109-517: Knightmare may refer to: Knightmare (TV series) , a British television series Knightmare (1987 video game) , a video game based on the television series Knightmare (1991 video game) , a video game based on the television series Knightmare (1986 video game) , a video game Konami for the MSX Shalom: Knightmare III , a 1987 video game Knightmare (roller coaster) ,
218-598: A "key". Green is used as a backdrop for TV and electronic cinematography more than any other colour because television weather presenters tended to wear blue suits. When chroma keying first came into use in television production, the blue screen that was then the norm in the movie industry was used out of habit, until other practical considerations caused the television industry to move from blue to green screens. Broadcast-quality colour television cameras use separate red, green and blue image sensors, and early analog TV chroma keyers required RGB component video to work reliably. From
327-401: A 15-minute pilot under the name of Dungeon Doom was recorded. Even at this stage it featured Hugo Myatt, the husband of Christine Webber who was a presenter of Anglia's regional news programme About Anglia . A second 20-minute pilot was filmed on 27 and 28 January 1987, with the name changed to Knightmare , and 'lifeforce' added, an idea borrowed from Atic Atac , which also influenced
436-459: A 2013 video game Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Knightmare . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Knightmare&oldid=1257964007 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
545-480: A background from the subject of a photo or video – particularly the newscasting , motion picture , and video game industries. A colour range in the foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as colour keying , colour-separation overlay ( CSO ; primarily by
654-427: A bright and saturated image. There are several different quality- and speed-optimised techniques for implementing colour keying in software. In most versions, a function f ( r , g , b ) → α is applied to every pixel in the image. α (alpha) has a meaning similar to that in alpha compositing techniques. α ≤ 0 means the pixel is fully in the green screen, α ≥ 1 means
763-478: A chroma-key background and inserted into the background shot with a distortion effect, in order to create a cloak that is marginally detectable. Difficulties emerge with blue screen when a costume in an effects shot must be blue, such as Superman 's traditional blue outfit. In the 2002 film Spider-Man , in scenes where both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin are in the air, Spider-Man had to be shot in front of
872-463: A computer can use these markers to compute the camera's position and thus render an image that matches the perspective and movement of the foreground perfectly. Modern advances in software and computational power have eliminated the need to accurately place the markers — the software figures out their position in space; a potential disadvantage of this is that it requires camera movement, possibly contributing to modern cinematographic techniques whereby
981-416: A default value of 1.0. A very simple g () is ( r , min( g , b ), b ). This is fairly close to the capabilities of analog and film-based screen pulling. Modern examples of these functions are best described by two closed nested surfaces in 3D RGB space, often quite complex. Colours inside the inner surface are considered green screen. Colours outside the outer surface are opaque foreground. Colours between
1090-551: A defunct roller coaster in Chorley, Lancashire, UK A dystopian potential future featured in the DC Extended Universe films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder's Justice League See also [ edit ] Knight (disambiguation) Nightmare (disambiguation) Knightmare Chess , a chess variant Knightmare Frame, a mecha in the anime television series Code Geass Knightmare Tower ,
1199-446: A field monitor, to the side of the screen, to see where they are putting their hands against the background images. A newer technique is to project a faint image onto the screen. Some films make heavy use of chroma key to add backgrounds that are constructed entirely using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Performances from different takes can be composited together, which allows actors to be filmed separately and then placed together in
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#17328585301011308-425: A filter or the high contrast film's colour sensitivity to expose only blue (and higher) frequencies. Blue light only shines through the colour negative where there is not blue in the scene, so this left the film clear where the blue screen was, and opaque elsewhere, except it also produced clear for any white objects (since they also contained blue). Removing these spots could be done by a suitable double-exposure with
1417-454: A green screen and the Green Goblin had to be shot in front of a blue screen. The colour difference is because Spider-Man wears a costume which is red and blue in colour and the Green Goblin wears a costume which is entirely green in colour. If both were shot in front of the same screen, parts of one character would be erased from the shot. For a clean division of foreground from background, it
1526-509: A green top to make it appear that the subject has no body), because the clothing may be replaced with the background image/video. An example of intentional use of this is when an actor wears a blue covering over a part of his body to make it invisible in the final shot. This technique can be used to achieve an effect similar to that used in the Harry Potter films to create the effect of an invisibility cloak . The actor can also be filmed against
