So that's why foreground objects never quite look right when there is blue screen work.
Yes. There is usually a noticeable loss of contrast in the foreground compared to the background, and the color cast of the foreground elements is usually off.
The advantage to this over the sodium process is that you don't need special equipment or stock for the camera. You just shoot with regular film. All the magic happens in the darkroom.
It worked alright on LOTR. Did they just not use blue in the foreground or where they usually some of that digital magic to get around the problem?
Lord of the Rings was digitally composited. The traditional color separation methods are purely analog, darkroom methods involving the photochemistry of the film. Digital compositing works with the full color image as a digital data set. You don't have any of the generational problems because the process isn't based on making multiple copies of film through filters. You simply instruct the computer to treat a narrow range of hue, value, and saturation as the "key" color and let the background show through.
The process we used in 2000 has in common with the processes of 1985 only the notion of shooting against a monochromatic background. How the separation happens is completely different.
With modern films you can also have digital color grading. Grade describes the smooth blends of dark to light and from color to color in film (one of the things you lose through duplication). And so the process of grading a film for color means you adjust the development and printing process so that the colors and intensities match from shot to shot. Historically this has been very important in film, where the colors you see on the set are not the colors that show up on film. Remember those nice red command uniforms in "Star Trek Voyager"? In real life they're actually pink. These days color grading is digital. Since you already have most of the film in digital format, you can do color correction with the digital images. Previously it had to be done by changing the color of the printing lights.
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