This Invention Made Disney MILLIONS, but Then They LOST It!
Summary
TLDRThe video script discusses the revival of a superior visual effects technology from the 1960s, invented by Disney, which outperforms the green screen. Known as the sodium vapor process, it utilizes a specific yellow spectrum and unique beam splitter prism to create flawless compositing without the common issues of green screens. Dr. Paul Debevic recreated this lost technology, enabling the first test in over 30 years. The experiment demonstrates the process's ability to handle challenging subjects, like a clown on Mars, with remarkable results, sparking a discussion on the potential of this technique in modern visual effects.
Takeaways
- 🎬 The discussion revolves around the comparison between the old sodium vapor process and the modern green screen technology in visual effects.
- 🌟 The sodium vapor process, invented by Disney in the 1960s, was considered superior to green screen as it allowed for more intricate and seamless compositing.
- 🚫 One of the main issues with green screen is that it cannot handle blurry or transparent objects and matching colors can cause problems, which the sodium vapor process seems to overcome.
- 🔍 Dr. Paul Debevic is introduced as an expert who has recreated Disney's lost prism, which was a key component of the sodium vapor process.
- 💡 The sodium vapor process works by using a specific wavelength of yellow light (589 NM) and a beam splitter prism to separate this wavelength from the rest of the spectrum for compositing.
- 📸 The process involves filming the subject and the background separately and then using a hold-out mat to combine them without double exposure.
- 🎥 The recreation of the sodium vapor process was done using off-the-shelf components and two cameras instead of the original two strips of film.
- 🌐 The test of the recreated sodium vapor process after 30 years was successful, showing no spill, edge feather, or mat lines in the final composite.
- 🤖 The advancements in compositing tools, including machine learning, are still in need of training data, and the sodium vapor process could provide valuable data for this.
- 🎞 The sodium vapor process, while not widely used today, still holds potential as a gold standard for achieving perfect transparency in compositing and visual effects.
Q & A
What is the fundamental building block of visual effects in movies?
-The fundamental building block of visual effects in movies is the ability to layer one moving image over another, which is primarily achieved through techniques like green screen or blue screen.
What are some of the problems associated with using green screen technology?
-Problems with green screen technology include the inability to film blurry or transparent objects, issues with wearing clothes the same color as the screen, and color spill that can ruin footage.
What technology did Disney invent in the 1960s that was superior to green screen?
-In the 1960s, Disney invented the sodium vapor process, which used a specific spectrum of yellow light from a low-pressure sodium vapor light and a beam splitter prism to achieve visual effects without the limitations of green screen technology.
How did the sodium vapor process differ from green screen technology?
-The sodium vapor process differed from green screen technology in that it used a specific wavelength of yellow light (589 NM) and a beam splitter prism to separate and combine images without the need for chroma keying, thus avoiding issues like color spill and mat lines.
Why is the sodium vapor process not widely used today?
-The sodium vapor process is not widely used today because the custom prisms required for the process were expensive and difficult to produce. Disney was only able to produce one prism, and the technology was eventually lost.
How did Dr. Paul Debevic contribute to the recreation of the sodium vapor process?
-Dr. Paul Debevic contributed to the recreation of the sodium vapor process by understanding the science of light and using off-the-shelf components to recreate the physics of the process. He used two filters and two cameras instead of the custom beam splitter and film strips.
What was the result of the first test of the sodium vapor process in over 30 years?
-The first test of the sodium vapor process in over 30 years resulted in a successful composite, demonstrating that the process could still produce high-quality visual effects without the issues typically associated with green screen technology.
How does the sodium vapor process handle transparency and motion blur?
-The sodium vapor process handles transparency and motion blur exceptionally well, as it does not rely on chroma keying. This results in a clean composite without the need for manual adjustments or the removal of spill, bias, or other common green screen issues.
What are the potential applications of the sodium vapor process in modern visual effects?
-The potential applications of the sodium vapor process in modern visual effects include any scenario where traditional green or blue screen technology faces limitations, such as scenes with transparent objects, complex lighting, or intricate details that are difficult to key out.
How does the sodium vapor process compare to newer compositing techniques like machine learning?
-While newer compositing techniques like machine learning continue to improve, the sodium vapor process offers a unique advantage as a step towards perfect transparency and compositing. It provides a gold standard for visual effects, especially in situations where machine learning may lack the necessary training data for complex scenes.
