How do green screens work?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Movies can take us to extraordinary places, sometimes using technology! Filmmakers create new worlds, incredible creatures, and mind-bending action scenes using something called a green screen. A green screen is just what it sounds like: a bright lime green background used to create special effects! So how does a green screen make movie magic? We asked movie-maker and film professor Jeremy Royce to help us find the answer.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is The Moment of Um.
0:05.0	Moment of Hum comes to you from APM Studios.
0:20.0	I'm Pop Hopkins, owner and proprietor of Pop's one-stop prop shop.
0:26.6	Um.
0:28.6	In case you don't know, props are all the stuff you see in movies and TV.
0:36.6	Space lasers, couches, haunted dolls, forks, you name it.
0:41.3	And here it pops one-stop prop shop,
0:44.3	we make and sell the best movie and TV props you ever saw.
0:49.3	Do you need a bookshelf that opens into a secret hideaway?
0:53.3	I can make that.
0:55.0	How about a perfect replica of the Hope Diamond?
1:00.0	But made out of glass.
1:03.0	I can make that.
1:05.0	A hair dryer and pepper grinder super glued together and painted to look like a shrink ray shooter?
1:10.0	Oh yeah. No problem. I can make that.
1:14.5	And I'll tell you what? Film technology has come a long way since I started in the biz.
1:22.1	Used to be, you had to make all your movie special effects yourself. You want a giant troll in your movie?
1:29.3	You build a clay model and film it on a tiny version of the movie set.
1:34.3	Or you get the biggest guy you can and stick him in a lot of makeup and some furry underpants.
1:40.3	But now, holy shlamoli!
1:44.8	With computers and something called a green screen,
1:47.8	you can build whole imaginary worlds and creatures
	...

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