Puppetry with live action

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Guest
I want to shoot a small eight inch character acting in shots with live actors at the same time. How can this best be done on a low budget and have it look good, meaning believable? I want moving shots, shots with the small character interacting with his environment, and so-on. What do you think? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

Well, with a low budget, having moving shots and the character interacting with surrounding objects *will* be very difficult if not impossible, if you're going for 100% realism.

I'd shoot the guy in front of a green screen, and get as many oversized items (for example, a six foot pencil, or whatever objects he'll be interacting with) for him to use. Getting that stuff will be hard, and moving shots will be ridiculously difficult. And make sure the eye lines aren't messed up - he's gotta look like he's looking at the people he's interacting with!

I think it's probably better to think a little smaller - maybe only show the guy in locked off shots? What you're trying to do has been done by Hollywood, and it still doesn't look right a lot of the time...
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

Do you mean the 8-inch character will appear to be human-sized? Greenscreen it.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

I was thinking of finding a pro puppeteer to give the eight inch character movement and then go through the pain stakingly long and slow process of removing the visible strings from each frame in post. However, this technique is only good for close to medium shots and wouldn't be really possible doing long shots of the character walking down the street for example. And I don't think the DVX100 has the resolution necessary to greenscreen an object only eight inches tall that is in a wide establishing shot quite a long distance from the camera.

I don't want to try stop-motion. It's too time consuming not to mention that I would probably suck at it.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

Well, in Standard Definition, you may not have sufficient resolution to shoot an 8 inch character on a wide shot, and then use that footage to composite him into the scene - but you can shoot him full frame, and then COMPOSITE him onto the backdrop.
You'll have all the detail needed to get a good mask, and then once you've made the greenscreen transparent, you can stick it onto the frame at a fraction of its original size...

The puppeteer idea is a good one methinks - you may not even really have to do that much work in post for the closer shots. If you get thin enough wires, they may not even show up on camera, especially if you're taking them into consideration when lighting the scene. I think that if you have the puppeteer, use him as much as possible, and only resort to compositing in a worst-case scenario.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

do you mean you want the puppet to be real size or just little size.. like chucky?
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

[quote author=Dave link=board=fx;num=1097435885;start=0#3 date=10/10/04 at 18:20:08]I don't think the DVX100 has the resolution necessary to greenscreen an object only eight inches tall that is in a wide establishing shot quite a long distance from the camera.[/quote]

The DVX has an excellent macro feature. As Mike says, shoot it filling the whole frame against a greenscreen (and the macro will help, as wrinkles, etc., in the greenscreen will be blurred out) and then adjust size in post.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

the 100 has a good macro, but the 100a has an incredible macro.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

Isn't there some sory of mathematical conversion that needs to be done when shooting miniatures? I remember seeing something about it like 3 months ago, I decided it was too difficult to commit to memory so I didn't bother. :P
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

ha! :) ..im actually doing this exact thing right now.. compositing in a puppet type charachter, into live action footage (dont ask :P ). all greenscreened. im using green painted or covered rods or wires and some really thin and clear fishing line to control the charachter so i dont have to remove them..they just key out the clear fishing line keys out fine cause the green backdrop shows through it. resolution holds up good enough for what im doing, but pending the outline of your character and what your trying to do im not sure if it would for you or not. anyhow i just shoot the charachter framed as i need him for the scene, and then composite into the scene. works really well.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

What about camera angle? If I'm filling the frame with my eight inch character for the purpose of compositing him into a wide shot of him walking down the street, then my camera angles will have to match. And also he would have to get gradually larger in the frame as he walks towards the camera. Then I would some how have to plot a path for him, in after effects, to follow as he's walking side by side with his human co-star.

Are you suggesting that he remain in one spot and have the puppeteer bounce him up and down as if he's walking in place or do you mean that he should actually walk along as I follow him with camera set on macro?
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

What about camera angle? If I'm filling the frame with my eight inch character for the purpose of compositing him into a wide shot of him walking down the street, then my camera angles will have to match. And also he would have to get gradually larger in the frame as he walks towards the camera. Then I would some how have to plot a path for him, in after effects, to follow as he's walking side by side with his human co-star.