1635-542: A large blue room, which was set up in Studio A of Anglia Studios. The advanced computer graphic environments were created by the Travelling Matte Company using a £85,000 Supernova graphics system made by Spaceward Graphics . Travelling Matte was owned by set designer Robert Harris, who had trained at Central Saint Martin's in stage design and had been working with John Peyre at BBC TV when The Hitchhiker's Guide to
1744-415: A lightning rod the final team of that season retrieved), but this plan also failed, leading to the destruction of Mount Fear. In season 7, the enmity between Lord Fear and Greystagg developed further after it was revealed he had destroyed her home. Greystagg helps the final team retrieve a magic hammer to stop a giant troll from destroying Knightmare castle. In the final season, Greystagg had been replaced with
1853-433: A narrow frequency band, which can then be separated from the other light using a prism, and projected onto a separate but synchronized film carrier within the camera. This second film is high-contrast black and white, and is processed to produce the matte. A newer technique is to use a retroreflective curtain in the background, along with a ring of bright LEDs around the camera lens . This requires no light to shine on
1962-466: A neutral character, neither on the side of good nor evil. The closest there was to a main villain was Mogdred (portrayed by John Woodnutt ), but his main duty was (according to wizard Merlin in the penultimate episode of Series 2) to "scare you into making a mistake", though he did kill two dungeoneers, one in Series 2 and another early in Series 4. In Series 5 (1991), however, changes were made. The majority of
2071-420: A quarter of the time needed for other methods. In principle, any type of still background can be used as a chroma key instead of a solid colour. First the background is captured without actors or other foreground elements; then the scene is recorded. The image of the background is used to cancel the background in the actual footage; for example in a digital image, each pixel will have a different chroma key. This
2180-439: A quest within a fantasy medieval environment, traversing a large dungeon and using their wits to overcome puzzles, obstacles and the unusual characters they meet along the journey. The show is most notable for its use of blue screen chroma key , an idea Child utilised upon seeing it being put to use in weather forecasts at the time the programme began, as well as its use of ' virtual reality ' interactive gameplay on television and
2289-463: A reasonable match. For outdoor scenes, overcast days create a diffuse, evenly coloured light which can be easier to match in the studio, whereas direct sunlight needs to be matched in both direction and overall colour based on time of day. A studio shot taken in front of a green screen will naturally have ambient light the same colour as the screen, due to its light scattering. This effect is known as spill . This can look unnatural or cause portions of
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#17328585301012398-427: A result, only eight teams managed to win the game over its eight series. Regardless of whether a team wins or fails, they leave the show once their game is over, and a new team takes their place. This continues until the final episode of the series, whereupon the last team playing in that episode will often always be given an impossible situation which they will fail, in order to allow the series to end. Since each episode
2507-403: A return to the dungeon format of Series 1–3, albeit now completely computer-generated, and a new piece of dungeoneering equipment was added: the wand "Reach". This allowed dungeoneers to push, touch, and open things from a distance. At this point, there was still hope that Knightmare would return for a ninth series in 1995: a postal address for future contestants was displayed on screen after
2616-476: A scene featuring a genie escaping from a bottle was the first use of a proper bluescreen process to create a travelling matte for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), which won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects that year. In 1950, Warner Brothers employee and ex- Kodak researcher Arthur Widmer began working on an ultraviolet travelling matte process. He also began developing bluescreen techniques: one of
2725-452: A selection of inhabitants – some will help out, while others will either hinder the player unless they give them something they require, or attempt to stop them and end their game. In some cases, the team faces more than one exit, and usually must make a choice about which way to go. Every dungeon has a selection of objects, some of which will help to solve puzzles or get past certain inhabitants, while others are decoys, as well as magic spells –
2834-459: A single word that can be used to solve puzzles, get around hazards and dangerous inhabitants, which require an adviser to spell out the word correctly (e.g. if the spell is Light, then the adviser needs to say L-I-G-H-T). Each team is required to complete their game within a time-limit, which is represented by an on-screen animated lifeforce meter for the Dungeoneer that depletes over time; the meter
2943-440: A technological perspective it was equally possible to use the blue or green channel, but because blue clothing was an ongoing challenge, the green screen came into common use. Newscasters sometimes forget the chroma key dress code, and when the key is applied to clothing of the same colour as the background, the person would seem to disappear into the key. Because green clothing is less common than blue, it soon became apparent that it
3052-463: A third the year after that. By the time this third series finished, Child felt the dungeon format was getting too restrictive, and he needed something new. Because of this, the fourth series saw the introduction of many 'outdoor' scenes, filmed around places such as medieval castles across the UK, and composited into the blue room using the usual chromakey technique. This series also saw the introduction of