Outlines
🎬 The Rediscovery of Disney's Sodium Vapor Process
This paragraph delves into the history and revival of a superior visual effects technology from the 1960s, invented by Disney. The technology, which overcomes many limitations of the green screen, involves the use of a sodium vapor light to create a unique spectrum of yellow. This spectrum allows for the separation of one specific wavelength of light, enabling the layering of moving images without the common issues associated with green screen technology. The paragraph discusses the challenges of replicating the technology due to the custom nature of the prisms used. However, Dr. Paul Debevic managed to recreate the process using off-the-shelf components, marking the first test of this technique in over 30 years. The results demonstrate the potential of the sodium vapor process in modern filmmaking, showcasing its ability to handle complex scenes such as a clown getting married on Mars, which would be difficult to achieve with traditional green screen methods.
🤹♂️ The Quest for the Perfect Compositing Technique
The second paragraph focuses on the quest for the perfect compositing technique in film production. It highlights the challenges faced when trying to create visual effects with green screen technology, such as issues with transparency, color spill, and the need for extensive post-production work. The paragraph introduces a character concept that has been deemed impossible to execute by production companies due to these challenges. However, with the rediscovered sodium vapor process, the filmmakers attempt to bring this character to life, showcasing the potential of the technology to revolutionize visual effects by eliminating common green screen problems. The paragraph emphasizes the importance of achieving a seamless composite, and the excitement around the potential of the sodium vapor process to change the landscape of visual effects.
🚀 Achieving the Impossible with Sodium Vapor
The final paragraph showcases the successful application of the sodium vapor process in creating a complex visual effect scene. It describes the process of filming a clown getting married on Mars, a scenario that would typically be very challenging with green screen technology. The paragraph details the technical aspects of the shoot, including the use of a spectral light meter to ensure proper lighting and the careful setup to avoid any sodium vapor light spill on the subject. The results of the shoot are astounding, with the sodium vapor process delivering a clean and seamless composite without the need for extensive post-production adjustments. The paragraph concludes with a discussion on the practicality and potential of the sodium vapor process in today's filmmaking environment, where flexibility in post-production and the use of machine learning in compositing tools are highly valued.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Visual Effects
💡Nostalgia
💡Green Screen
💡Sodium Vapor Process
💡Chroma Keying
💡Yellow Screen
💡Beam Splitter Prism
💡Color Spill
💡Composite
💡Lost Technology
💡Recreated Technology
Highlights
Disney's invention in the 1960s of a technology superior to the green screen is discussed.
The technology allowed layering of moving images without the limitations of green or blue screens.
Problems with green screens, such as not being able to film blurry or transparent objects, are highlighted.
The 1964 movie showcasing the technology broke chroma key rules without using computers.
The sodium vapor process used a specific spectrum of yellow light and a beam splitter prism.
The process could block one wavelength of light without affecting other colors in the scene.
The sodium vapor process was not widely adopted due to the complexity and cost of producing the prisms.
Paul Debevic recreated Disney's magic prism using off-the-shelf components.
The recreation of the sodium vapor process was the first test in over 30 years.
The experiment aimed to replace the background of a scene with a clown getting married on Mars.
The sodium vapor process provided a perfect matte with no spill, bias, or fringe issues.
The results showed excellent compositing, including motion blur and color exposure correction.
The experiment was successful, with the sodium vapor process living up to its potential.
The potential of using the sodium vapor process as a step towards perfect compositing is discussed.
The experiment demonstrated the gold standard for transparency in compositing and visual effects.
