Green Screen Photos That Show Us How Hollywood Really Works

Shooting with a green screen (or sometimes a blue screen) involves filming a person or adding visual effects in front of the solid color. Then you can digitally remove the color and drop the scene onto the background of your choice. A green screen is used often in movies, TV, videos, commercials, and much more.

Everything looks incredibly real in the Hunger Games movies, but a good chunk of the movie is thanks to a green screen and CGI technology. Most of the scenes were filmed on location, but for some of the more complicated scenes, Lawrence had to use her imagination. 

Narnia included 1,670 effects, and over 1,000 of them were complex CG characters, water, ice, and land. The creatures were created on set with over 200 people working on the Visual effects. Just to create the nonmoving castle, there were nine layers of CG work.

Green screen technology is used throughout all of the Avenger movies, but the most impressive use of the green screen was for Bruce Banner, the Hulk. Superhero costumes and portals were created using special effects, and many scenes were filmed in front of green screens.

I am Legend was a monumental logistical and technical challenge for the filmmakers. The film was primarily shot in New York City and was made to look deserted. There are roughly 830 special-effects shots in the movie, but they didn't want to use screens for everything because if you use that technology too much, it will start to look fake. 

The movie 300 was shot almost entirely on a green screen, which gave the producers the flexibility to shoot where and when they wanted. This movie is a water movie, meaning it takes place on the water, but with CGI and green screens, you can create a water movie without a drop of water on the set. 

In Harry Potter, there were several flying scenes that the producers needed to use technology for. The Quidditch scenes were sometimes filmed where people would jump up and down on a trampoline in front of a green screen. Other times, they would have the actors on a broom on top of a robot that moves around with the artificial wind and a green screen.

The movie Life of Pi would not have been possible without special effects because it was all based in the middle of the ocean with a tiger. The team used a gallery of effects, including phosphorescent ocean creatures, storms at sea, and of course, the big cat. 

In Iron Man, all of the sequences inside Tony's house required a lot of green screen enhancement, but the home's complete destruction needed a lot of FX work. Sometimes Robert Downey Jr. would wear the entire metal suit, but other times he would have what looked like pajamas with computer sensors on them so they could add the suit later. 

A huge part of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' success was the amazing digital effects that realistically captured the performances for the ape civilization and rendered them beautifully on screen. It was both strong performances that were convincingly ape-like and top-notch visual effects. 

In the film Aquaman, there are 2,300 visual effects shots, and for the underwater scenes, they used a giant pool surrounded by a green screen. There were also underwater scenes where Momoa never touched the water; he would be in rigs that simulated underwater movements, and then they used CG technology to finish the scene.

Alice in Wonderland is praised for the beautiful visual experience, special effects, and the beautiful 3D designed in each scene. The whole movie was filmed through green screens, and all the animals in the film are computer-generated images. 

Godzilla required many visual effects, so the actors had to act in front of a massive green screen. The film had roughly 1,535 visual effects shots, with MPC handling most of the Godzilla shots, but they also had performers play Godzilla. 

In Guardians of the Galaxy 2, a combination of visual effects, actor stand-ins, and dolls bring the characters to life. There was an actor in a green suit that played Rocket, but then there were also two life-size versions of Rocket Raccoon and a bust of Groot as aids for visual effects and lighting. Bradley Cooper, the voice of Rocket, was rigged up to voice the character; he wore a suit to capture his movements while performing.

In the movie Mary Poppins Returns, all of the live-action elements were shot first and took roughly 18 months to complete. The actors delivered their performances in a totally green space with reference dancers dressed in green and physical set pieces called proxies representing the animated elements that would eventually appear in the scene. 

Space Jam was mostly made by Michael Jordan talking to himself and shooting baskets on a green screen. When he was playing basketball, he had a group of people chasing him around in green onesies so that he would have an idea of the general spacing he needed. 

In Lost in Space, pretty much every kind of visual effect you can imagine was used, full green screen shots, matte paintings, full CG Digi-doubles, and the robot, which was sometimes practical, sometimes digital, and sometimes both. 

The special effects were enhanced to recreate Ancient Greece, and for the majority of the scenes, the film was shot across a large green screen. The film was shot on a lot, just adding in the background effects later, and the actors shot the scenes in full costumes and had all of the props, including horses, present when the cameras were rolling. 

For the movie King Arthur, in the opening scene where the bridge falls, the scene was filmed on a real bridge, with green screens stretched along the bridge's length and all of the arrows being fired are CGI. Motion capture was used for animation cycles, and the goal of the effects wizards was to make the action look real. 

The biggest challenge for the producers of Elysium was creating Elysium, the ring-shaped habitat in space. There were six different types of droids created for the film; actors in grey suits performed the role of the droids on set, allowing Blomkamp to direct the performance. The actors were then replaced with CG droids in the final shot.

By the end of The Chronicles of Narnia, they had completed 1,617 visual effects shots for the film, including extensive animation work, extreme close-ups of talking animals with fur, to crowd scenes numbering more than 15,000 creatures, which were created on set. 

Ridley Scott utilizes the latest digital animation and 3D techniques in the film Prometheus. He shot the film entirely in 3D using Red Epic cameras, and the movie includes more than 1,400 3D visual effects. Animation software was used to complete much of the work. 

The green screen was used in A Good Day to Die Hard. During the Helicopter crash, Pixomondo pieced the real and fake together and created Digi-doubles or digital face replacements for the actors. The spinning helicopter scenes used volumetric lights and lens flares. 

When Jeff Bridges is in the vault, the room can be any size, painted green, and filled with sensors designed to capture the actor's movement and facial performance. The capture is used to assist in creating the CGI version, the environment in the scene, and the camera angles. 

