Puppetry with live action

[Guest]

I want to shoot a small eight inch character acting in shots with live actors at the same time. How can this best be done on a low budget and have it look good, meaning believable? I want moving shots, shots with the small character interacting with his environment, and so-on. What do you think? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Mike_Donis]

Well, with a low budget, having moving shots and the character interacting with surrounding objects *will* be very difficult if not impossible, if you're going for 100% realism.

I'd shoot the guy in front of a green screen, and get as many oversized items (for example, a six foot pencil, or whatever objects he'll be interacting with) for him to use. Getting that stuff will be hard, and moving shots will be ridiculously difficult. And make sure the eye lines aren't messed up - he's gotta look like he's looking at the people he's interacting with!

I think it's probably better to think a little smaller - maybe only show the guy in locked off shots? What you're trying to do has been done by Hollywood, and it still doesn't look right a lot of the time...

[David Jimerson]

Do you mean the 8-inch character will appear to be human-sized? Greenscreen it.

[Guest]

I was thinking of finding a pro puppeteer to give the eight inch character movement and then go through the pain stakingly long and slow process of removing the visible strings from each frame in post. However, this technique is only good for close to medium shots and wouldn't be really possible doing long shots of the character walking down the street for example. And I don't think the DVX100 has the resolution necessary to greenscreen an object only eight inches tall that is in a wide establishing shot quite a long distance from the camera.

I don't want to try stop-motion. It's too time consuming not to mention that I would probably suck at it.

[Mike_Donis]

Well, in Standard Definition, you may not have sufficient resolution to shoot an 8 inch character on a wide shot, and then use that footage to composite him into the scene - but you can shoot him full frame, and then COMPOSITE him onto the backdrop.
You'll have all the detail needed to get a good mask, and then once you've made the greenscreen transparent, you can stick it onto the frame at a fraction of its original size...

The puppeteer idea is a good one methinks - you may not even really have to do that much work in post for the closer shots. If you get thin enough wires, they may not even show up on camera, especially if you're taking them into consideration when lighting the scene. I think that if you have the puppeteer, use him as much as possible, and only resort to compositing in a worst-case scenario.

[Zoomforce]

do you mean you want the puppet to be real size or just little size.. like chucky?

[David Jimerson]

I don't think the DVX100 has the resolution necessary to greenscreen an object only eight inches tall that is in a wide establishing shot quite a long distance from the camera.

The DVX has an excellent macro feature. As Mike says, shoot it filling the whole frame against a greenscreen (and the macro will help, as wrinkles, etc., in the greenscreen will be blurred out) and then adjust size in post.

[Zoomforce]

the 100 has a good macro, but the 100a has an incredible macro.

[TC]

Isn't there some sory of mathematical conversion that needs to be done when shooting miniatures? I remember seeing something about it like 3 months ago, I decided it was too difficult to commit to memory so I didn't bother. :P

[Neil Rowe]

ha! :) ..im actually doing this exact thing right now.. compositing in a puppet type charachter, into live action footage (dont ask :P ). all greenscreened. im using green painted or covered rods or wires and some really thin and clear fishing line to control the charachter so i dont have to remove them..they just key out the clear fishing line keys out fine cause the green backdrop shows through it. resolution holds up good enough for what im doing, but pending the outline of your character and what your trying to do im not sure if it would for you or not. anyhow i just shoot the charachter framed as i need him for the scene, and then composite into the scene. works really well.

[Guest]

What about camera angle? If I'm filling the frame with my eight inch character for the purpose of compositing him into a wide shot of him walking down the street, then my camera angles will have to match. And also he would have to get gradually larger in the frame as he walks towards the camera. Then I would some how have to plot a path for him, in after effects, to follow as he's walking side by side with his human co-star.

Are you suggesting that he remain in one spot and have the puppeteer bounce him up and down as if he's walking in place or do you mean that he should actually walk along as I follow him with camera set on macro?

[Guest]

What about camera angle? If I'm filling the frame with my eight inch character for the purpose of compositing him into a wide shot of him walking down the street, then my camera angles will have to match. And also he would have to get gradually larger in the frame as he walks towards the camera. Then I would some how have to plot a path for him, in after effects, to follow as he's walking side by side with his human co-star.

Are you suggesting that he remain in one spot and have the puppeteer bounce him up and down as if he's walking in place or do you mean that he should actually walk along as I follow him with camera set on macro?

