Editing Wire removal

{{Short description|Visual effects technique in which safety precautions used during filming are edited out}}
{{Unreferenced|date=December 2009}}

'''Wire removal''' is a [[visual effects]] technique used to remove wires in [[film]]s, where the wires are originally included as a safety precaution or to simulate flying in [[actor]]s or [[Scale model|miniatures]]. It uses a lot of rotomatting, a process of using splines in a program like After Effects or Nuke to extract a subject from a video, motion tracking, and painting over footage, which can be done in Photoshop, Boris Silhouette, or Nuke.

Wire removal can be partly automated through various forms of [[keying (graphics)|keying]], or each [[frame (film)|frame]] can be edited manually.  First, the live action plates of actors or models suspended on wires are filmed in front of a [[Chroma key|green screen]].  Editors can then erase the wires frame by frame, without worrying about erasing the backdrop, which will be added later. This can be accomplished automatically with a computer. If the sequence is not filmed in front of a green-screen, or with a green wire a digital editor must hand-paint the lines out. This can be an arduous and time consuming task.

The modern technique of wire removal was pioneered by [[Industrial Light and Magic]], when they used it in films such as ''[[Howard the Duck (film)|Howard the Duck]]'' ([[1986 in film|1986]]), ''[[Back to the Future Part II]]'' ([[1989 in film|1989]]), and ''[[Hook (film)|Hook]]'' ([[1991 in film|1991]]).

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wire Removal}}
[[Category:Visual effects]]


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