the phase of the video to the phase corresponding to the pre-selected colour. In-phase portions of the video are replaced by the alternate background video. In digital colour TV , colour is represented by three numbers (red, green, blue intensity levels). Chroma key

2142-452: The camera is always in motion. The principal subject is filmed or photographed against a background consisting of a single colour or a relatively narrow range of colours, usually blue or green because these colours are considered to be the furthest away from skin tone. The portions of the video which match the pre-selected colour are replaced by the alternate background video. This process is commonly known as " keying ", "keying out" or simply

2205-471: The cast, and said his favorite character was Hoshi because he felt she was the most human and relatable, so he tried to write for her as much as possible. Vaughn Armstrong who played the Kreetassan Captain in this episode also plays Admiral Forrest. He ultimately appeared in 27 Star Trek episodes in 12 different roles. The costume and makeup took six to seven hours, and Armstrong said it was

2268-413: The character Hoshi. TheGamer ranked this one of the top 25 creepiest episodes of all Star Trek series. The Digital Fix said this was a "great episode" in season one of Enterprise , saying it felt like a "classic" Star Trek story. Enterprise season one was released in high definition on Blu-ray disc on March 26, 2013, with 1080p video and a DTS-HD Master Audio sound track. The Blu-Ray included

2331-454: The characters to disappear, so must be compensated for, or avoided by using a larger screen placed far from the actors. The depth of field used to record the scene in front of the coloured screen should match that of the background. This can mean recording the actors with a larger depth of field than normal. A chroma key subject must avoid wearing clothes which are similar in colour to the chroma key colour(s) (unless intentional e.g., wearing

2394-445: The cleanest key. In the digital television and cinema age, much of the tweaking that was required to make a good quality key has been automated. However, the one constant that remains is some level of colour coordination to keep foreground subjects from being keyed out. Before electronic chroma keying, compositing was done on (chemical) film. The camera colour negative was printed onto high-contrast black and white negative, using either

2457-409: The colour positive (thus turning any area containing red or green opaque), and many other techniques. The result was film that was clear where the blue screen was, and opaque everywhere else. This is called a female matte , similar to an alpha matte in digital keying. Copying this film onto another high-contrast negative produced the opposite male matte . The background negative was then packed with

2520-475: The entity's tendrils. Sato uses the Universal Translator to modulate a frequency that the entity can understand. After several attempts, the entity responds. It gives them new, more precise coordinates on its home-world, and Phlox notices that the bio-signs of the trapped personnel are stabilizing. The entity then releases the personnel, shrinking back to its original size. On the entity's planet,

2583-433: The female matte and exposed onto a final strip of film, then the camera negative was packed with the male matte and was double-printed onto this same film. These two images combined creates the final effect. The most important factor for a key is the colour separation of the foreground (the subject) and background (the screen) – a blue screen will be used if the subject is predominantly green (for example plants), despite

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2646-514: The first films to use them was the 1958 adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novella, The Old Man and the Sea , starring Spencer Tracy . The name "Chroma-Key" was RCA 's trade name for the process, as used on its NBC television broadcasts, incorporating patents granted to RCA's Albert N. Goldsmith. A very early broadcast use was NBC's George Gobel Show in fall 1957. Petro Vlahos

2709-427: The green channel. Green can also be used outdoors where the light colour temperature is significantly blue. Red is avoided as it is in human skin, and any other colour is a mix of primaries and thus produces a less clean extraction. A so-called " yellow screen " is accomplished with a white backdrop. Ordinary stage lighting is used in combination with a bright yellow sodium lamp. The sodium light falls almost entirely in

2772-414: The green screen two stops higher than the subject, or vice versa. Sometimes a shadow can be used to create a visual effect. Areas of the blue screen or green screen with a shadow on them can be replaced with a darker version of the desired background video image, making it look like the person is casting a shadow on them. Any spill of the chroma key colour will make the result look unnatural. A difference in

2835-438: The image in which the colour is blue. If the news presenter wears blue clothes, their clothes will also be replaced with the background video. Chroma keying is also common in the entertainment industry for visual effects in movies and video games. Rotoscopy may instead be carried out on subjects that are not in front of a green (or blue) screen. Motion tracking can also be used in conjunction with chroma keying, such as to move

2898-423: The key colour, which would not be replaced by background image during postprocessing . For Star Trek: The Next Generation , an ultraviolet light matting process was proposed by Don Lee of CIS Hollywood and developed by Gary Hutzel and the staff of Image G . This involved a fluorescent orange backdrop which made it easier to generate a holdout matte , thus allowing the effects team to produce effects in

2961-409: The lights making them appear pale, while other areas may be darkened. A matte surface will diffuse the reflected light and have a more even colour range. In order to get the cleanest key from shooting green screen, it is necessary to create a value difference between the subject and the green screen. In order to differentiate the subject from the screen, a two-stop difference can be used, either by making

3024-446: The live footage. Curry found it interesting how the episode required the various departments—production design, special effects, visual effects, and stunts—to work together rather than carrying out their tasks separately. The stunt coordinator suggested using foam cutouts on stands to help visualize how the people would look in the cargo bay. The alien planet was filmed on a bluescreen , with the cast in their spacesuits and real dirt, but

