Scrubs Opening - How

J

JoshuaK

Member
This post is probably about five years slow but how was the Scrubs opening accomplished? I don't know if they've changed it but I'm referring to the first season where the camera pushes in on the hospital bed and each character follows the same path.
 
Scrubs is almost always really clever about their editing and transitions.

I think, just based on watching it alot that they just shot the scene a bunch of different times with the cast members going through the complete motion of checking on the patient and placing the x-ray on the wall. Then probably just layered it over each other and dissolved. As far as how the people dissolve and the scene stays constant (while still moving) I guess thats the big question, huh?
 
And the answer is motion control...the scene was laid out and programmed in one day and then shot the next, on the Scrubs set. I forgot which mo-co rig in particular was used (I stuck my head in and checked it out while they were programming but didn't watch the actual shooting, was too busy on the first unit!). There have been tons of letters over the years about the fact that the x-ray is upside down...no-one seems to have noticed that the tape on the camera mag can be seen reflected in the x-ray, just as the camera comes to a stop (I forgot offhand if it's yellow or red).

In the second season a more elaborate opening was shot using the same technique (and adding the Janitor character) but it only aired a couple of times as it was unpopular with the fans, and also longer, which meant less time for the show itself.
 
still a great show, a lot of the into the darkness and out editing.. easy but effective. zach braff is histerical
 
You could duplicate that opening effect without all the motion control hardware, like any of us could afford that stuff on our own, anyway. Good old Gurilla Video techniques could be used. You'd have to mark the floor for your actors and camera dolly, time the shots, be very careful, pay attention to details, and you could get something very close to it. It'd be some work, but you could do it.

Love the Scrubs...
 
I've done rough versions of this kind of idea--you can get away with it to an extent if you can take the time to do multiple takes of each pass and pick the best one, but considering the number of dissolves that are in that opening, that would be very time consuming. If there isn't some degree of accuracy to the background it will have a very different effect, it will be jumping around as much as the foreground actors. It would be more like that technique that was in vogue a few years ago that involved a series of cameras bolted together onto a frame and morphing between the views, there was a Rolling Stones video that used it.

I own a remote head that has programmable pan and tilt (and I have had a dongle built that adds focus, iris and zoom into the mix) and have done some pretty cool stuff with it. We actually used it on Scrubs for a couple of effects shots in second season, including one where Donald Faison is hallucinating multiple appearances of one of his patients; the camera pans around the cafeteria to pick out the guy in three different places. We had to use a green screen for one of the passes as he walked behind another version of himself. It was a pretty frazzling shot to do on a TV schedule (instead of a day to program I had more like an hour!). Basic mo-co of this type is technically pretty easy (and not that expensive, my head rents at $400/day), it gets more complicated when you need to physically move the camera through space. The rigs used to do this are pretty amazing to watch do their thing.
 
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Charles,

Thanks for the info. I suspected it was motion control based on a scene in RULES OF ATTRACTION that introduced me to the concept but I wasn't sure. In addition to tape showing, there's obvious things like the IV bag that keeps changing. Either way, the effect is cool.

Thanks again for the input.

-j
 
One thing that really helps when doing this sort of thing is simultaneously recording to a laptop and making test composites to check the results. On the shot I described above I had a friend come along and build a rough version of the final shot as we were collecting the elements, so we knew it would work (i.e didn't have anyone crossing over the matte lines, etc.)
 
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