Plate

A plate in VFX terminology is the original camera footage destined for compositing — typically without any VFX work yet applied — that serves as the base layer onto which CGI, additional elements and effects will be composited. The term originates in optical printing (a glass plate was used for matte paintings combined with live action). Modern plate workflows include several variants: the clean plate (a take of the empty scene with no actors, used for paint-out work, set extensions, and as a reference for derived mattes), the background plate (a wide establishing shot to be enhanced with CG elements), the action plate (the principal photography take containing performance), the lighting reference plate (often a gray ball and chrome ball or color chart shot before each take to record lighting conditions for CG matching), and the witness camera plates (secondary cameras providing alternative angles for tracking and CG reference). Plates are typically delivered to VFX vendors as 16-bit OpenEXR sequences at full camera resolution with the camera's original color space tagged, plus any associated handles. The plate is the foundation document of a VFX shot — every CG element must integrate convincingly with its lighting, lens characteristics, grain, motion and color. Plate quality directly affects VFX cost: a well-shot plate with reference balls, witness cameras and clean continuity reduces VFX time and budget. Reference: VES Handbook of Visual Effects, chapter on plate cinematography.