3087-442: The location of the entity's home world, but only after Mayweather apologizes for the earlier incident. Apparently the "misunderstanding" occurred when the Kreetassans were taken to the mess-hall to find many of the crew eating in public, which they regard as highly vulgar. T'Pol, Sato, and Reed make their way to the cargo-bay to attempt communication. Reed assembles experimental force-field-emitters, which are able to protect them from

3150-420: The most difficult character he had played. The other guest stars were Renée Elise Goldsberry as Crewman Kelly, and Joseph Will as Crewman Michael Rostov. Roxann Dawson praised the cast, especially "Scott and Conner, who spent days suspended in harnesses covered in slime without a single complaint." She said "This episode was difficult, challenging and... well, at times I thought it was almost impossible." It

3213-533: The organism and the severed tendril are both released and quickly re-absorbed into a larger alien body. As the shuttle-pod returns to Enterprise , dawn breaks and the entire area is revealed to be covered with a single huge organism. The episode title "Vox Sola" comes from Latin and literally means lone voice . The script was originally titled "The Needs of the One". The episode was directed by Roxann Dawson , she previously directed " The Andorian Incident ". The episode

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3276-439: The pixel is fully in the foreground object, and intermediate values indicate the pixel is partially covered by the foreground object (or it is transparent). A further function g ( r ,  g ,  b ) → ( r ,  g ,  b ) is needed to remove green spill on the foreground objects. A very simple f () function for green screen is A ( r + b ) − Bg where A and B are user adjustable constants with

3339-462: The process considerably and saved money. He received a special Academy Award for his innovation. For decades, travelling matte shots had to be done "locked-down", so that neither the matted subject nor the background could shift their camera perspective at all. Later, computer-timed, motion-control cameras alleviated this problem, as both the foreground and background could be filmed with the same camera moves. Meteorologists on television often use

3402-521: The rest was fully CGI. Vox Sola was first aired in the United States on UPN on May 1, 2002. According to Nielsen , it received a 3.4/6 rating share among adults. It had an average of 5.4 million viewers. Jamahl Epsicokhan said the episode had a genuine sci-fiction ending, and some "good moments". He also noted that it references the French film The Wages of Fear , which is described as

3465-441: The same scene. Chroma key allows performers to appear to be in any location without leaving the studio. Advances in computer technology have simplified the incorporation of motion into composited shots, even when using handheld cameras. Reference points such as a painted grid, X's marked with tape, or equally spaced tennis balls attached to the wall, can be placed onto the coloured background to serve as markers. In post-production,

3528-411: The subject being filmed or photographed may duplicate the colour used as the backing, or the part may be erroneously identified as part of the backing. It is commonly used for live weather forecast broadcasts in which a news presenter is seen standing in front of a large CGI map which is really a large blue or green background. Using a blue screen, different weather maps are added on the parts of

3591-409: The surfaces are partially covered, they are more opaque the closer they are to the outer surface. Sometimes more closed surfaces are used to determine how to remove green spill. It is also very common for f () to depend on more than just the current pixel's colour, it may also use the ( x ,  y ) position, the values of nearby pixels, the value from reference images or a statistical colour model of

3654-464: The tendrils in the process. Ensign Mayweather suggests tracking the Kreetassans down to ask about the entity, while Doctor Phlox examines the severed tendril. He determines that those entrapped are becoming symbiotically linked together through the entity. Sato wants to communicate with it, but Sub-Commander T'Pol decides to neutralize it instead. Mayweather manages to find the Kreetassans, asking for any information they may have. They agree to share

3717-410: Was awarded an Academy Award for his refinement of these techniques in 1964. His technique exploits the fact that most objects in real-world scenes have a colour whose blue-colour component is similar in intensity to their green-colour component. Zbigniew Rybczyński also contributed to bluescreen technology. An optical printer with two projectors, a film camera and a "beam splitter", was used to combine

3780-555: Was challenging to create the alien organism, but more importantly to make it believable and scary. Most of the alien creature effects were done practically on set. Liz Castro was responsible for coordinating the visual effects and the CGI tendrils, with on-set help from Dan Curry . Goo was painted all over the actors and practical models so that it was dripping, then matched in CGI. The tendrils' fast movement made it easier to integrate them with

3843-427: Was easier to use a green matte screen than it was to constantly police the clothing choices of on-air talent. Also, because the human eye is more sensitive to green wavelengths, which lie in the middle of the visible light spectrum, the green analog video channel typically carried more signal strength, giving a better signal to noise ratio compared to the other component video channels, so green screen keys could produce

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3906-507: Was far easier to manufacture and make reliable than film that somehow excluded both frequencies higher and lower than the screen colour. In television and digital film making, however, it is equally easy to extract any colour, and green quickly became the favoured colour. Bright green is less likely to be in the foreground objects, colour film emulsions usually had much finer grain in the green, and lossy compression used for analog video signals and digital images and movies retain more detail in

3969-527: Was written by Enterprise creators Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, and also Fred Dekker. Dekker had thought Enterprise would and should be different, "I thought that we could create alien life-forms that were almost unimaginable" but felt that the series quickly fell back on "all the familiar tropes and aliens that the Star Trek franchise had already traded in for decades." He complained that his scripts were "meddled with" and "heavily rewritten". Dekker praised

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