3161-491: A very high figure for a children's TV series). By 1993, the year which saw the programme's seventh series, it was the most popular non-animated show on CITV . However, changes had recently occurred. Late in the previous year, the ITV Children's Committee was replaced by a single Controller of CITV, Dawn Airey . Although she thought well of Knightmare , the average audience age of CITV was now 6–10, down from 6–15 in 1985. It
3270-480: A week later, Knightmare went on to reach first place in an Internet poll held by Challenge, asking viewers to decide the best show out of the Cult Selection. Reasonable ratings, combined with the high fanbase, ensured that the other seven series went on to be bought and shown over the next two years. It took until 8 July 2004 for all the episodes to be shown, when Episode 16 of Series 2 was broadcast 563 days after
3379-407: A white backdrop to include human actors with cartoon characters and backgrounds in his Alice Comedies . The blue screen method was developed in the 1930s at RKO Radio Pictures . At RKO, Linwood Dunn used an early version of the travelling matte to create "wipes" – where there were transitions like a windshield wiper in films such as Flying Down to Rio (1933). Credited to Larry Butler ,
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3488-410: Is "killed" by an enemy character, monster or trap or "falls" into a pit. The appearance of the lifeforce meter varied during the course of the show's history: If the team manages to complete all three levels, they are awarded with their prize, which changed over the years of the show's history. Unlike most other children's shows, Knightmare had no qualms over having a very high difficulty level, and as
3597-405: Is achieved by a simple numerical comparison between the video and the pre-selected colour. If the colour at a particular point on the screen matches (either exactly, or in a range), then the video at that point is replaced by the alternate background. In order to create an illusion that characters and objects filmed are present in the intended background scene, the lighting in the two scenes must be
3706-451: Is also important that clothing and hair in the foreground shot have a fairly simple silhouette, as fine details such as frizzy hair may not resolve properly. Similarly, partially transparent elements of the costume cause problems. Blue was originally used for the film industry as making the separations required a film that would only respond to the screen colour, and film that responded only to blue and higher frequencies (ultraviolet, etc.)
3815-496: Is best to have as narrow a colour range as possible being replaced. A shadow would present itself as a darker colour to the camera and might not register for replacement. This can sometimes be seen in low-budget or live broadcasts where the errors cannot be manually repaired or scenes reshot. The material being used affects the quality and ease of having it evenly lit. Materials which are shiny will be far less successful than those that are not. A shiny surface will have areas that reflect
3924-418: Is designed to be twenty-five minutes long, should a team's run exceed beyond an episode, editing is done to freeze the action towards the end, and then unfreeze at the beginning of the next episode (referred to in the series context as "temporal disruption"). Only twice in the entire series did temporal disruption coincide with the end of a quest (in both series 2 and series 6 where both teams lost). The nature of
4033-448: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Knightmare (TV series) Knightmare is a British children's adventure game show , created by Tim Child and broadcast over eight series on CITV from 1987 to 1994. The general format of the show consists of a team of four children – one who takes on the game, and three acting as their guide and advisers – attempting to complete
4142-407: Is only ever seen by the viewers, but the advisers receive clear hints about its status when they need to take care. Because the amount of time given is not enough, the team must get the Dungeoneer to checkpoints within the dungeon and have them pick up a food item and place it within a knapsack given to them before they begin their run, which restores the Dungeoneer's lifeforce to full upon doing so. If
4251-409: Is some use of the specific full-intensity magenta colour #FF00FF in digital colour images to encode (1-bit) transparency; this is sometimes referred to as "magic pink". This is not a photographic technique and the extraction of the foreground from the background is trivial. The biggest challenge when setting up a blue screen or green screen is even lighting and the avoidance of shadow because it
4360-437: Is sometimes referred to as a difference matte . However, this makes it easy for objects to be accidentally removed if they happen to be similar to the background, or for the background to remain due to camera noise or if it happens to change slightly from the reference footage. A background with a repeating pattern alleviates many of these issues, and can be less sensitive to wardrobe colour than solid-colour backdrops. There
4469-573: The Amiga and Atari ST. A PC version was proposed for 1995, but the plan was abandoned when the series finished. The latter game was an RPG similar to the Dungeon Master and Eye Of The Beholder games which, whilst well received at the time, had very little to do with the TV series besides the fantasy setting. A Knightmare board game was also released in 1992, by MB Games. After Knightmare ended on ITV, it
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4578-455: The BBC ), or by various terms for specific colour-related variants such as green screen or blue screen ; chroma keying can be done with backgrounds of any colour that are uniform and distinct, but green and blue backgrounds are more commonly used because they differ most distinctly in hue from any human skin colour . No part of the subject being filmed or photographed may duplicate the colour used as
