I did a thread on old television graphics a while back, but I have one lingering question. Does anyone know how that graphic was done where there are tracers behind the actual text, like what was used on Wayne’s World and on the old ABC News idents?
Also, is the word “chyron” or “cyron”, what exactly does it mean (can’t find in dictionary), and what exactly does it refer to as far as graphics? Thanks so much!
Chyron seems to be a company associated with broadcasting media, graphics etc. They’ve recently gone into joint development with Microsoft.
Chyron used to make titling machines. The term “chyron” is still used as a generic term for video titles. You can make tracers by playing with video feedback a bit, but I doubt that’s how it was done regularly.
If I am very much mistaken…
you can do this at home by pointing your video camera at the TV…the studios would put graphics on a monitor with a black background and get the video feedback a la Waynes World, then overlay it on top of the live image.
Did I understand the question correctly?
And how is it pronounced, anyway? K’AYE-run?
Just in case, I’ll restate it with detail:
The Wayne’s World ident appears to be fuzzy white text with a rainbow colored skeleton-ish background that moves up and down and from side to side. I saw the Barbara Walters special on TV the other night, and they showed an 1970’s? ABC news logo that moved up the screen, leaving a disappearing trail not unlike when you adjust your mouse pointer to make those comet trails. This is what I was wondering about, and if there are any other thoughts vaguely related to this topic, please share; for some reason I’m fascinated with old television graphics.
Well I took basic broadcasting as an elective in HS. Our cameras were so old that just moving the camera quickly would result in major motion blurring. If you recorded the “motion blurred” logo you could then play it back at any speed you wanted.
a simple white logo could be drawn/cut out
point a camera at it and pan down fast.
Take a tape of the fast pan down and play it on a monitor w/camera pointed at monitor so the logo sits where you want it on the screen.
Use key from the camera on the logo over the talking heads. When the tape pans up on the monitor the logo will appear to zip off the top of the screen leaving a “comet like” tail,
I hope that makes sense its not real easy to visualize
In school my prof. pronounced it “Ki’-ron”. Long i as in “Kite”
You’re looking for either the term “Chroma Key” or “Vidicon.”
Chroma Key is when the local weatherman stands in front of a blue background and the satellite photo is color keyed behind him.
Vidicon was a brand name early video camera tube that had “image retention” so that a moving object appeared to have a trailing image.
If you display the title in question onto a monitor then film the monitor on a camera wired back into the monitor, you will get this effect. Moving the camera around or zooming in and out will give the “swoooshing” effect.
The title is typically fed into the monitor as a seperate source.
Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for the replies.
So, has anyone else noticed how the sides of the letters look kind of fuzzy on the sides? This is a by-product of the superimposing, then?
This is special effects done with a signal generator and electronically blended with the camera signal. Specific effects can be selected such as the trailing image.
This is “image retention” often seen on older Vidicon tubes.
Two separate but similarly appearing images.
My guess is that the Wayne’s World graphic was selected to make it appear like a cheap Vidicon camera that a basement show would have.