ASK THE METEOROLOGIST
“How do you know what is on the green screen?”
Carly Knecht
Ashland Middle School
This is a question I often get on school visits and it’s always fun to explain. When I stand in front of the green wall I have a camera in front of me and two monitors on either side of me which show me exactly what you are seeing on your TV screen, me in front of a weather graphic. While the teleprompter shows words when the anchors are on camera, when I am on camera I am seeing exactly what you see!
So when I look to the front I can see what is behind me as well as when I look at either side I can see a monitor showing me and the graphics so I know what to point at. We have a special camera that takes anything that is green and puts a graphic there, this magic is called a Chroma key. This is why you will never see me wearing green, because if I did you wouldn’t be able to see me! Sometimes other colors “key” out, and by that I mean you see the graphic instead of the color. In fact we’ve zoomed the camera in on my eye once and could see the maps behind me because I have greenish-blue eyes!