4687-537: The CITV channel as part of its 'Old Skool Weekend', which celebrated 30 years of ITV's programming block for children. According to Radio Times, Knightmare was the second most watched programme during the 'Old Skool Weekend', only being beaten by Fun House. On 22 April 2013, Challenge announced that they have re-acquired the first two series of Knightmare. The re-run began its transmission on 10 May 2013 at 10:30pm, shown as part of their 'Late Zone' strand. These repeats now have
4796-407: The focal length of the lenses used can affect the success of chroma key. Another challenge for blue screen or green screen is proper camera exposure . Underexposing or overexposing a coloured backdrop can lead to poor saturation levels. In the case of video cameras, underexposed images can contain high amounts of noise , as well. The background must be bright enough to allow the camera to create
4905-400: The "Dungeoneer", but are blinded to their surroundings by the "Helmet of Justice" – a headpiece that blocks their field of vision to just around their feet. The other three act as their advisers, guiding them around, giving them advice to solving puzzles, and making notes on the information they receive. Once the Dungeoneer is ready, they are sent off on their quest. In most series, this requires
5014-494: The "Eye Shield", which acted as an 'eye' for the dungeoneer. Using pre-recorded footage filmed on location, it followed the progress of the dungeoneers as they explored the dungeon. A new onscreen status bar was also introduced, generated by a Commodore Amiga 2000 computer. At its peak in 1991/1992, Knightmare attracted approximately 4–5 million viewers per episode with many episodes being directed by Martin Cairns (at that time
5123-446: The 1980s TV show. Knightmare was conceived by Tim Child in 1985, inspired by the two ZX Spectrum games Atic Atac and Dragontorc . Realising that if a ZX Spectrum could do these types of adventure game, then a television programme could revolutionise the genre, he enlisted the help of artist David Rowe to design realistic looking backgrounds with an airbrush . Borrowing the technique used in weather forecasts, Child devised
5232-405: The Dungeoneer's. The rest of the team remains in the main studio fashioned as an antechamber of "Knightmare Castle", and give instructions and descriptions of a location to the Dungeoneer, much in the same fashion of text-based computer games which rely on descriptions and commands rather than visuals. An example could be that a room has a key for a locked door within, so the advisers would describe
5341-594: The Galaxy started to blend digital images with real world studio scenery. Harris had a background in CGI , having trained in 3D animation at Middlesex Polytechnic under Dr John Vince, and experience in playing out "live" graphics for current affairs programmes like Newsnight and Panorama . Knightmare required CGI inserts and virtual lighting changes, door reveals and animated monsters in real time, within live action against blue screen using Ultimatte. Eventually, in early 1986,
5450-679: The ITV Studios logo at the end rather than the Anglia logo. On 29 June 2015, Challenge announced that they have also re-acquired the third and fourth series. The re-run started airing on 25 October 2015 at 10:00am. Activision released a videogame adaptation . On 25 November 2002, only 6 days after the Challenge repeats were confirmed, it was announced that a reformat of Knightmare was to be undertaken by Televirtual, founded by Tim Child. Known as Knightmare VR , this would use avatar technology to place
5559-401: The UK satellite channel Challenge held a group of programmes called the "Christmas Cult Selection", featuring a group of classic game shows from the 1960s ( The Golden Shot ) right through to the 1980s. Knightmare was included in this, and the repeats started on 23 December 2002, with Series 3, Episode 1 preceded by a short 2.5-minute documentary featuring Tim Child and Hugo Myatt. Just over
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#17328585301015668-405: The actor in front of a blue screen together with the background footage, one frame at a time. In the early 1970s, American and British television networks began using green backdrops instead of blue for their newscasts. During the 1980s, minicomputers were used to control the optical printer. For the film The Empire Strikes Back , Richard Edlund created a "quad optical printer" that accelerated
5777-449: The background other than the LEDs, which use an extremely small amount of power and space unlike big stage lights , and require no rigging . This advance was made possible by the invention in the 1990s of practical blue LEDs, which also allow for emerald green LEDs. There is also a form of colour keying that uses light spectrum invisible to human eye. Called Thermo-Key, it uses infrared as
5886-445: The background video. Chroma keying is also common in the entertainment industry for visual effects in movies and video games. Rotoscopy may instead be carried out on subjects that are not in front of a green (or blue) screen. Motion tracking can also be used in conjunction with chroma keying, such as to move the background as the subject moves. Prior to the introduction of travelling mattes and optical printing , double exposure
5995-459: The backing, or the part may be erroneously identified as part of the backing. It is commonly used for live weather forecast broadcasts in which a news presenter is seen standing in front of a large CGI map which is really a large blue or green background. Using a blue screen, different weather maps are added on the parts of the image in which the colour is blue. If the news presenter wears blue clothes, their clothes will also be replaced with
