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A look at how fabrics are used in today&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s film industry, from green screens to costumes and everything in between. 

A director&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s chair and professional studio lighting setup in front of a green screen background. Photo credit: Getty Images.

Have you ever watched a movie and noticed the light is so soft, the actors barely have any shadows? Gotten lost in the completely realistic world in a fantasy or superhero movie? Been wowed by how authentic the costumes look in your favorite historical time-period TV show?

All of that is made possible through the use of textiles. From bouncing, diffusing, or completely eliminating light, to keying green and blue screens, to film costuming, a lot of what we enjoy about the magic of movies and TV is made possible through the use of fabrics.

Diffusing, Bouncing, & Absorbing Light

Diffusion comparison. Photo Courtesy Rosco.

According to Joshua Alemany, director of products at theatrical and entertainment fabrics provider , 90% of the fabric used on a film set that&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s not for decorative purposes is used to control light. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;We use diffusion materials to soften the light,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he details. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;We use bounce materials to redirect the light and also to change the quality of the light. Sometimes we use bounces that have a color to them, so we&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re adding a cast of color when we bounce the light.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Cristian Arroyo, president of global business units, sales and distribution for entertainment industry products provider , says diffusion fabrics are one of the most popular tools on a film set, because playing with the shadows and the density of them is critical for filmmakers to tell their story.

Photo courtesy Rosco

Arroyo gives the example of walking down a street on a sunny day, you can see your shadow following you. But walking down that same street on a cloudy day, you have no shadow as the clouds diffuse the sunlight. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;This is the concept and that is achieved in filmmaking with different diffusion products, all of them textiles, because they are put in large formats in different sizes in front of lighting fixtures to achieve different densities of diffusion,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he continues. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;The textile they are using in front of the fixture, the brightness of the fixture, and the distance you put the diffusion away from the fixture will have an impact on the actual diffusion that you get on your scene.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

For certain lighting conditions, such as shoots outside where there&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s sunlight, Alemany says film sets will also use fabric netting as a way to minimize the amount of light without fully blocking it. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;And the net has varying tightness of mesh, so a very open net lets a lot of light through a very tight net, (and) a very tight mesh lets less light through,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he adds.

Arroyo also says that blackout fabrics are popular on filming sets, as they are used to stop light from getting to parts of specific parts of a scene. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;If all of a sudden the cinematographer wants my right hand on my face completely dark, whereas highlighting my left side, he could be blocking out the light that hits my face,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he explains.

Alemany says they tend to use mainly polyester fibers when creating light diffusing fabrics because they&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re inherently fire retardant. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;Fire safety is the number one concern in any live entertainment venue or on set today,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he adds.

The dyeing of these fabrics is closely monitored and they are very careful about dye fidelity, Alemany says, so they don&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;t have problems where a director gets an unwanted color cast. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;Gray is an incredibly difficult color to achieve for film (and) television purposes because it very easily can be influenced towards the purple or towards the green, both of which feel unnatural,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he gives as an example. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;So, when we do things in grays and blacks, we&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re trying very hard to ensure that we have dye formulations that we know we can be consistent with batch after batch.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

The Art of Movie & TV Costume Design 

Photo courtesy Getty Images.

When it comes to creating costumes for film and television, costume designer Salvador Perez —whose design credits include Hocus Pocus 2, The Mindy Project, and Pitch Perfect—says there is no limit to the types of fabrics that are used to create on film costumes. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;If it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s contemporary, we&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re going to build anything you need,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he details. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;If it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s period, you&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re trying to be authentic. If it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s fantasy, you get to use anything from digitally printed fabric to new-age technology. So, it really depends on the project, but it runs the gamut.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Costuming fabric. Photo courtesy Salvador Perez

While it may sound simple, there are a lot of considerations film costume designers need to keep in mind when selecting fabrics and colors. For example, Perez says you will never see an actor wearing a white fabric because it bounces the light. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;My wedding dresses are beige, like a creamy dark champagne, because when the camera hits them, they turn white,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he explains.

