AF100 One-legged Actor digitally, how?

D

dtzfilms

Well-known member
Need advice

I have to shoot a man with two legs and make it look like he's got one leg.
How do I shoot this, wrap it up in green and have an editor-effects person get it out?
 
Cut the damn thing off. You mean to tell me your actor will not sacrifice a leg for the production. You need to tell him he has another one, and that he will get used to hopping around. Geez, What the hells wrong with these actors lately.
 
dtzfilms said:
Need advice

I have to shoot a man with two legs and make it look like he's got one leg.
How do I shoot this, wrap it up in green and have an editor-effects person get it out?
Click to expand...

That is how they did the Captain Dan effect in Forest Gump

And Soul Surfer
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...ots-Soul-Surfer-Jack-Nicholsons-daughter.html

http://www.honolulupulse.com/movies-tv/soul-surfer-star-loses-arm-digitally

To create the illusion of AnnaSophia Robb’s missing arm, Schmit relied on a combination of digital and old-fashioned physical effects, borrowing techniques used in the film “Forrest Gump” that allowed Gary Sinise to play the legless Lt. Dan Taylor.

During filming, Robb also wore a green sleeve or had her arm painted green, a technique that makes it easier for digital artists to later “remove” her arm when scenes are composited on a computer screen. Once the green arm is removed, however, it leaves behind an empty space. So McNamara had to shoot additional shots of Robb’s torso and of background scenes without her in it to fill in the empty spaces.


So ideally - having a camera on a motion control rig is the way to go.
You shoot one pass with the actor and his green leg and then a clean pass.
If you cannot do that then doing roto will be a *****.
 
Wrapping the leg in green is only half the story. This only helps create a matte for where the background needs to be replaced. If the camera is locked off, it's easy enough to shoot a clean plate. But it's hand held or even loose pan and tilts, then that's where the vfx magic happens. Always shoot clean plates anyhow for reference. Most of the trickery is going to be the actor to make thew audience believe a missing leg. You can use the key shots showing the missing leg sparingly and still be very convincing. Remember Jurassic Park 1 only had 7 minutes of actually CG.
 
Definitely worth finding the Forrest Gump DVD with the making-of documentaries - that covers how they did it. But that's a big budget solution - as bgundu says, there's a bunch of difficult/expensive work involved in hiding that green-covered leg.

A far simpler solution would be to shoot a one-legged actor - although much harder to cast, sure...
 
I'm sure I read in the DV rebel book that the green screen technique in Forest Gump was the the biggest pain in the arse to remove because it left a green tint everywhere. I'm sure he said it was better if they'd just used white or nothing at all and just rotoscoped it.
 
In most cases you are correct!

Bubblegummonster said:
I'm sure I read in the DV rebel book that the green screen technique in Forest Gump was the the biggest pain in the arse to remove because it left a green tint everywhere. I'm sure he said it was better if they'd just used white or nothing at all and just rotoscoped it.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top