6104-478: The camera being more sensitive to green light. In analog television , colour is represented by the phase of the chroma subcarrier relative to a reference oscillator. Chroma key is achieved by comparing the phase of the video to the phase corresponding to the pre-selected colour. In-phase portions of the video are replaced by the alternate background video. In digital colour TV , colour is represented by three numbers (red, green, blue intensity levels). Chroma key
6213-452: The camera is always in motion. The principal subject is filmed or photographed against a background consisting of a single colour or a relatively narrow range of colours, usually blue or green because these colours are considered to be the furthest away from skin tone. The portions of the video which match the pre-selected colour are replaced by the alternate background video. This process is commonly known as " keying ", "keying out" or simply
6322-454: The characters to disappear, so must be compensated for, or avoided by using a larger screen placed far from the actors. The depth of field used to record the scene in front of the coloured screen should match that of the background. This can mean recording the actors with a larger depth of field than normal. A chroma key subject must avoid wearing clothes which are similar in colour to the chroma key colour(s) (unless intentional e.g., wearing
6431-485: The characters were split into two sides: the righteous "Powers that Be", and the villainous "Opposition", the leader of which was Lord Fear played by Mark Knight. By this time, Treguard's stance had now fully evolved into that of a strictly good character. In 2014, Hugo Myatt lent his "Treguard" voice to the heavy metal band Evil Scarecrow's album Galactic Hunt for the track Enter the Knightmare , whose lyrics are based on
6540-445: The cleanest key. In the digital television and cinema age, much of the tweaking that was required to make a good quality key has been automated. However, the one constant that remains is some level of colour coordination to keep foreground subjects from being keyed out. Before electronic chroma keying, compositing was done on (chemical) film. The camera colour negative was printed onto high-contrast black and white negative, using either
6649-409: The colour positive (thus turning any area containing red or green opaque), and many other techniques. The result was film that was clear where the blue screen was, and opaque everywhere else. This is called a female matte , similar to an alpha matte in digital keying. Copying this film onto another high-contrast negative produced the opposite male matte . The background negative was then packed with
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#17328585301016758-470: The dark and grimy dungeon setting. Original Knightmare actors Hugo Myatt and Mark Knight reprised their roles as Treguard and Lord Fear respectively, while several additional actors (including Nick Collett and Tim Child himself) were introduced, playing new additions to the cast. The pilot introduced some new elements, including a new main host named Garstang, who was an orc . Treguard was now relegated to an avatar head who would occasionally appear to give
6867-399: The dungeoneer advice. The dungeoneer and all of the in-dungeon characters were now fully computer generated, along with the rooms themselves, which meant that the dungeoneer could now explore much larger and grander surroundings than previously seen. All of the rooms could now be seen more thoroughly from different camera angles, an element which the original programme could not do easily due to
6976-576: The dungeoneer in a full 3D computer generated world. A £ 40,000 National Lottery grant for the programme was awarded in July 2003. In 2004, test images and clips continued to appear on the Televirtual website and finally on 17 August 2004, the full 13-minute pilot was posted on the Internet. The VR pilot kept a lot of the original elements that appeared in the original show such as Wall Monsters, Clue Rooms and
7085-519: The dungeoneers to complete their quest. Aside from Treguard, no other characters were featured throughout the entire run. Only warlock (later wizard and then mage) Hordriss and palace jester Motley would have long runs on the show, both being introduced in season 3 and remaining until the series end. The formal division of characters between The Powers that Be and The Opposition meant that later series started to feature more developed story lines which would be hinted at in earlier quests and developed more as
7194-490: The early series, Treguard was portrayed as a neutral character, most notably between Series 1 and 3. At the start of Episode 14 of Series 3 (when no team had yet completed that series' dungeon), he went as far as to say "we're celebrating an unbeaten record", apparently siding against the dungeoneers. However, from Series 5 onwards, there was a clear distinction made between 'The Powers that Be' and 'The Opposition', against which Treguard became less neutral, and more inclined to aid
7303-423: The end of the final episode. The chances of the eighth series being the last were also strong, however, and so the series ended on an ambiguous note. In the event, Knightmare was 'rested' for the foreseeable future, partly due to the declining older audience, and partly because Tim Child felt that while Knightmare should employ high-quality virtual reality in order to remain a cutting-edge show, such technology
7412-433: The female matte and exposed onto a final strip of film, then the camera negative was packed with the male matte and was double-printed onto this same film. These two images combined creates the final effect. The most important factor for a key is the colour separation of the foreground (the subject) and background (the screen) – a blue screen will be used if the subject is predominantly green (for example plants), despite
