Trick filmography

[DaPetes]

Hey im making an extremely low budget film as its going to be produced by me. Anyway, I was wonder if anyone could give some advice or link a site with ways to pull off tricks using the camera. (i.e having two people standing far apart but filming a straight on shot making one seem much bigger than the other.)

Also if anyone has any tips on how to make something appear to float or levitate that would be helpful.

Thank you.

 

[Matuso]

For the two people standing far apart thing, you have a few issues.

1: Focus. Use deep focus so that everything is clear, so one person isn't clear and the other blurry.
2: Lighting. If one character has a stripe of light across his chest while the other character doesn't have it where it should be on, say, his back, then that screws everything up. Similarly, shadows. If we can see the shadow of the far person on a wall, but not for the near person, then, duh, you have a problem.
3: Sound. The far person is going to sound far away, depending on the distance, unless you have a mike in between them.
4: Acting. If you want one to look the other in the eyes, you might wind up with one looking the other in the nose.

 

[rogermarsh]

old trick

old trick

Take one: shoot a designated scene with camera on a tripod with no one in the scene.
Take two: shoot the same scene, now have your character walk into the scene.

Place footage from take one in your editing software's Video 1. Place take two - and match lenth of scene - into software's Video 2.

This then allows you to control the opacity of the character in video 2 - pull back on the controls and you can see through them - creating a ghostly effect.

For a floating object, you might do the same set-up, but instead of the character in take two, use black thread to hoist up and move an object. Assuming then you won't see the black thread, especially if you pull back on the object a bit - you could move it around and it would appear as though it's floating on its own.

I shot a scene where a woman was at the head of a long dining table and all of her guests were ghosts. I wanted only the ghosts to slowly disappear and the woman to remain. So we shot the scene with only the ghosts in it, then on my command, we stopped rolling and each of the ghost characters very carefully moved away from the table being careful not to move - even slightly - their chair or dishes - and get out of the scene. We then moved the woman into position at the head of the table; then the camera rolled again - with the woman interacting as though they were still seated - and finally she reacts to no one there. We overlapped these two pieces and it was a neat sucess. The woman with no one in the shot was placed in video one; and the ghosts without the woman in video two, which allowed me to pull back on only the ghosts and eventually make them disappear.