Are you suggesting that he remain in one spot and have the puppeteer bounce him up and down as if he's walking in place or do you mean that he should actually walk along as I follow him with camera set on macro?
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

i just shoot the charachter filling as much frame as i can -with the section of the charachter i will need for the scene, and then just scale it in the compositor to be the right size .. and position it to the right place. so if i need a MCU of him talking, i shoot an MCU ofthe charachter, and just turn the charachter instead of moving the camera to a new angle, and light him like the scene is lit. then i just put him in the shot. so yes.. im doing it so that if hes walking, i fill the frame with the whole charachter.. then hes just moonwalking in place. and i rotate the charachter around instead of me changing the camera angle during a shot so the camera stays the same then the charachters angle will match the shot angle. i watch the scene when im moving the charachter to know what angle hes at, and what hes doing. then i just composite him into the shot,and scale him to the right dimensions, and just move him around the scene by using keyframed movement of the layer hes on i can match the movement the charachter is doing to where hes moving in the frame. so what im doing is keeping him in place making him look like hes moving, and then matching his position that i composite him in the screen to to his movements, and the live footage.
it looks pretty good, and im not realy going for ultra realism so it doesnt have to be pixel perfect.. hes supposed to be a cartoon like little charachter. so if his feet slide a little when hes walking its not so bad.. i have him jump around alot , or just didnt show his feet when hes walking to avoid that anyway. i show his feet if the shot called for it when hes standing still. cause its easy to just put him on the ground standing there.


it would be more accurate to figure the sclae of the charachter in the scene, and then actually move him around to scale and move the camera to match angles from the original live footage, but its way more work and time involved with a bigger set, and more people involved.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

..lots  ;)  i actually posted a couple a while back :
the top and bottom ones are from it, but they dont show the charachter im assuming youd like to see.   :-/   ..the project has been re- color corrected since these grabs though. in the top one hes yelling at the charachter.

http://www.dvxuser.com/cgi-bin/DVX2/YaBB.pl?board=Clips;action=display;num=1090671280;start=14#14


unfortunaley, im refraining from posting anything revealing from it untill the festival/contest its involved in is over. cause i dont want to give anything away with it.. its a very public type contest. ive been waiting to post some stuff from it for a while, but have been resisting the urge. im finishing it up this week with the last of the green screen work , and after the deadline is over ill post some  grabs. when the screening (if any is granted) is done ill post the whole vid.. :P
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

That puppet video was pretty cool. I need puppeteers who are that good to pull off the movements necessary in my projects. Damn, if only I had the budget for it.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

Anyone know where to get a green screen bodysuit, the kind worn by Andy Serkis (Gollum) in the Lord of the Rings live action shots to facilitate his removal (and replacement with a CG Gollum) in post?

I'm shooting a short involving a puppet as well (looks like there's a big puppet revival, judging from this thread) and ideally, I'd like to have the puppeteer wear the green suit so I can easily remove him from the frame, and to facilitate more elaborate puppet movement not limited to showing the puppet from the waist up.

A lot of the puppet movement I've shot so far has been achieved practically, with the puppeteer just off camera, but I need to have several full-body puppet shots with the puppet moving quickly, thus the need for the green screen body suit.

Not much info on the net about this, unfortunately.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

I just saw team america.. you should watch that movie to get some ideas on puppets.
 
Re: Puppetry with live action

[quote author=Dave link=board=fx;num=1097435885;start=15#16 date=10/14/04 at 11:18:57]That puppet video was pretty cool. I need puppeteers who are that good to pull off the movements necessary in my projects. Damn, if only I had the budget for it.[/quote]

your right. its hard to do a good looking job of puppeteering.

..i just finished up my greenscreening for my project yesterday with my wife helping me. alot of shots had the charachter on lines like a marionette, and at a couple times my wife and i just started laughing realy hard because we were making it move so stupid. but its supposed to be funny so then we started just making it move stupid on purpose.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top