Transcripts
do you ever feel like visual effects in
old movies were better what if I told
you that wasn't just Nostalgia speaking
back in the 1960s Disney invented a
technology that was in many ways
superior to the green screen but that
Tech has long since been forgotten and
what if I told you that we found a way
to recreate
[Music]
it being able to layer one moving image
over another is the fundamental building
block of visual effects every single
crazy effect shot from every movie you
love relies on this basic core technique
and the primary way we do that is with
green screen or blue screen but there
are lots of problems with green screen
even in this modern era you can't film
blurry or transparent things you can't
wear clothes that are the same color as
the screen and the spill of the color
often times ruins footage if I want to
make a movie about a clown wearing all
the colors of the rainbow getting
married on Mars I can't that bothers me
if I could get my hands on an invention
that didn't have any of these issues it
would be like a filmm superpower it
would be like magic do you really think
so what's special about that app it's
transparent it's arent
transparent I thought the stuff I was
seeing on screen was impossible they're
keying a veil they're keying salt smoke
they're even wearing blue and green
clothes this movie from 1964 broke every
rule of chroma and they did it all
without computers so how do they do it
to explain the science behind the magic
we are joined by Dr Paul debevic the
sodium vapor process instead of a blue
screen or a green screen they used what
was sometimes called a yellow screen
there a very specific spectrum of yellow
made from a low press sodium vapor light
that puts out one wavelength of light at
589 NM because it's just one wavelength
and because of how drro filters work you
can actually block just that one
wavelength or let just that one
wavelength go through so the magic of
the sodium vapor process is they used a
beam splitter prison so that the light
that comes through the lens gets split
onto two strips of film at the same time
the sodium vapor wavelength of 589 NM
reflects out this way and all the rest
of the spectrum goes through and can
expose a color image of the actor and
that's exactly what you need to get your
map what's kind of magical about it is
that you can block that one wavelength
of yellow without messing up all of the
other colors in that scene there's no
mat lines he's motion bluring he's
dancing around the compositing is
impeccable yeah it's perfect you
couldn't have gotten such great blur
over the alpha Channel with a green
screen or a blue screen seems too good
to be true why are we not still using
this technology today yeah really what
gives because they were never able to
replicate prism what I've read that
Disney was only able to produce one
prism is that true they had to join two
pieces of glass and then have layers of
material with different indices of
refraction it's a very custom job and it
would probably cost tens of thousands of
dollars at a minimum apparently there
were three of these ever made and
also we don't know where any of these
prisms are
today and that means I'm never going to
get to answer this Burning question I
have is sodium vapor better than Green
Screen the science the physics they all
tell me it is but because the prisms
have been lost the time I'm never going
to get to realize my dream of a clown
getting married on Mars and then one day
I got a message from Paul debevic he had
done what I thought was impossible he
had recreated Disney's Magic prism and
he needed somebody to test it out this
will be the first test of the sodium
vapor process in over 30 years well I
guess this is like our hello world of
sodium vapor matting we've got our color
image and our sodium vapor image there
there it is look at that that's the idea
it's working the first thing you need
are some sodium vapor lights so
thankfully they still make the bulbs
eventually after we've had these on for
10 minutes they'll start glowing that
color I think it's working and then
we've got a couple of LED lights here
that are going to illuminate the actor
so favor mats woohoo hey pretty sweet
how is this working how did Paul debevic
manage to resurrect Disney's lost prism
well with a deep understanding of the
science of light and a little bit of C
ity I'll do a beam splitter but I'll
just do a regular beam sweit like this
beam splitter and then we'll filter the
light after it comes out of the prism
Paul recreated the physics of the sodium
Vaper process but he did it with all
off-the-shelf components instead of a
custom beam splitter he used two filters
and instead of two strips of film he
just used two cameras yeah if you ever
think your rigs are janky they're all
janky for the first time ever my dreams
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click away all right now let's find out
what I'm going to do with all these hard
Tokey clothes Paul I would like to tell
you about this character every time I
approach a production company with it
they're like no can't do it it's
impossible okay and it's a story about a
clown that's trying to get
married you look so dumb me what look
I've heard big things about this magic
Crystal okay but this is ridiculous
that's impossible to key look at that I
hate to break it you but this video is
going to be a disappointment JC H feel
free to come on out it's my wedding day
oh my
God that would be difficult to key
wouldn't it it would I forgot to mention
that uh the Clown's getting married on
Mars hence the need to replace the
background oh of course yeah I think
this is going to be fantastic now I
suppose we should uh clean up the
lighting yeah kill all of the Full
Spectrum Lighting we need that one
covered yeah I need to cover one of the
skylights so that we don't have all this
like daylight spill coming in it's and
my dress is like marily been rowing
right now keep this side down it's the
best the clown can do so as you can see
right now we're spending a lot of time
getting these flags up because what we
don't want to have happen is we don't
want the sodium vapor light to be
hitting JC at all cuz then it's going to
be basically turning her transparent so
this is a spectral light meter it tells
you the spectrum of the light for
example this light here that shows its
LED light that's made out of red green
and blue LEDs to make the color white