7521-879: The first ever episode was shown with a documentary which featured interviews with Hugo Myatt, Tim Child, artist David Rowe (who illustrated the dungeon backgrounds for the earlier series) and various other actors and contestants who participated in Knightmare during the course of the show's eight series. In August 2013, a one-off special edition of Knightmare was produced for YouTube's "Geek Week" event, directed and produced by Tim Child and featuring three original cast members – Hugo Myatt (Treguard), Mark Knight (Lord Fear) and Cliff Barry (Lissard), plus Knightmare VR actor Nick Collett and actresses Isy Suttie and Jessie Cave playing new roles. The team of dungeoneers were YouTube content creators Daniel Howell , Phil Lester , Emma Blackery and Stuart Ashen . Filming took place in Norwich at
7630-503: The first films to use them was the 1958 adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novella, The Old Man and the Sea , starring Spencer Tracy . The name "Chroma-Key" was RCA 's trade name for the process, as used on its NBC television broadcasts, incorporating patents granted to RCA's Albert N. Goldsmith. A very early broadcast use was NBC's George Gobel Show in fall 1957. Petro Vlahos
7739-623: The forest", Majida, a princess and genie of Arabian descent played by Jackie Sawiris . (Majida originally claimed her name was "Daughter of the Setting Moon Whose Eyes are Like Daggers in the Hearts of Men Who Ride the Great Caravan of the Sultan".). Both assistants gave additional support to teams, in particular younger adventurers who may have been nervous at the start of their quests. During
7848-473: The format of half-fiction, half-interactive story. In these, the first half of the book was a novelette about one of Treguard's adventures, serving as a lead-in to the second half which comprised numbered sections where the reader directed the narrative, similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books. The next two books retained the interactive format, but were aimed at a younger audience. Throughout
7957-427: The green channel. Green can also be used outdoors where the light colour temperature is significantly blue. Red is avoided as it is in human skin, and any other colour is a mix of primaries and thus produces a less clean extraction. A so-called " yellow screen " is accomplished with a white backdrop. Ordinary stage lighting is used in combination with a bright yellow sodium lamp. The sodium light falls almost entirely in
8066-414: The green screen two stops higher than the subject, or vice versa. Sometimes a shadow can be used to create a visual effect. Areas of the blue screen or green screen with a shadow on them can be replaced with a darker version of the desired background video image, making it look like the person is casting a shadow on them. Any spill of the chroma key colour will make the result look unnatural. A difference in
8175-473: The high level of difficulty faced by every team. Broadcast to high viewing figures throughout its original run, it garnered a cult status amongst fans since its final television episode in 1994. It was revived for a one-off special by YouTube in August 2013. Each run of the game involves a team of four children, aged around 11–16, and focuses on the same format. One member takes on the game in person, referred to as
8284-495: The interactive portions of the books, the reader had to keep track of Life Force and objects collected, and some books had additional statistics or special skills to monitor. Finally, Lord Fear's Domain was a puzzle book. There were also two Knightmare computer games released: the first was in 1987, released on the ZX Spectrum , Amstrad CPC , Atari ST , and Commodore 64 ; and the second Knightmare game in 1991, released on
8393-423: The key colour, which would not be replaced by background image during postprocessing . For Star Trek: The Next Generation , an ultraviolet light matting process was proposed by Don Lee of CIS Hollywood and developed by Gary Hutzel and the staff of Image G . This involved a fluorescent orange backdrop which made it easier to generate a holdout matte , thus allowing the effects team to produce effects in
8502-409: The lights making them appear pale, while other areas may be darkened. A matte surface will diffuse the reflected light and have a more even colour range. In order to get the cleanest key from shooting green screen, it is necessary to create a value difference between the subject and the green screen. In order to differentiate the subject from the screen, a two-stop difference can be used, either by making
8611-412: The limits of its technology. The Helmet of Justice was no longer used, enabling the dungeoneer to now clearly see his surroundings. As a result of this, only one advisor was now needed, instead of three. Reactions to the pilot were mixed, with some saying that the lack of a Helmet of Justice and the associated "guiding" element meant a lot of the essence of the original show was lost. The new theme tune
8720-525: The original Anglia television studios. A theatrical version of Knightmare was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 23 July to 15 August 2013. It opened to rave reviews and was performed in London in 2013 and 2016. The show is produced by Objective Talent Management and stars Paul Flannery, Tom Bell and Amee Smith. In March 2014, a group comprising the cast and crew of Knightmare and
8829-439: The pixel is fully in the foreground object, and intermediate values indicate the pixel is partially covered by the foreground object (or it is transparent). A further function g ( r , g , b ) → ( r , g , b ) is needed to remove green spill on the foreground objects. A very simple f () function for green screen is A ( r + b ) − Bg where A and B are user adjustable constants with
8938-468: The potential technical issues with using bluescreen/chromakey and an NTSC recording setup. A number of items of Knightmare merchandise were produced over the show's run, including seven books written by Dave Morris : The first of these, Knightmare , told the story of how Treguard came to inhabit Knightmare Castle, revealed once to have been Dunshelm Castle, which Treguard owned by birthright. The next four books were intended for older readers, and took
