Why you must be careful with Masks
Firstly for anyone that does’t know what a mask is. A mask is a filter that you apply in video, photos, even Microsoft Word! It tells the software which part of the selected image to remove / keep, much like cropping but not limited to four sides.
In green screen video production masks are often used to cut out any unwanted parts of the background.
The Gadget Show’s Mistake…
Whilst enjoying a relaxing evening watching the Gadget Show on Channel 5 the other day I spotted the dreaded masking error. The above image shows this. The editor had set the mask to a part of the video where Jason Bradbury wasn’t moving his arms. When the then did move his arms, they were outside of the mask parameters and thus cropping off Jason’s left arm! An easy mistake to make, but not very good that it slipped through the net and made it to broadcast TV!