Wednesday, 16 May 2018

film techniques - Walking around someone who is moving in Slow Motion?

In the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series musical episode, "Once More With Feeling", during the Giles and Buffy fight montage (Song: 'Standing in the Way') there is a scene where Buffy is hitting a punching bag in slow motion. Giles in regular speed is singing, he walks in front of her and then behind her.


I can understand how one layer is through a green screen. I'm not entirely sure how it worked for two layers in real time.


Can anyone give a quick synopses how this worked?


Answer


Can't recall the particular shot, but the effect is commonly created using multiple composite layers


Typically there will be three layers



  • the person walking in real time,

  • the person in slow time,

  • the background


Each is filmed separately as individual layers.


For the "people" layers only the people (and I guess the punchbag in this case) are used - the rest of the layer is transparent.


Now in editing a composite is done with the background layer, then the Buffy layer, then the Giles layer. When Giles moves behind Buffy the editor simply swaps over the order of those two layers at that point. So



  • Background > Buffy > Giles


Becomes:



  • Background > Giles > Buffy


The result is that they then appear behind.


Filming wise this probably means that both actors were acting in front of a Chroma key (green) screen. Also if the camera was moving in the shot then a motion controlled camera is likely to ensure that each element of the composite was filmed from the same angle throughout the shot.


No comments:

Post a Comment

casting - Why wasn't Tobey Maguire in The Amazing Spider-Man? - Movies & TV

In the Spider-Man franchise, Tobey Maguire is an outstanding performer as a Spider-Man and also reprised his role in the sequels Spider-Man...