and I can also take it and put in front
of the sodium vapor lights there is our
sodium vapor Spike at 589 nanm so let's
see if there's any sodium vapor light
hitting our subject mostly good but if I
look closely here I can see a tiny
little blip see that tiny little blip of
sodium vapor yeah science we're very
close but we're getting a little bit of
side spill on her and we're just
cleaning that up here if we're the first
ones to do this in like 30 years I want
to do it right you
know it went down nice that should be
better looks like we almost have a
perfect mat I guess the only thing left
to do is to shoot it maybe we should
shoot cool go ahead and roll the cameras
here we are in Mars the clown is looking
for the groom uh-oh there's aliens
behind you maybe turn around wave at the
aliens I want get one shot of myself as
well wearing my green hoodie which I
refused to take off and hopefully the
sodium vapor process lets us do
something Nico I want to see you do some
headbanging I want you to throw that
head
around I think we got it that would be
the hardest green screen shot that would
be so hard to do on a green screen and
cut dude this is going to be as
successful as Mary Poppins oh my god
[Music]
wow Paul's research has been super
influential on me to get to work with
him on an experiment is super super cool
I hope this works all right let's take a
look at what we got here's what our
color footage looks like and if I look
at the sodium vapor shot wow it looks
pretty good let's see what happens if I
take that and turn it into a black and
white transparency mask wow this should
work really well but before I try
pulling a transparency key here I need
to also try this with green screen to do
a true comparison to know if this is
better I'm using all the tricks for
perfect green screen that I've acquired
over the years lights with a hint of
green on them lights on Jordan with a
hint of magenta to cancel out the green
spill from the green screen I'm going to
do my best to light this green screen
and shoot it as good as I can all right
hi you're on Mars wave to us the
audience so we all know that sodium
Vapor should give scientifically better
results but green screen tools have had
years and years and years to mature I
can start pulling in the thickness of
that mat but while the dress starts to
come back the veil now has these ugly
lines I can try to you know close the
holes in the dress using a different
tool here but it patches up the holes in
the veil there's just no way to handle
the range of greens here and for green
screen tools to know what we want to
keep and what we don't want to
keep oh no yuck
destroyed actually not bad bad be honest
did you do your best with the key I did
the issue is is I can't get the
transparency of the veil and like the
slightly off green dress in fact the
only way you could do a shot like this
is to go in and cut out all these
different sections by hand and have a
bunch of Patchwork different solutions
in the image if the sodium vapor process
is superior it won't have any of these
issues all right so it's time to try the
sodium vapor process to do the composite
and see if it works here we have JC and
here we have our background right and
the way we're going to do this actually
mirrors the way they did it on film back
in the day the thing is if you just take
two pieces of film and you layer them
over each other you end up with a double
exposure you need something called a
hold out mat that leaves a hole for you
to Simply add your other image on top so
we're going to take our background and
we're going to subtract the mat we're
going to take our foreground and we're
going to subtract everything that isn't
the mat now I take our background and
our foreground and we simply add them
together honestly I'm really excited to
see this because it felt like we were
doing one of the coolest and most
high-tech things we've ever done and I
would love for this to pay off here are
the results and I'll let you guys be the
judge
[Music]
waa wow that's wild dude it's Mary
Poppins this is amazing it's
incredible oh no you dog water he's
drinking water on
M this is my favorite one the water is
just such a flex check out the motion
blur oh the hands oh wow the motion blur
drops the color exposure correctly on
the background right there turns it red
oh corrected ma oh my God it's so good
dude those little tiny hairs on top oh
my God and I didn't have to do any work
you didn't have to tweak your like white
clip black clip no I hate that D spill
bias no there's no spill what about your
Edge feather edge feather no D spill no
messing with gamma of your mat no
thresholds no restoring Fringe no
cleaning the blacks no cleaning the
whites nothing he's turn it on yes turn
it on wow good job good job that is
amazing
po y so I just got the opinion of
everybody at Corridor but I need to get
the opinion that actually really
matters oh wow you're zooming in on it
you are not afraid of your mat lines
that was clearly exactly what needed to
be filmed to show off this technique
exactly what about a volume could you
use a volume in today's age when you can
just go and shoot on a volume with an
LED screen is sodium vapor worth
pursuing in practice a lot of those in
camera back grounds will get replaced so
it seems like we're still in a world
where we need to be able to cut out
backgrounds and put people on new things
yeah flexibility in post- production is
incredibly valuable one thing that
you're noticing is like composing tools
are getting better CU they're starting
to have a bit of machine learning inside
of them machine learning needs training
data the question is where do you get
all that training data there is no
perfect easy compositing technique and I
thought this would be a good way to do
it so sodium vapor is another one of
those essential steps in this progress
towards having perfect transparency for
compositing and visual effects then
absolutely it is the gold standard the
yellow
standard well Paul thank you once again
for joining us here on the corridor
Channel if you like these deep dives
into classic visual effects technology
along with industry experts talking
about it you'll definitely love our
Abyss video so go check that out and uh
yeah thank you I really appreciate it
great to see you glad you come mind this
was fun this is a great time
totally
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