[Neil Rowe]

i just shoot the charachter filling as much frame as i can -with the section of the charachter i will need for the scene, and then just scale it in the compositor to be the right size .. and position it to the right place. so if i need a MCU of him talking, i shoot an MCU ofthe charachter, and just turn the charachter instead of moving the camera to a new angle, and light him like the scene is lit. then i just put him in the shot. so yes.. im doing it so that if hes walking, i fill the frame with the whole charachter.. then hes just moonwalking in place. and i rotate the charachter around instead of me changing the camera angle during a shot so the camera stays the same then the charachters angle will match the shot angle. i watch the scene when im moving the charachter to know what angle hes at, and what hes doing. then i just composite him into the shot,and scale him to the right dimensions, and just move him around the scene by using keyframed movement of the layer hes on i can match the movement the charachter is doing to where hes moving in the frame. so what im doing is keeping him in place making him look like hes moving, and then matching his position that i composite him in the screen to to his movements, and the live footage.
it looks pretty good, and im not realy going for ultra realism so it doesnt have to be pixel perfect.. hes supposed to be a cartoon like little charachter. so if his feet slide a little when hes walking its not so bad.. i have him jump around alot , or just didnt show his feet when hes walking to avoid that anyway. i show his feet if the shot called for it when hes standing still. cause its easy to just put him on the ground standing there.


it would be more accurate to figure the sclae of the charachter in the scene, and then actually move him around to scale and move the camera to match angles from the original live footage, but its way more work and time involved with a bigger set, and more people involved.

[Terry_Lasater]

IAL - You've got my attention. Got any pics?

[Neil Rowe]

..lots *;) *i actually posted a couple a while back :
the top and bottom ones are from it, but they dont show the charachter im assuming youd like to see. * :-/ * ..the project has been re- color corrected since these grabs though. in the top one hes yelling at the charachter.

http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=Clips;action=display;num=1090671280; start=14#14


unfortunaley, im refraining from posting anything revealing from it untill the festival/contest its involved in is over. cause i dont want to give anything away with it.. its a very public type contest. ive been waiting to post some stuff from it for a while, but have been resisting the urge. im finishing it up this week with the last of the green screen work , and after the deadline is over ill post some *grabs. when the screening (if any is granted) is done ill post the whole vid.. :P

[HansK]

Here's a really cool music video that's done with puppets:

Tiga's "Hot In Herre" Video
http://www.res.com/magazine/articles/amarionettemashup_2003-05-28.html

[Guest]

That puppet video was pretty cool. I need puppeteers who are that good to pull off the movements necessary in my projects. Damn, if only I had the budget for it.

[Stas_Tagios]

Anyone know where to get a green screen bodysuit, the kind worn by Andy Serkis (Gollum) in the Lord of the Rings live action shots to facilitate his removal (and replacement with a CG Gollum) in post?

I'm shooting a short involving a puppet as well (looks like there's a big puppet revival, judging from this thread) and ideally, I'd like to have the puppeteer wear the green suit so I can easily remove him from the frame, and to facilitate more elaborate puppet movement not limited to showing the puppet from the waist up.

A lot of the puppet movement I've shot so far has been achieved practically, with the puppeteer just off camera, but I need to have several full-body puppet shots with the puppet moving quickly, thus the need for the green screen body suit.

Not much info on the net about this, unfortunately.

[Zoomforce]

I just saw team america.. you should watch that movie to get some ideas on puppets.

[Neil Rowe]

That puppet video was pretty cool. I need puppeteers who are that good to pull off the movements necessary in my projects. Damn, if only I had the budget for it.

your right. its hard to do a good looking job of puppeteering.

..i just finished up my greenscreening for my project yesterday with my wife helping me. alot of shots had the charachter on lines like a marionette, and at a couple times my wife and i just started laughing realy hard because we were making it move so stupid. but its supposed to be funny so then we started just making it move stupid on purpose.

[Zoomforce]

Neil.. dude you gotta send me a clip of that.

[Neil Rowe]

lol ..i havent composited it all together yet, but i can send you a little clip of some of the funny greenscreen work if you like.. LOL you can laugh at my scotch taped together little paper green screen that i put together for 2.00 from the craft store. :P ..its nowhere near professional, but PPro 1.5's "greenscreen" filter keys it fine.

[HansK]

we started just making it move stupid on purpose.

Heh heh... I can relate from my attempts. Here's my shameful puppetry in action :)

http://www.hanskellner.com/archives/2004/02/21/tough_guy_marionette_music_video.html

I did this earlier this year to practice compositing.