Perez says fabric selection also changes when a movie or TV show is being shot at night. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;When we did Hocus Pocus, it was going to be at night with visual effects, so you wanted sheen, because if you had a dark fabric at night that was matte, it became a void,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he says. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;And if that had sheen, it would bounce back at you.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

In addition to designing costumes that work for different lighting and set needs, Perez says they also try to take actor comfort into consideration when possible.

Photo courtesy Salvador Perez.

&/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;If you&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re doing a period show, you&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re going to put them in woolens, because that&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s what was authentic at the time—you&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re not going to do a lightweight linen because that&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s not appropriate,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he explains.

And sometimes they can cheat a little bit in the design, Perez says, to keep actors more comfortable. He gives the example of The Mindy Project, which was shot in 98-degree Los Angeles weather, but it needed to look like November New York City weather. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;I would have to make her coats that looked big and thick, but were actually very lightweight so that she wasn&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;t dying in the sun, because we&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re shooting this in August,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he details. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;I built the coats out of very lightweight wools that looked like they were heavy, but then they were lined in silk. So, they had that illusion of being heavy coats, but they weren&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;t.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Creating a Virtual World With Keying Fabrics

Photo courtesy Getty Images

And when taking about fabrics used in film and TV, we certainly can’t forget about keying fabrics, more commonly known as “green screens.” Keying fabrics are designed to be used with chroma key, which is a visual technique where the green or blue screen in the video is replaced with another image.

Both green and blue keying fabrics are available, says Arroyo, and which color is used depends on the script and actors. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;If an actor is wearing jeans and you&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re going to be using blue screen, it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s going to be problematic assuming the jeans are blue,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he explains. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;Or conversely, if you have an actress with a very long hair which is very blonde, and the screen is green, that&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s going to cause some issues as well. So, depending on the script and what the director&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s story is going to be like, the cinematographer will choose blue or green.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Alemany says they use mainly polyester for their keying fabrics, which they make as wide as possible with no seams. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;Seams take light differently, and so it is more likely that seams, if it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s not lit properly, will show up as a shadow line, which will give you a vertical artifact,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he details. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;And they&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;ll have to go in manually after the fact and cell by cell, they&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;ll have to wipe out that shadow line. So, we try to be as wide as possible so that we have as few seams as possible.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Photo courtesy Rosco

The dyeing process for keying fabrics is also very important, Alemany says, because they need to stay within the right chroma or hue of color. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;The more that green shifts towards a teal, the harder it is to separate,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he explains. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;The more it shifts towards a yellow, the harder it is to separate. So, we want to keep that kind of sweet spot of nobody in their right mind would choose to wear this color green, so we know we&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;re not going to find it in the costume.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

And one of the newest technologies for keying fabrics, Alemany says, is for them to be made to be used with hook and loop fasteners thanks to more sophisticated camera tracking. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;It used to be that there was no real relationship between the background video image and the foreground video image — you shot them separately, knowing that they were going to work together,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he says. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;But now we move the camera and the computers are sophisticated enough to actually change the background image so that it appears to move relative to the perspective as the camera moves around your actor, so that we can show a different angle in the background image.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

This, Alemany explains, is done by attaching dots of a different color green to the green screen. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;It&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s incredibly sophisticated, and it&/newsletter_2025_09a/8217;s amazing to me that it is done by putting essentially a green (hook and loop fastener) ball stuck in the background,&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221; he adds. &/newsletter_2025_09a/8220;But those dots create essentially a random grid that the camera can use.&/newsletter_2025_09a/8221;

Obviously, textiles play a large role in creating many of your favorite movies and television shows. The next time you’re watching one, pay attention to the softness of the lighting, the realistic backgrounds, and colors and textures of the costumes, and you’ll see for yourself how fabrics make it all possible.

��ɫֱ�� the Author

 is a journalist, editor, and freelance writer with more than 26-years’ experience. A former associate editor for Nonwovens Industry, her byline can be found in a variety of consumer and trade publications, with past and current clients including Medical News Today, IAAPA’s Funworld Magazine, Rinksider Magazine, International Bowling Industry magazine, and HomeTalk.com, as well as ��ɫֱ��Review and ��ɫֱ��News.