9047-462: The process considerably and saved money. He received a special Academy Award for his innovation. For decades, travelling matte shots had to be done "locked-down", so that neither the matted subject nor the background could shift their camera perspective at all. Later, computer-timed, motion-control cameras alleviated this problem, as both the foreground and background could be filmed with the same camera moves. Meteorologists on television often use
9156-422: The related literature (see merchandise section). During the show, it was Treguard's job to assist the dungeoneer and his team of helpers wherever possible, also explaining a team's cause of death whenever they died. At first, Treguard directed the contestants on his own. However, from Series 4, Treguard had an assistant: Pickle the elf , played by David Learner , and (from Series 7) after Pickle had "gone back to
9265-444: The repeats started. Knightmare continued to run on Challenge until 31 March 2007, when the rights to the series expired. By this time, only five of the eight series were still being repeated, as the rights to Series 3 expired at the end of 2004, Series 4 on 31 May 2006, and Series 5 on 30 September 2006, the latter two following a final showing of those series. On 5 and 6 January 2013, the final two episodes from Series 7 were shown on
9374-466: The rolling game play being condensed into twenty-five minute episodes meant occasionally that the start of an episode would feature a team for a very short time before they were eliminated; conversely, some teams had barely begun their quests when temporal disruption occurred. A Saxon Knight named Treguard of Dunshelm, was the dungeon master and was played by Hugo Myatt for the show's eight series. Information about his supposed background can be found in
9483-467: The room to the Dungeoneer and then instruct them to move towards the key, pick it up, and use it on the door to exit the room. The objective of the game is for the team to complete three levels of a specially made dungeon designed for them; each team faces a new dungeon of a different design, but with similar features recurring during a series. Each level consists of a number of rooms – some with puzzles, obstacles and challenges that have to be overcome – and
9592-412: The same production company as Knightmare , and aimed at this younger audience. Shortly after this decision was made, Airey left for Channel 4 , and was replaced as Controller by Vanessa Chapman. Despite the diminishing older audience, Knightmare ' s eighth series performed well, and gained a higher audience than Virtually Impossible did later that autumn. Changes introduced in this series saw
9701-441: The same scene. Chroma key allows performers to appear to be in any location without leaving the studio. Advances in computer technology have simplified the incorporation of motion into composited shots, even when using handheld cameras. Reference points such as a painted grid, X's marked with tape, or equally spaced tennis balls attached to the wall, can be placed onto the coloured background to serve as markers. In post-production,
9810-447: The seasons progressed. Examples of this include the alliance between Lord Fear and Aesandre in series 5, which backfires when she freezes the entire dungeon at the end of the season after her powers have been boosted by her ally. Season 6 saw Lord Fear attempt another alliance with Witch Queen Greystagg which she eventually rejected, leading to him summoning a Red Dragon to destroy the dungeon (which Treguard and Pickle ultimately foiled with
9919-483: The show in other ways. He recruited Robert Harris, who used a Spaceward computer to design an animation of a knight's head that could indicate varying degrees of damage. Child sent this second pilot to the ITV Children's Committee in February, who commissioned a series of eight half-hour episodes. The show was an instant hit, and a second series twice as long as the first was commissioned the next year, closely followed by
10028-508: The show's existing fanbase.) Sci-Fi's contract ran out on 31 October 1998. Knightmare' s only appearances on television after that were as clips in "40 Years of Anglia" in 1999, and Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows in 2001, where it came 16th, the highest position on the list for a game show. In the United States, Series 5 and 6 were shown for a short time on local Long Island, New York independent station WLNY . In December 2002,
10137-548: The show, as well as to meet with some of the original cast. A copy of the American pilot Lord of the Game was also shown with an introduction by Tim Child. Chroma key Chroma key compositing , or chroma keying , is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two or more images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to remove
10246-465: The sorceress Maldame and both she and Lord Fear fought for control over an underwater domain called the Great Mire; Lord Fear sent another red dragon to destroy her, but the ultimate outcome of this was unresolved as the final quest ended. Over the course of the series, Treguard became known for his catchphrase "Ooh, nasty!", regularly used just after a team had died. Intended only as a passing remark, this
10355-409: The surfaces are partially covered, they are more opaque the closer they are to the outer surface. Sometimes more closed surfaces are used to determine how to remove green spill. It is also very common for f () to depend on more than just the current pixel's colour, it may also use the ( x , y ) position, the values of nearby pixels, the value from reference images or a statistical colour model of
10464-412: The team make mistakes that allows the Dungeoneer to be attacked from minor monsters or hazards, they incur a time penalty which reduces the amount of time they have to complete the game, described as taking "damage" to their lifeforce. If the Dungeoneer runs out of lifeforce, the game is over; the game is also over if the team makes a bad decision and takes a wrong route into a dead end, or if the Dungeoneer
