Are you curious about the strange terms used in post-production? Have you ever wondered where they came from? Let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at some of these weird terms and their origin stories.
First up, keyframes. In modern animation applications, a keyframe designates a value at a certain point in time. But did you know that in the golden days of animation, every frame had to be drawn by hand? Experienced animators would draw only the ‘key’ frames in a scene, while less experienced animators called Inbetweeners would create the drawings between the key frames.
Next, masks. In post-production, masking is the process of designating a portion of the frame to not be affected by a given effect. But the history of masks goes back much further than Photoshop. In fact, the term is derived from physical masks which literally block portions of your face. Masking has long been used in fine arts as a way to shield portions of a canvas from being affected.
Feathering is essentially the smoothing out of edges in modern software. But why is it called feathering? It actually plays homage to a classic painting technique in which artists would use feathers to smooth out a transition between two colors.
Matte or matte painting is reference footage used to composite a foreground onto a background in film and photography. The term first originated from the early set extension process known as matte painting. These early matte paintings were scenes painted on glass using, you guessed it, matte paint.
Finally, rotoscoping is essentially cutting an object or subject out of a scene one frame at a time by hand. In the early days of film, an artist would use a rotoscope to project a frame onto glass and then trace the subject by hand.
Do you know any other post-production origin stories? Share in the comments below!
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