Hobbit Post Production and green screening techniques

I have been following this series of production videos for some time but have not yet posted one to this blog. The video below is part 12 of a mini series that goes behind the scenes of the Hobbit shooting. This provides a glimpse of what it is like on a major motion picture set, a set that contains a lot of green screening. When watching this video I was shocked as to how much green screen work there actually was. Not only were backgrounds green screened but entire environments, theres a scene where Gandalf and Radagast were talking to each other in an entire green screen environment. So everything from the lighting, the background, foreground and other various elements would all be added later. There are several video segments where you get to see the original shot before the post production and then after, and so much of this movie is touched up in post production its unbelievable. While clearly post production CGI effects have their place, movies such as the Hobbit take this to a whole new level. There are minimal actual scene objects and environments, even peoples weapons and faces are covered in green to be added later. Theres a scene where the actors are supposed to be fighting spiders but the original shot shows nothing but them swinging swords around, this means the CGI battle must be matched to their movements in the original shot which In my opinion is rather impressive. Anyway, enough of my analysis and enjoy the video that I have posted below.