Multiple shafts of light

F

fauxtographi

Member
Hey everyone,

I have a shoot that I'm planning that calls for some tricky situations. The biggest one is a scene where the actor is writing all over his jail cell, walls, floor etc. What I want to do is have the letters, which will be made using white chalk, start to glow and cast light during one of his hallucinations. I was thinking about jusing a jigsaw to cut the words and letters out of the wall and hazing the room, letting most of the scene fall into darkness. I'm wondering if I need to light each word individually or use a few larger sources and hit them all. I'm planning on having about 30 or so words for the hallucination shot.

Thanks for the help in advance,
Dave
 
fauxtographi said:
Hey everyone,

I have a shoot that I'm planning that calls for some tricky situations. The biggest one is a scene where the actor is writing all over his jail cell, walls, floor etc. What I want to do is have the letters, which will be made using white chalk, start to glow and cast light during one of his hallucinations. I was thinking about jusing a jigsaw to cut the words and letters out of the wall and hazing the room, letting most of the scene fall into darkness. I'm wondering if I need to light each word individually or use a few larger sources and hit them all. I'm planning on having about 30 or so words for the hallucination shot.

Thanks for the help in advance,
Dave
Click to expand...

I would check out what After Effects could do for you. Having 'letters' glow, etc. would definitely be a 'post' activity for me... You'd have to work out how to get the letters 'distressed', etc. but it would allow you to work with the idea rather than trying to do it practically.
 
I would shoot the scene with the actor writing it out and making sure not to cover what he has already written with any part of his body (unless you want to roto later). Bring that into After Effects, and then it's just a matter of using a path to trace over his writing. Then use Stroke to animate it over time as he writes. Finally apply Light Burst, glow, or Light Rays (whichever works best) to that layer. You will probably want to keep the camera locked unless you want to track the motion as well.
 
Random thought... depending on how much the writing stands out against the wall, some sort of chroma key, perhaps? -- with a change in opacity, and another layer (or even a 3D light?) shining through the words?

Probably not really practical, I suppose...
 
Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll do some tests both practical and in post. I thought about using UV reactant paint and hitting the letters with blacklight as well. Also, for the practical test, I will be using black show cards with the letters cut out and shooting a source-4 through the openings. That should provide a strong enough light source to achive what I want (in theory of course). I'd rather not have to do much ROTOing but my use a combination of both techniques in the end. I'll post some stills from the test.
 
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