The Homesman was not filled with many visual effects, but they did use the green screen. The movie was filmed in New Mexico, which is pretty flat, so the green screen would be used to give different backgrounds for different scenes. 

Production for the Wolverine filmed in an area of southern Sydney made up to look like a Japanese Army camp, but Rising Sun replaced the city on the horizon with Nagasaki views. One-shot features Logan doing a last-minute jump into the stone well, so Hugh was shot against a bluescreen on wires being lifted up and dropped into the well.

A key sequence in the film takes place in Merkers Gold Room, where the lights are turned on in an underground salt mine to reveal a vast array of gold bars and cash stretching as far as the eye can see. The set was only about 20 feet wide and deep, with the actors filmed in front of a green screen.

An important piece in Gavin Hood's latest film Ender's Game, is its massive zero-gravity Battle Room, a place where Asa Butterfield's character trains for alien war. In order to create a sense of weightlessness, they shot actors in harnesses and on wires against a green screen set to place them in a virtual world. 

Maleficent took about a year and a half after filming ended to put the special effects and everything together. A lot of the backgrounds and castles were added in with computer graphics later. When Angelina Jolie was filming, she had a little green square on her back, which held a battery and two small antennas that came out with bright orange spots. 

Filming of The Lord of the Rings took place in New Zealand for 438 days. The producer tried to use real backgrounds as much as possible, but for the creatures, it would be actors in suits that would later be computerized into the creature. 

In Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom, all the film's CG and animated dinosaurs received a fresh look. When there was no animatronics, the VFX team made sure there was some sort of representation of the dinosaurs on set for the actors to relate to. 

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the producers turned to Weta Digital for some of their special effects. The special effects engineers were able to develop the life-like apes through performance capture technology. They used motion capture dots and full-body suits to read the actor's emotions and movements. 

The entire film was pre-visualized and animated before pre-production even started. The technology used were models, physics simulations, motion capture, and traditional storyboards. Virtually everything but the actors' faces and helmets were filled in later using CGI. 

The most significant undertaking for the special effects department in Deadpool was creating the character of Colossus. Five different performers came together to bring the silver giant to life. The movie pushes the art in terms of visual effects with around 1,200 extremely challenging shots. 

In The Walking Dead, an intense amount of motion capture and modeling goes into creating the realistic zombie characters. Lightwave, 3Ds Max, and Photoshop are also used in the visual effects pipeline. The team relies heavily on blue and green screens to create digital set extensions and visual enhancements. 

The Mad Max: Fury Road special effects film used many practical effects to create a post-apocalyptic world but relied on special effects for the finishing touches. The movie features over 2,000 VFX shots and some green screen technology. 

Oz, The Great, and Powerful broke with some of today's film conventions, using sound stages as the foreground for the majority of the scenes. Backgrounds were green-screened, however, where CGI effects were overlaid upon the physical objects. 

The challenge in Twilight was to make the massive wolves and make them look realistic. When Kristen Stewart had to interact with Taylor Lautner as a wolf, Lautner dressed in a tight bodysuit and helped emulate the animal's actions so Stewart would have the proper reaction. 

The Great Gatsby's visual effects are world-class, and the film was shot in 3D and RED camera rigs with green screens. Extensive blue and green screens were replaced with detailed landscapes. DiCaprio and Maguire were filmed in Gatsby's yellow car surrounded by blue screens for one of their trips into New York City. 

The Hobbit had around 22,000 FX shots. The only way to shoot was to use two cameras slaved to each other across two sets, the Bag End set with the swarves, who were all choreographed and knew their spots and speaking lines, and Ian Mckellen on a green screen stage right next door. 

Nolan wanted to make The Dark Knight with as many practical effects as possible, using CG only when absolutely necessary. This film only had about 650 visual effects shots, but one scene they used CG was when Batman was on a building in Hong Kong, he jumped off that on a green screen. 

The green screen was used often in The Matrix, with all of the tricks that go on in the movie. The 'bullet time' is a king of slow-motion where the camera moves around the characters in what seems to be less than a single second. 

For the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast, Disney needed to cast someone who could play both the beast and prince charming. Dan Stevens was able to transform into the beast with motion capture technology and CGI. 

The Martian would not be possible without special effects because they obviously couldn't go to space to film the movie. There's plenty of green screens that fill in for Mars, and when it looked like he was going for a stroll on the desert planet, it was nothing more than him moving through some sand on Earth. 

Shooting in front of green screens has become a standard part of the filmmaking business, and making Jumanji was no different. Some actors think of the green screen as a blank canvas and find it very cool. The cast never filmed in the jungle; it was all green screen acting. 

In Star Wars, a lot of the film is special effects. Digitally-created characters are present in the movie; the same layering digital effects were used to create a character by them wearing a motion capture suit. The Star Wars franchise's visual effects have earned the series a permanent place in the evolutionary history of VFX. 

In the movie Aladdin, the carpet ride isn't really as romantic as it looks on the screen. They were required to climb up 15 feet into the air and perch on top of a moving rig. They were tied in and situated in front of a blue screen. 

Spiderman was a very tricky movie in regards to special effects. He is always jumping from one place to another and swinging around. Almost all of that is with a green screen and computer-generated technology. There were many simulated elements to add in later, and it took a year after filming to create the finished sequence. 

In Insurgent, there were roughly 1,024 visual effects shots. There was a lot of special effects work with the train, the pit, the zip-line, and the landscapes. As you can see, the mirror room was just an all-green room. It had a lot of green screens, and they had to rebuild the city in every direction. 

The set for Maze Runner was a platform filmed against a green screen. In some of the scenes, Weta Digital added effects, matching real explosions with CG ones, plus additional crowds and even some unfortunate souls flying through the air. When jumping, the actors would actually jump but not very far and onto mats.