faking a fast moving background

clang

clang

Veteran
for a zero-budget short animation, I need an aircraft flying very low over a city, shot so that the aircraft remains in one screen position and the city scrolls past very quickly in the background. The aircraft will be a model, greenscreened on top of the background, easy enough. The problem is how to do the background - it doesn't need to be very detailed as it will be heavily motion-blurred, but the audience needs to believe that the aircraft is flying through it at high speed

Ideas so far:
- 3D computer animation would be perfect but I don't have the money or time
- I thought of scrolling still photos, with a motion blur filter, but the aircraft's high speed would presumably require ludicrously large photos for anything more than a sub-second shot
- so my current theory is to build a rotating miniature set, either a disc or drum, and film it rotating from an angle where the rotation isn't obvious to the camera. Obviously the city would unavoidably repeat itself once per revolution, but if I film in close enough and build a big enough disc/drum, it should give me several seconds of unrepeated footage.

Any better ideas?
 
CG is honestly your cheapest way, unless you find perfect stock footage, wich is highly unlikely. CG can do wonders man. Whats your budget/time frame? I could probably build you a complete scene (meaning it wouldn't be compositible), airplane, city and all, as long as it isnt a specific city and you have enough time for me to build it, render it and then get it to you.

i'll pm you
 
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Well, you could basically take your third theory, the rotating city...

Bring it into After Effects, if you have it. And have that run by, adding heavy motion blur as well as repeating the city. It will give you the same look, just it would be more manageable.
 
and try to use some moving lights when filming the greenscreen plate, so that it blends better with the passing by city.
 
The latest generation of flight simulators have some pretty impressive rendering capabilities. In particular, the megascenery add-ons for Microsoft Flight Sim look quite good http://www.megascenery.com/ You can fly whatever route you wish and record the view and use it as your background plate. For added realism you can add some faux motion blur in AftefEffects.
 
I eventually went for the zero budget approach - cardboard taped to the edges of a 50cm-diameter 'lazy susan' rotating plate, and filmed while slowly spinning it. The result is actually fine - given the low 'realism' requirements in this case! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRG5UZycBqA - with apologies to Star Wars fans

Obviously far too crappy for most live action shots, but I'd still consider the same approach again if I only needed a general impression of movement behind a closeup of an actor, e.g. a shot of someone travelling in a car.
 
AHHH! That was brilliant! LOL! Haha I think that sold it better then CG would have, now that I see what you were going for :-P!

Awesome dude.
 
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