Hi guys, hope everyone is doing good these days.
I've been a little mia the last couple of weeks dealing with a lot of stuff and it's been hard to make time for anything.
Anyway last week I was talking on the phone last week at night and noticed the display's reflection in the open window glass and at that moment my partner Leya walked by and looked at me through the glass.
Since it was dark and I could see only the display reflection and her face light by the display.
It reminded me of some kind of cyber punk scene where the character is looking through a rainy window at a futuristic city at night.
So we tried to recreate the scene and try this effect.
We took an LCD screen (playing a youtube video of a futuristic cityscape) and put it in front of a glass door and the camera on the same side with a tele lens to help get a tighter shot, a shallow depth of field and a little compression.
On the other side I put myself and we light me with a side, hair light (not that I have much of that ;) ).
I threw in a cigarette that we had lying around at home just in case we need to shoot something like this.
While the camera was rolling Leya sprayed water onto the glass to make a rain effect.
It took a little playing around to get the brightness of the screen and the back light right and then a little playing with the grade but I'm really surprised how well this worked out without the need of any kind of special vfx work.
Anyway has anyone used a technique like this or something simple like this to shoot a something.
Personally I really like this approach much more than complicated green screen setup or complicated vfx.
Anyway hope everyone is having a great week.
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I've never really tried VFX, but this is so super cool! What a great camera test!
Thank you Karen "Kay" Ross! It was just a quick test because sometimes I like to try out stuff and then actually find a use for it. :)
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The technique is effective in many uses. Your illustration works very well, and coming from something you saw, makes it much better. Good for you for noticing something interesting and making it work on camera.
For reflections off of glass in front of an actors face the first shots that come to mind are of Keir Dullea in a spacesuit in “2001, a Space Odyssey”. This of course reveals the answer to the eternal question, WWSD?
The technique is also critical in car shots using reflections in windows to enhance the feel of movement. Doing a real car shot on a process trailer I find there is an additional piece of gear I always use to control the intensity of reflections, a polarizing filter.
Anytime reflections might obscure what is behind them, a polarizing filter can be used to control the intensity of the reflections to a large degree. There is an additional visual effect that can be done with a polarizer and reflections in glass, that is rotating the polarizer during a scene. By rotating the polarizer the reflections can move from the maximum amount of reflectivity to a minimum amount. This is either to reveal or obscure what is behind the reflections in the glass. For a reveal I’ve done an exterior establishing shot of a glass clad office building, with a zoom in and rotation of the polarizer, which revealed the action in an office. For obscuring an interior with reflections, during a car shot, when called for in the story, rolling the polarizer to have the reflections obscure the actors worked really well when leaving the actors in their thoughts and transitioning back to a driving sequence. Remember that there is a light loss when using a polarizer.
More ideas to play with.
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Thank you Andrew Sobkovich! :)
I love it when I think of something simple to try and play around with.
By the way thank you for the polarizer idea. I completely forgot I could have used that in there as well.
You mentioned that you used a polarizer on a shoot to reveal the inside of after showing the reflection which I competently get and I've even seen this done in films.
But what I'm thinking is how was it technically done?
Are there geared polarized filters and then used a motor like for a follow focus or are these standard filters like on still camera and then just have someone adjust it?
I've got a similar but bigger polarizer for our Pocket 4K which is not geared.
The only thing with gears is the focus and the apreture.
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Vital, A polarizer must rotate in its mount to achieve the desired amount of the effect. I have two of Tiffen polarizers and both use the same method. The filter has a mounting ring that screws onto the lens but allow the glass portion of the filter can rotate upon that screw on mounting portion. All of the current round screw on Tiffen circular polarizers that I have seen use that same method.
There are rotating filter holders made to fit within the slots on some big matte boxes that have the ability to be motorized with separate motor and controller, Rota-Pola comes to mind. This action does not necessarily need to be motorized in this application and most matte boxes with a rotating stage can be used for this. A polarizer needs no more than 90˚ of rotation to go from minimum to maximum effect.
Utilizing my typical brute force and ignorance method, I always rotate by hand. A tape mark for the beginning then a tape mark for the end, like tape marks on a lens for pulling focus. I found a round rubber lens hood that fits the rotating portion of the filter and, being round, will never vignette. With that in place and the addition of a French Flag the lens can be kept free of most unwanted flares. This provides easy access to see and use the taped witness marks for pulling the polarizer.
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Andrew Sobkovich oh yeah I've got a couple of circular polarizers for my stills cameras and for my Pocket 4K. But the matte box I've got isn't very fancy.
So I've worked with polirizers before and I've used them to shoot trough glass.
I don't have anything fancy like Tiffen. Still out of my budget range for owning. When we rent, then yeah of course. But not for our projects only commercial work.
But I didn't exactly know how it worked on a bigger cinema camera with a proper matte box.
The funny thing is when you mentioned doing things by hand, it's really funny because when Leya started shooting we of course didn't have access to follow focuses and wireless video assist. So she got really good with pulling her own focus or adjusting things like apreture or even NDs, polirizers.
So now when we work on projects most of the time she does everything by herself and it was funny a couple of weeks ago when we were shooting a commercial and I wanted a complicated follow shot so we had a focus puller to assist her. She told me later that she found it harder at the beginning to get used to someone else pulling focus. In fact I think that we might have had more takes while having a puller than it would have taken for her to get the good shot both with focus and framing.
Really interesting.
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Vital, you do not have to always use a matte box. For this kind of shot, if it is in the way more than it helps, then take it off.
Look at the polarizers you have. If they screw mount onto the lens, you can rotate them during a shot. Remember that it is only 1/4 turn from minimum to maximum or maximum to minimum. Watch carefully and count how many turns of the filter on the lens you have from where the filter threads first catch, to where the filter is fully snug against the lens. You could use part of that as a way of rotating the filter. BE CAREFUL of you will unscrew the filter and have it fall off. Make sure to use tape marks to know the rotating range you have to stay within. If that doesn't work, just hold the filter in your hand in front of the lens, not mounted, and rotate it. Works well. If you get the filter away from the front of the lens, a light leak can cause a reflection, in which case just put a piece of black cloth over your hand and the lens to block the light leak. I've done all of these things many times.
This doesn't have to be fancy, you just want it to work.
Working with others and expanding your crew takes time and trust. But it also is something we all have to adapt to when we are in a familiar situation but some part is now different and our comfort zone for working is a little disturbed. Leya's reaction is sooooo normal. Really. I bet the assistant was feeling something similar working with a new person who was not used to working in this way. We all have to remember when working in a different way or with new people, that the the other people involved are having the same slightly disconcerted feelings. Its still a little weird sometimes. Know what you want to see in the end and keep an open mind about how to get there. There is much to be learned on that path.
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Andrew Sobkovich you know I was playing around yesterday in the evening after the rain and I went down town to a business area where there are a lot of glass buildings and nice smooth surfaces. I played around with the reflections and the CPL.
I actually got some nice shots.
I've been toying around with shooting a film in an area like that and I actually talked to a fire department persona. He told me that if I can get permission from the property owner they'll come and wet the ground for free. Which is quite cool.
I'll try and play around some more with the CPL.
You gave me a couple of good ideas, thank you. So I'll give it a try when I have the time.
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Vital it sounds like you are going to have some fun. Do try to play with the obscure/reveal changes that can be made by rotating the filter. Seeing what it can do adds another tool that you can use.
Wetting streets down serves 2 main functions. It increases the brightness of reflections, and also darkens the street. Those two things work together as reflections can show on paving but when the paving is darker and the reflections have a more reflective surface to play upon, the reflections will have far more impact.