POV Mirror Shot

MalcolmOng

MalcolmOng

Veteran
Hey just asking on opinions on how to achieve this shot where the talent is standing in front of a mirror, and it's shot through the point of view of the talent. The talent washes her hands, then looks up and sees herself in the mirror, and the rest of the bathroom....and preferably not the cameraman. How is this shot accomplished?
 
Cut a hole in the wall where the mirror is, and shoot the actor normally through the hole. Put the mirror back on the wall, flip the footage and composite it over the mirror.
 
Just cheat the angle a bit.
Tighten up on the focal length.
Place an obstacle in the way of your reflection (Coat rack, plant, open, closet door, whatever)
Shoot the shot from the perspective of the mirror and get that cam as far against the wall as possible.
 
This has been discussed a bit in the past - I tried to find it the other day, but failed. Someone made up a layout chart for how to truly acheive this effect...anyone?
 
I'm with Capt Quirk. Just simply film the talent, then in editing, put that footage in the time line. And add a mirror shot over top, so try making an Add composite, or Multiply, or Screen, or Overlay and see what one works best.
 
Take a look at this video by one of my fav music directors Chris Milk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPWqsIClPqU

The scene where Kanye is washing his shirt in the bathroom is much like the one you want.

First off all they shot this on a set, not a real bathroom.

They first removed the mirror and shot behind the bathroom wall facing Kanye and seeing the urinals in the background. They then had Kanye do the same rehearsed hand movements from his pov facing a green screen where the mirror used to be.

In post they composited the footage to the mirror.

Thinking about it they might have shot the POV and hand movements separately as well, but I think you get the picture.
 
MalcolmOng said:
Hey just asking on opinions on how to achieve this shot where the talent is standing in front of a mirror, and it's shot through the point of view of the talent. The talent washes her hands, then looks up and sees herself in the mirror, and the rest of the bathroom....and preferably not the cameraman. How is this shot accomplished?
Click to expand...

I would shoot this with The POV of the actress essentially being shot from the mirror side of things. The camera is the mirror, she looks up into the camera while we see the bathroom behind her.

-

Can you give us a board on exactly what you are trying to achieve ?
 
Hmmm...I'm considering the 'camera is the mirror method', as I'm completely useless with compositing and digital effects. The shot's really a simple one...just imagine what it'd look like if you washed your hands and looked into the mirror. Very straightforward and simple, but difficult to achieve.

EDIT: quite like the shot in the kanya vid posted (thanks for the link!), cept without the rapping into the mirror. The hands won't go in front of the camera once the talent is looking at the mirror
 
Last edited:
I think you're trying to hard. Hollywood does this practially all the time (Being John Malkovich has an awesome first-person example).
What Gopher is saying is that your talent has to look in the mirror and see the camera, but pretend to see him/herself. The camera will see the talent. Everything works.
 
Here is a camera is the mirror shot I just shot a short and set it up like this so you know its a mirror.

TMBG10.jpg


set up

TMBG07.jpg


TMBG08.jpg


Also in "CHECK" we did the effect without a set up but you know exactly what he is doing.

http://www.puffinfilms.com/FILMS_Check.html
 
HEH! The funny thing is that when you see it moving they all don't get that close to their faces. I took that grab because it looks like she is actually touching her eyelash. :)

Check out the teaser here. You may have to turn up the quicktime volume. Some reason it saves with the volume turned all the way down.
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=111924
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top