Illusions in Using Miniatures in Film

In this age of computer graphics and animation, there is a special effects art form that's quickly losing popularity and earning a place in film making history. What is this art form? It's only the use of miniatures in film making. Have you ever watched those Godzilla movies in the past that didn't use any computer graphics animation? The destruction scenes of Tokyo and other suburbs used miniatures. They may be crude, but they do a nice job in convincing the audience that Japan is being trampled on by a giant lizard - at least for the duration of the movie.

Of course, there are miniature effects that are more convincing. In James Cameron's Titanic, the director used a partial scale replica of the rear part of the ship as the background of a scene with survivors in the water. Movies like the old Sinbad movies also used miniatures to film stop-motion creatures. In Superman, the Movie, miniatures were used to show the effects of the shifting of the San Andreas fault. Indeed, for years, movie audiences were agape in fascination with these miniatures because they were very effective.

It may be old, but the technique of using miniatures for special effects is not dead. In fact, it is something that budding film makers can use quite effectively. They only need to know a few things about using miniatures to make the scenes more realistic. For example, since the laws of physics (like gravity) makes small objects behave differently, making them look small, film makers "overcrank" their cameras. In other words, they shoot the miniature scenes with a very high frame rate per second. This allows the motions of the scene to be slowed down, making it appear that a falling tiny Statue of Liberty is actually the real thing that's heavy and massive.

Overcranking usually solves motion problem, except for water shoots. In small-scale, a tiny waterfall or tidal wave would produce droplets that are too large for scale. This discrepacny does not escape the human eye. The solution would be to make associated scale models like ships bigger so that the water flow and clumping appear more natural. This was also done by director Cameron in Titanic. Ship models a fraction of the original size were made for ocean scenes.

Miniatures can be mixed or composited with normal scale live action scenes. They can be placed on the foreground and made to appear as if they are in the background at a distance from the subjects. This technique is called forced perspective and was often used to fake UFO photographs in the past. Another technique would be to use a mirror with the silver (reflective material) scratched out a section. The miniatures are filmed through this hole as the normal scale scene plays as a reflection in the mirror. It can be tricky, but it really works. A variation of this is to use a matte painting on glass with open spaces through which the miniature scene is filmed.

There are many ways to use miniatures in film. Just be creative and you may find use for it still in this age of computers!

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Some Secrets in Making a Terminator Movie Robot Look Real Revealed

Terminator: Salvation director, McG had a few things to say about how he makes the post-apocalyptic world of the possible future realistic. In the official blog of the Terminator: Salvation movie, Visual Effects supervisor Charles Gibson revealed that McG combined science-fiction, horror, and action seamlessly in the movie using such techniques as brisk camerawork. For his part, Gibson said the challenge was to "bury the effects into the photography."

Gibson's words may be a bit vague but it may be his way of saying that the special effects (whether computer-generated or mechanical) are supposed to be unnoticed in the presentation. That aside, there's also the need to make things believable such that the elements in the movie, whether flesh-covered robot or flying killer machines, are seen as plausible. The video above gives some hints as to how a Terminator movie robot is made to look real.

The original design of the terminators was from Stan Winston, who passed away in June 15, 2008. He made a cameo appearance in Terminator: Salvation as a resistance fighter who encounters a hydrobot, one of his creations.

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DIY Movie Knife Throw Special Effects Are Easy to Do Safely at Home

In the movie Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (above), which stars Rhona Mitra, there are lots of bladed weapons being swung and thrown.

In horror movies like this (left picture is a scene from Halloween), there's almost always the popular knife-throw special effects. You know, someone throws a bladed weapon and it sticks into something - like a wall.

Well, one way of duplicating this effect is to have the blade already placed beforehand in the spot of impact. It works quite well with long, thin blades, like those used in wushu, because you can make the blade quiver before the camera pans to it from the direction of the blade thrower. This is ideal if the sequence starts with the thrower and the camera "follows" the flight of the blade (which should be just for an instant), unti it hist the target. It takes timing, but it's doable and easy.

Another knife throw effect that's easy to do is to prepare the point of impact to receive the blade. Only this time, the blade would be coming from the other side of the target (like a thin wall). The thrower pretends to throw the blade, but what he really does is to drop it behind him and just goes through the motions. In time with the action, a stage hand drives the "real" blade from behind the wall, giving the illusion that it was the one that came from the thrower's hand. This technique is a favorite of stage magicians, but if also sometimes used in movie shoots as a mechanical effect.

Here is a video where you can learn more about do-it-yourself knife-throw special effects in filming.



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Virtual Mars Rovers Created with Hollywood Sfx

These two "photos" of Martian rovers look unerringly realistic, as if another rover or astronaut took the pictures. But no, they're not real. They're composites made using rover models and actual photos of the Martian surface taken by the real rovers on Mars.

The colored picture is that of the rover Spirit on the flank of Husband Hill on Mars. The black and white picture is of the same rover in the Columbia Hills. They were made using the Virtual Presence in Space technology developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. It is a mix of image-processing technology, visualization, and cinema special effects.

Developers say the "synthesis gives a virtual presence to viewers which can help in space mission planning, to accustom people in navigating in an alien environment.

In a related visual technology, scientists are now able to experience the surface of other planets like Mars using Hollywood 3D technology which was used in one of the movies in the Nightmare in Elm Street series. You can view the picture below of the Martian surface in 3D using special movie house red and blue glasses.


Click here to explore more of outer space in 3D. Requires red-blue 3D glasses.

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Hellboy 2 Creatures Trimmed Down Due to Production Limitations

When Hellboy II was first envisioned, producers say it had plenty of creatures and most of them weren't even supposed to be rendered in CG. A lot had to be fleshed out using traditional prosthetics, makeup, and the usual costumes and silicon over skin. One of the creature subcontractors, Creature FX says there were originally thousands planned in the script---the movie's secondary title is, after all, The Golden Army.

The studio had to rethink things and ended up toning down on creatures and physical effects. But in spite of the trimming down, it was still one hell of the job for the effects team--- and the actors of course, who had to endure hours of production time waiting in full makeup just in case they were needed on a take. Doug Jones, who played Abe Sapiens was reportedly in full "fish" outfit for 108 days during the shoot.

The effort put in by the effects and makeup people can really be appreciated in the Troll Market scene, where creatures you've never seen before are made to walk, talk, and hawk.

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Interview with Ron Perlman in full Hellboy 2 makeup

Secrets of A Scanner Darkly

The movie, A Scanner Darkly, directed by Richard Linklater, didn't really embed itself into public consciousness, but it did get the attention of artists and animators. The question that a lot of people lucky enough to watch it is: How did they make a live-action film look like an animated one?

The answer can be summed up by one word: rotoscoping. This technique is an old one which was popular prior to the days of computer graphics. You can see it in action in such classics like Star Trek (the original series). It's basically tracing an object to be placed onto a different background or given a different texture.

In A Scanner Darkly, digital video footage was overlaid with animation to give the resulting "unreal" characters a fluid motion with shifting patches of color hues. Linklater used a software called Rotoshop, which was also applied in a previous project called Waking Life.

The Rotoshop was developed in the late 1980s by Waking animation director Bob Sabiston. It lets an animator with a Wacom tablet to trace over characters in DV footage, skip a few frames, and let the software do the tweening, or in-between rendering.

Basically, A Scanner Darkly was shot and edited like a normal film (in DV), an then it went into production for the animation overlay. Producer Tommy Pallotta says it's like making the same movie twice.

Shown in the pictures is actress Wynona Ryder as she would appear as a Rotoshopped cartoon.