Faking a big open room.

Nitsuj

Nitsuj

Well-known member
Hello peeps I am working on some ideas for a shot and wanted to know if anybody has some thoughts on it. I'm wanting to make the appearance of a large dark room with really high ceilings. The light would be minimal as that is really the only way I can see how to do this. So think in terms of Citizen Kane with the large open spaces but darker. So dark you wouldn't really see the walls. Just a sense of open.

So I have been racking my brain how to come up with this large space. I'd like to have a smooth concrete floor to reflect some light but I can't think of anything I could use around me. Plus electricity available. I was thinking possibly an indoor basketball court but not sure if I can find a place available just yet. So I was thinking if it would be possible to make an outdoor setting appear to be indoors? I could probably find a large parking lot with electricity close by... least I "think". Do you think it would be possible to make such a setting appear to be indoors? Of course not if it is windy. I really want to get this shot but if I have to I was thinking maybe just to go the complete opposite with it and make it extremely small.
 
Nitsuj said:
Hello peeps I am working on some ideas for a shot and wanted to know if anybody has some thoughts on it. I'm wanting to make the appearance of a large dark room with really high ceilings. The light would be minimal as that is really the only way I can see how to do this. So think in terms of Citizen Kane with the large open spaces but darker. So dark you wouldn't really see the walls. Just a sense of open.
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Generally speaking matte painting was the usual way to give more filmic 'space' to a shot.

The famous final sequence in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", is a combo of matte and live action. I think just the small corrodor where the obvious live action takes place and just enough 'wall' to surround that shot is 'real'. The rest is matte painted.

I've not done much mixing of live and matte painted, but one of the problems I have is making the 'noise' of the matte area, match the 'noise' of the live video. In the olden days, the matte painting would be captured on film, then with masking composited with the live action, or actually the matte image would be placed in the live shot, and the camera framing aligned so the shot made sense.

In any case, the 'film grain' noise would be acquired and there wouldn't be as much obivousness about the matte (other than lighting weirdness, or bad mask transition...)

Since you mention 'dark' it would be easier to transition into a large vaulted ceiling, given the walls would be dark. So the idea would be to find a vaulted ceiling, and angle your shot such that seeing the ceiling at that angle makes sense.


From the wiki article on 'matte painting'.
Government_Warehouse.jpg
 
If the edges of the frame go totally black, you could shrink the footage smaller than the frame and it will read as a very large dark open space.
 
Yes good ideas on the matte. I have been thinking about that for the master shot but not sure about the coverage.

J.R. Hudson - yeah I am in that process but there is very limiting open indoor spaces that I can think of at the moment in this area. I'm in Knoxville, TN so there isn't going to be a lot of locations like that from what I know of this area. I am in the process of asking around at this moment. Another thing is if I can actually use the space. It's gotta be huge. If I find something I will be lucky. I also only have a little less than a month for this. So it's tricky. If I could pull off the outdoor shot then I could use much more locations but wasn't sure if something like that could be pulled off.
 
Oh and let me explain a little further. It is gonna be B&W and the indoor space is supposed to be the receptionist area (lobby). Only thing in the room is a desk and receptionist. Not a lot to it. So I think I can do it just wondering if anybody had ideas if outdoors would work or some experience to share.
 
djkarn105 said:
If the edges of the frame go totally black, you could shrink the footage smaller than the frame and it will read as a very large dark open space.
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That is a great idea. I will keep that one in mind for sure. Least for the master shot.
 
maybe find a community college or smaller school that has a theatre (where they do plays and such) and see if you can get them to let you use their stage during a time when no one is in it.

Later,
Jaosn
 
Jason Ramsey said:
maybe find a community college or smaller school that has a theatre (where they do plays and such) and see if you can get them to let you use their stage during a time when no one is in it.

Later,
Jaosn
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Good idea. I will get that on my list to try. thx
 
Here is what I'm starting to run in my mind. Shot is a man entering into the lobby and it is huge in a surreal kind of way. Like it doesn't structurally make any sense. He even looks back outside to make sure he is actually seeing this big open room. I want the room to be huge and the next room he goes into is going to be extremely small. It's a contrast.

Say I get on a high spot like building looking down onto a dark parking lot. I have high powered lights behind the man as if the light was coming through the front door and it spans across the floor to the receptionist desk. Hard light so you can see his shadow. He walks towards the receptionist and with some sound design have a echoing foot steps. So in my mind this could possibly work being outdoors but I have never done this before so I may be wrong. I might go find a spot and do a test if I have time.
 
Hmmm I'm thinking I might even be able to use a child dressed up as the actor to give an even bigger appearance.

Anyway thanks for the help peeps. If there are any tricks you can share just let me know.
 
I think outside could work, if you can find a wall (or build a fake one) that will look like an interior wall for the background. You might need a section of fake floor as well, but simply not showing the floor would probably be easier. I like the idea of lighting just the desk and receptionist and leaving everything else in shadow - that would look dramatic and probably also be easier to shoot than a real giant room (unless you get lucky and find one, of course).

Getting away from cinematography, have you considered sound issues? Voices in a really big room sound different than in a small room. Putting a bit of fake echo/reverb on voices in post probably wouldn't be too hard, but it could be very difficult to get rid of a 'small room' feel if you end up shooting somewhere small.
 
clang said:
I think outside could work, if you can find a wall (or build a fake one) that will look like an interior wall for the background. You might need a section of fake floor as well, but simply not showing the floor would probably be easier. I like the idea of lighting just the desk and receptionist and leaving everything else in shadow - that would look dramatic and probably also be easier to shoot than a real giant room (unless you get lucky and find one, of course).

Getting away from cinematography, have you considered sound issues? Voices in a really big room sound different than in a small room. Putting a bit of fake echo/reverb on voices in post probably wouldn't be too hard, but it could be very difficult to get rid of a 'small room' feel if you end up shooting somewhere small.
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Yeah I was going to add reverb to the footsteps. But there is little to no dialogue so that will make it easy. Just sound design like door closing, footsteps, and other gizmos.
 
I don't think I'm going to have enough time to do a 3D digital room and make it look good. I'm going to have to do old tricks by playing with light and angles on this one. The matte could be as far digital I could go I think for the time.

Hopefully sometime mid next week I will find a test spot to see if my outdoor idea will work. I might be able to do a split screen of the actor with long cast of light on one side and the other side the desk resized to match the shot. I was thinking of a master shot looking down like a security camera POV shot. Not your typical security camera view like scan lines and snow. Just the angle to give the look of depth and being watched. If the test doesn't work then I will be trying out some of the things mentioned or resorting to plan-B by going complete opposite and making the room uncomfortably tiny.
 
Yeah, splitting into a master shot of the big room (with a locked camera, to simplify later fiddling backgrounds etc in post) and normal close up shots (not showing the rest of the room) would probably be sensible - no sense building things the camera/audience will never see.

Some test shots are definitely the way to go - you won't know what will work until you can see what the camera will see.
 
So I had an idea while shopping for some stuff to build my props. I was in a hobby shop and saw some doll house stuff and thought... "What if I make a miniature of the desk and crop that in. So that is the test I am going to do this week. Seems like it would work for that short master. Then I don't have to worry about much other than one light source on the actor and the flooring and blacking out everything else around him. I'll will probably post my test to see what people think.
 
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