In WickedFuture evil witch Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) is ostracized by her fellow Ozers because of her green skin and magical powers. But on the set of a big-budget Hollywood studio production that relies heavily on visual effects rather than magic, she has her own viridescent enemy: green screen technology.
Deep green backgrounds, often called “chroma green” by digital artists, are used in modern VFX processes, in part because that tint is so far removed from the color range of human skin. That makes it much easier for visual effects artists to digitally select anything in an image that is green chroma and replace it, removing actors and placing them on new backgrounds. But if Elphaba stood in front of a green screen background, it would probably erase her like her classmates want, theoretically leaving an equally magical floating hat, eyes, dress, and cape in place of the Wicked Witch of the West. .
As Industrial Light & Magic visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman said in a previous interview with Polygon. WickedUpon launch, Elphaba's coloration made it necessary to return to an earlier form of this type of digital replacement technology.
“It immediately became a blue screen show,” Helman says. “When you're doing the prep, you have to acquire all these screens. And then we knew we had [to use] blue screen”.
Helman, whose visual effects credits range from fantasy films like Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones to less visible works on Martin Scorsese The Irish — prefers to use these screens as little as possible: “The reason I don't like them [this method] It is because the lighting changes, spilling throughout the set, in one color or another.” In his eyes, that would have taken the life of one of Wickedof the most elaborate musical numbers, where Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) leads Galinda/Glinda (Ariana Grande) and others in a cheerful song about how “Life is more painless / for the stupid.”
“For example, in scenes like 'Dancing Through Life' in the library, it could have been a blue screen set, because all the backgrounds were there,” Helman says. “But I worked with Alice Brooks, the director of photography, just to say, 'If we think we're exposing the inside and the outside is going to bloom, let's light it white and deal with it.' different, because then the white light will help us have the true meaning of what it means to be on a set like that.'”
The contrast between the bright white light that Brooks and Helman wanted for that scene and the blue light that digital backgrounds would have spread throughout the sequence is part of the frustration Helman often sees on movie sets, where it can arise. different needs for a shot. conflict.
“If we really go back historically to the beginning of green or blue screen photography, it's because in visual effects we like to separate everything and we love to have control over everything,” he says. “But the director also wants to be in control and the production designer wants to be in control.”
Even with all the Helman preparation, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy rich asians, in the heights), and the rest of the film crew involved in the project, it wasn't until they were on set that they discovered how avoiding a collision with Elphaba's green screen meant running into other problem.
“Until we started filming in Shiz [the university in Oz]us [hadn’t] I noticed everyone was wearing blue,” Helman laughed.