sharker2003
Member
Greetings everyone,
First off I wanted to say thanks to all the patient and helpful people on this forum. Having lurked around on this and a couple other forums I'm finally taking the plunge and filming my first 8-minute movie as part of an upcoming 'make a film in 7 days' contest this coming week. Everything's come together pretty well but I'm mostly concerned about a simple, but difficult to stage shot at the climax of the movie.
It's an interior, night shot in a house, looking at a closed door leading outside. The door has an enormous, ragged, bear-sized mouse hole knawed through it, and extending a bit through the wall on either side. A bit of the door remains above the top of the hole, as the top hinge is still in place. You can see thorugh the door that it's night outside. That's it; nothing passes through or in front of the hole, the camera just slowly moves in toward the hole while a narration concludes and the movie fades out.
My original idea (remember, first film) was to do this all for real, repainting an old door, building a frame and fake wall around it with sheap plywood, painting the whole thing, cutting through it to make the big mousehole, setting it up in the open door of a garage and laying carpet and some furniture out in the garage to dress the set as a living room, and voila! Simple but very labor intensive.
It then occured to me that I could do this whole effect much more efficiently by cutting a giant ragged mouse-hole sized matte out of chroma key, taping it to any old door and creating the same effect. A side advantage is I could impose a creepy moon/clouds, etc beyond the door digitally and set up a much creepier mood than I could if it was shot strictly in real life.
So my two questions are:
1. Is there some alternative to these two ideas I'm not thinking of?
2. If I try the digital effect, does anyone know of free (or at least cheap, under $50) software that is robust enough to pull of this chroma key effect that they would recommend and I have a chance in hell of figuring out in 7 days? All I have now is good 'ole Window's Movie Maker and Pinnacle Studio Plus.
Thanks!
Brandon
First off I wanted to say thanks to all the patient and helpful people on this forum. Having lurked around on this and a couple other forums I'm finally taking the plunge and filming my first 8-minute movie as part of an upcoming 'make a film in 7 days' contest this coming week. Everything's come together pretty well but I'm mostly concerned about a simple, but difficult to stage shot at the climax of the movie.
It's an interior, night shot in a house, looking at a closed door leading outside. The door has an enormous, ragged, bear-sized mouse hole knawed through it, and extending a bit through the wall on either side. A bit of the door remains above the top of the hole, as the top hinge is still in place. You can see thorugh the door that it's night outside. That's it; nothing passes through or in front of the hole, the camera just slowly moves in toward the hole while a narration concludes and the movie fades out.
My original idea (remember, first film) was to do this all for real, repainting an old door, building a frame and fake wall around it with sheap plywood, painting the whole thing, cutting through it to make the big mousehole, setting it up in the open door of a garage and laying carpet and some furniture out in the garage to dress the set as a living room, and voila! Simple but very labor intensive.
It then occured to me that I could do this whole effect much more efficiently by cutting a giant ragged mouse-hole sized matte out of chroma key, taping it to any old door and creating the same effect. A side advantage is I could impose a creepy moon/clouds, etc beyond the door digitally and set up a much creepier mood than I could if it was shot strictly in real life.
So my two questions are:
1. Is there some alternative to these two ideas I'm not thinking of?
2. If I try the digital effect, does anyone know of free (or at least cheap, under $50) software that is robust enough to pull of this chroma key effect that they would recommend and I have a chance in hell of figuring out in 7 days? All I have now is good 'ole Window's Movie Maker and Pinnacle Studio Plus.
Thanks!
Brandon
