Regardless of the end product’s final quality – which more often than not happens to be completely mediocre at best – almost every single blockbuster produced and distributed by Netflix will possess two identical features that the streaming service can’t run away from.
In case you hadn’t noticed – although you almost certainly have on at least one occasion – we’re talking about unconvincing green screen backdrops and laughable CGI fire. Even relatively inexpensive action comedy The Out-Laws (which only released yesterday) suffered from both, while offenders to boast at least one include everything from The Gray Man and Red Notice to The Pale Blue Eye and The Mother.
However, a report from New Scientist has revealed that Netflix is pioneering its own bespoke technology designed to give filmmakers the opportunity to see fully-rendered backgrounds while shooting in real-time, which does admittedly sound a lot like the Volume favored by Star Wars and Marvel Studios.
The tech – referred to as Magenta Green Screen – films actors against a bright green LED background while being lit from the front by red and blue, allowing editors to replace the green in real-time to place the actors in question into the foreground of a completely different scene seamlessly.
The bad news is that AI is involved, with the magenta hue being remedied by software to even out the color scheme. It sounds needlessly complex, though, with Geiger Post’s Drew Lahat hitting the nail squarely on the head when he said; “There are a variety of aspects of this technology that, from a practical perspective, make me wonder if it’s worth it.”