Making a crowd

[JZASMM]

What are some ways to take 10 people and make it look like there are hundreds on screen? I know they did something like this in the newer Dawn of the Dead, so I was just wonder.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The simplest method, though a bit time-consuming, would be to lock-off the camera, shoot your crowd in one area, move them over, shoot them again, etc. and create a split-screen in post to composite the sections together. This shot in an HD movie I shot called "D.E.B.S." only had one-third the audience so we shot it three times, moving them over each time to the next section, and then composited it together (see below). Now by compositing digitally, you have some flexibility in hiding the lines joining the sections.

 

[Bob Kessler]

In the DVD extras of "Forest Gump" they show exactly how it was done in a football stadium and around the reflecting pool of the Washington Monument.

In "The Natural" they filled a baseball stadium with cardboard cutouts. I have one!

Don't forget that your crowd extras should have several sets of cosutumes and different hairstyles.

 

[JZASMM]

Thank a lot guys.

 

[Matuso]

That's a gorgeous shot, David. If it were to dolly/track down the stairs it would be even better, but I'm thinking that that would be hard to tripleshoot.

Interesting note: in Monty Python's Life Of Brian, in the scene where there are thousands of people watching a preacher on a rock, and the characters are in the cheap seats way in the back ("Blessed are the what? The cheesemakers?"), note that, separating the characters from the preacher is a small valley that the crowd disappears into and rises up the other side. Our mind fills in the hundreds of people not seen. So, creative shots like that work, too.

Also, a number of people in a smallish area looks like more people than the same amount of people in a large area.