Computer screen light on face

[MikeWilkinson]

I have seen this in some flicks– during a computer use montage, there is a shot where you see the user's face, and the light/images on the computer screen appear to light his face. You can actually make out some text/images from the light on his face.

Do you think they used a projector for this? Any other ideas on how to pull this off?

 

[mediatvguy]

This very question, being discussed at the Digital Juice forum...

http://www.digitaljuice.com/community_forums/tm.asp?m=39289

 

[Captain Pierce]

I know that the show Crusade used an LCD projector for this sort of effect. My advice would be to use the dimmest one you can and make sure you're not shooting directly into the actor's eyes--as someone who's taken 3000 lumens to the face one more than one occassion, it can definitely be distracting...

 

[Justin Kuhn]

^ Jiggle the thingy...

 

[Isaac_Brody]

Do you mean text appeared in glasses?

You can use led lights to approximate the light coming from a computer screen. And even simpler than that, actually use a computer screen.

 

[moonlitnite]

I have seen this in some flicks– during a computer use montage, there is a shot where you see the user's face, and the light/images on the computer screen appear to light his face. You can actually make out some text/images from the light on his face.

Do you think they used a projector for this? Any other ideas on how to pull this off?

My first knee-jerk reaction would be to indeed use my 3K lumen projector and pump out a black background with white lettering, ala a mask that shouldn't be objectionable to the talent (of course you'll need to flip the video backwards with software such as those used for teleprompters).

Good luck, Michael

 

[MikeWilkinson]

About :30 into this - http://youtube.com/watch?v=r2TYBbGzslQ

It's the best example I could find. I know I've seen it before in a hacking montage in some movie that I can't recall.

 

[Jon Starr]

I've seen that effect a few times, obviously some sort of projector. IMO it looks very unnatural. If you look at a face looking at a screen, realistically all you see are mixes of colors or just one main color.

 

[Captain Pierce]

(of course you'll need to flip the video backwards with software such as those used for teleprompters).

Or just switch the projector into rear-projection mode...

 

[MikeWilkinson]

Well the shoot was this afternoon.. it ended up being cut off the shotlist. I CP is right about it being distracting for the eyes, not to mention probably harmful if too long, when pointing right in someones face.