10573-412: The team to choose which quest they will undertake, whereupon the action takes place within a blue screen chroma key studio used to display a partly computer-generated , partly hand-drawn fantasy dungeon – only the viewers and the Dungeoneer's advisers can see this. In some cases, filming of a run takes place in real locations, in which the viewpoint of these scenes is done to appear to be from that of
10682-453: The website knightmare.com launched a successful crowd funding campaign to raise money to run a Knightmare convention in the studios in Norwich where Knightmare was filmed. The convention took place at EPIC Studios in Norwich (where the original series was filmed) on 9–11 May 2014. The convention allowed visitors to play a room of the Knightmare dungeon using the same technology used in
10791-423: The window areas. In order to have figures in one exposure actually move in front of a substituted background in the other, a travelling matte was needed, to occlude the correct portion of the background in each frame. In 1918 Frank Williams patented a travelling matte technique, again based on using a black background. This was used in many films, such as The Invisible Man . In the 1920s, Walt Disney used
10900-410: Was awarded an Academy Award for his refinement of these techniques in 1964. His technique exploits the fact that most objects in real-world scenes have a colour whose blue-colour component is similar in intensity to their green-colour component. Zbigniew Rybczyński also contributed to bluescreen technology. An optical printer with two projectors, a film camera and a "beam splitter", was used to combine
11009-441: Was believed the older audience was moving to satellite television and video games , and that programmes for a younger audience were needed. After two meetings, it was agreed that an 8th series of Knightmare would go ahead in 1994, but it would be a shorter run (ten episodes instead of fifteen or sixteen) and the remainder of the season's timeslot would be taken by Virtually Impossible , a new virtual reality show from Broadsword,
11118-406: Was completed in one episode) and prizes were awarded at the end of each episode. In 1992, Tim Child and Broadsword attempted to sell the series to American broadcasters with a pilot called Lords of the Game. This pilot used characters, settings and the cast from series 6 with the exception of Hugo Myatt who was replaced with an American actor; there was little interest in the series, primarily due to
11227-650: Was dismissed by some as being overly "cheesy" and unrelated to the dark sense of the programme. On 10 May 2005, it was announced that the project was to be shelved, with Child saying he had decided Knightmare would work best under a mixture of virtual reality and the original format. In an interview with The Guardian in April 2013, Child said that although "(t)here will always be hardcore fans clamouring for ( Knightmare ΄s) return; I think it's best to let it languish in its own deep, dark dungeon". In December 2012, lifelong Knightmare fan James Aukett commemorated 25 years since
11336-427: Was easier to use a green matte screen than it was to constantly police the clothing choices of on-air talent. Also, because the human eye is more sensitive to green wavelengths, which lie in the middle of the visible light spectrum, the green analog video channel typically carried more signal strength, giving a better signal to noise ratio compared to the other component video channels, so green screen keys could produce
11445-507: Was far easier to manufacture and make reliable than film that somehow excluded both frequencies higher and lower than the screen colour. In television and digital film making, however, it is equally easy to extract any colour, and green quickly became the favoured colour. Bright green is less likely to be in the foreground objects, colour film emulsions usually had much finer grain in the green, and lossy compression used for analog video signals and digital images and movies retain more detail in
11554-537: Was not affordable at the time. Two other versions of Knightmare were also made: one in France ( Le Chevalier Du Labyrinthe ), which ran from 19 September 1990 to 31 August 1991, and the other in Spain ( El Rescate Del Talisman ) which ran from 29 May 1991 to 1994. Both versions were sponsored by Sega . One of the primary differences with both international versions was that there was no rolling game play (i.e. each team/quest
11663-410: Was originally an ad lib by Myatt. Actors that auditioned for the show were required to demonstrate spontaneity and flexibility. Occasionally, a team's actions would require quick thinking by Hugo Myatt and/or the other actors in order for the game play to follow the planned path. In its early series, Knightmare lacked a single major antagonist or 'baddie'. Indeed, originally Treguard was specifically
11772-551: Was quickly picked up by The Sci-Fi Channel , which broadcast all eight series starting from the channel's launch in November 1995. However, ratings were low, perhaps exacerbated by the satellite sharing that meant UK fans were unable to receive the Sci Fi Channel at the times when the show was being broadcast. (Cable television was also relatively uncommon in the UK at this time, and completely unavailable in some areas, further limiting
11881-464: Was used to introduce elements into a scene which were not present in the initial exposure. This was done using black draping where a green screen would be used today. George Albert Smith first used this approach in 1898. In 1903, The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter used double exposure to add background scenes to windows which were black when filmed on set, using a garbage matte to expose only
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