Common Video, Animation or Film terms
- Film is a technical medium
- Delivering aesthetics and emotion relies on technique
- Lighting and sound have always been central to any successful film or video. It's rare for a project of any prominence whatsoever not to have sophisticated visual effects, color and even motion design work.
- Visual Effects VFX - effects added to a moving image using a computer (Post Production).
- Special Effects - refers only to practical effects taken on set at the time of production. Explosions, stunt men shattering windows.
- Green Screen - shooting live action and replacing an empty background environment that is all one color...letting color stand in for transparency to remove all or part of the background.
- Color (chroma) keying
- Green is common because it's distinct from skin and hair
- Rotoscoping
- Masking a moving image frame by frame by hand
- Still time consuming and done mostly by hand
Loving Vincent - Beautiful example
- Motion Tracking
- Precise evaluation of scene to match motion
- Motion tracking has to be more or less perfect to work at all, because our brains are incredibly skilled at noticing motion discrepancies.
- Color Correction
- Sets emotional look of the piece
- Corrects mis-matched shots or flawed lighting set ups
- Compositing
- Assembling a visual effects shot using elements that were not taken with one camera so that they appear as if they were.
- After Effects - Composition or Comp
- Motion Graphics
- Less concerned with realism and more with aesthetic delight.
- May involve type animation, it is graphic design put in motion for the purpose of focusing the viewers attention and conveying a specific feeling or reaction.