[Neil Rowe]

BWAHAHAAHAH!! that was awsome! ...theres nothing quite like a marionette swirling around to the beasty boys! :P

[moe_snodgrass]

and then go through the pain stakingly long and slow process of removing the visible strings from each frame in post.

If you decide to go this route experiment with painting the strings black-white-black-white, etc (or grey-white) with a magic marker or whatever every quarter or half-inch or so (again, experiment). You can get away with a lot because white strings will show over a dark background and black strings will show over a white background but the patterned strings kinda just work against most backgrounds. You'd probably still do some work on the strings in post but a lot will be acceptable right out of the camera.

This method has been used in stage and hollywood for genertations and in the days before computers this is what they went with, zits and all.

[Guest]

That's a sound idea but my character is wearing red. So, should I color the strings red where they meet his clothing?

[moe_snodgrass]

Ideally you could change color of strings with every location/background but that's a lot of work too, although not as much as editing frame by frame. You'd have to weigh the cost/benefit to see if it might be worthwhile. Either way, you'll have to be careful to keep light mostly off the strings. You'll have to experiment. Also, remember, we're not fooling anyone here. If the viewers see strings here and there, they won't be suprised but the less they see them the less they might be distracted. The black-white or grey-white is meant to be a happy medium that will work against more backgrounds universally, at least better than if your strings were universally a solid color throughout. On a slightly different note, depending on the genre, you might also considering experimenting by converting a test sequence or two to black & white in post just to see how the black-white strings look and what mood the B&W conveys overall. Worth a try experimenting with anything.

[Neil Rowe]

..in my tests i find that very thin clear fishing line works fine as long as you dont light it so it refracts back into the lense.. the colors of whatever is behind it come through, so if your using a greenscreen like me, they key out with the rest of the green, and most of the time, you can barley see them at all over the charachter. ..if you can see them a little, you can just blend them in a little, but that way you wont have to remove any lines aside from possibly a little work right over the charachter. but its hard to see fine fishing line to begin with..

[HansK]

In my little test I used a puppet that had black lines... since it's the only puppet I own :D

Most of the problems from the lines were when they appeared in front of the puppet. Otherwise, since they are thin, they were easily filtered/blurred out when in front of the green screen. I believe I played with feathering to help with this.

So, using fishing line or a similar clear line should work rather well.

[Thistlebop]

You might consider leaving the Strings "IN". After all, if it worked in Team America, it could work anywhere. ;)

--Bop

[Neil Rowe]

bwahaha! *these grabs are safe enough to show now.. heres some screenshots of my almost finished little funny project. *you can see the fishing line over his head a in the one shot, i didnt remove them aside from what the green screen removed.. that is actually the only shot you can breifly see a string for actually cause the light caught it. lol. but i dont care to remove it. *:P

http://www.zoomforce.com/dvxuser/photos/images/300064518.jpg

http://www.zoomforce.com/dvxuser/photos/images/300064538.jpg

http://www.zoomforce.com/dvxuser/photos/images/300064600.jpg


this one is of the guy that is working with the stuffed monkey .
http://www.zoomforce.com/dvxuser/photos/images/300064704.jpg

[taubkin]

So cool...

[tmon]

Awsome! cant wait to se it.

-T

[disjecta]

That monkey oozes personality.... 8)

[HansK]

:D

Dang, I want to see your video Neil! That puppet looks perfect.

Makes me want to try another puppet video.

[Beat Takeshi]

the 100 has a good macro, but the 100a has an incredible macro.


Yeah, but i have üßëR°Mí¢Rø
For those who dont know what Uber Micro is....http://www.purepwnage.com/

[Guest]

Neil,

Awesome looking composites. How did you change the monkey's mouth? He has an expression in one shot and looks like he's speaking in another shot.

When you greenscreened the monkey in the walking shot, did you shoot the monkey on location? Or did you shoot the monkey in a studio environment (replicating the outdoor lighting) and then composited the outdoor scenery?

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Dave

[Neil Rowe]

hey thanks,

all of the monkey shots were done in the "studio environment" ...AKA a little bedroom in my place where we quickly taped 2 peices of pretty close to chroma green paper from the craftstore to the closet door.
ha ..the monkeys mouth is my mouth masked in and color matched over the monkeys mouth area. so i talked and made expressions for the monkey.. like they do on that late night talk show when they put a live mouth over a picture of somebody... so if anyone wanted to know what my teeth or tounge looked like.. well there ya go