LexieDavey Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Hello, I know these are more theatre forums, and this might not be much to do with beginning in the industry, but I have no where else to go!! I'm a media and film technician for 16-18 year olds. For their second year coursework projects, they make music videos, and I just need somewhere where I can ask how to produce decent enough sets and light these sets well with...basically anything I can find. I've looked everywhere and there isn't a place I can just go to ask for clever tips and tricks, and I thought, seen as I'm attempting to make and dress small temporary sets, I could come here? I have a few things I wanted to know right now, but I'll always have questions. 1. I need to find a way to throw paint at a wall...the wall being a fake wall, I don't want the students to get arrested or anything! I suggested they used coloured milk so we can film the paint travelling through the air, but once it lands, if they need it to physically land on the wall, I don't know what to do. I've currently suggested they do a lot of it during editing, but obviously, faking it digitally won't give you the effect of paint running between the gaps. Any good ideas that don't require huge amounts of cleaning up? 2. A group wants to wreck a room. Feathers flying etc. I've tried just throwing feathers up and letting them fall, it never looks right. If I can't get hold of a fan, is there another clever trick to create this? We don't have a lovely high ceiling I can get up to and drop them. Boo. I know. 3. Same group are dead set on smashing some form of glass. With no budget, they can't buy sugar glass objects, so I wanted to know if anyone knows of anything cheaper and safer that they COULD use. Or a clever trick of the light that I can use.... talking of lights... 4. Any clever way of lighting things with all of three, maybe two redheads? No specific effects at the moment, just anyone know any clever tricks? Like using a specific angle or frost or something that makes the light look totally different? I've had some help and advice, I just thought it would be nice to 'collect' a whole bunch of ideas! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 If its a fake wall whats wrong with paint on it? Other than making a drop not really. We did do a pillow fight once and stuffed the case with the pillow and topped with feathers so as it hit it exploded in a plume, we did use quite a bit though. Other than a pre broken plastic glass not really. Depends on how they want to use it, good movements with the cam might work. Whatever works best ! I would hope that as 2nd years that have some idea on what works with lighting, then again we had second years who were oblivious to white balance. To be fair I would hope they are creating risk assessments for all this. We would not let students film until we had checked off the RA's and made them discover why breaking glass was not a great idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LexieDavey Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 If its a fake wall whats wrong with paint on it? Other than making a drop not really. We did do a pillow fight once and stuffed the case with the pillow and topped with feathers so as it hit it exploded in a plume, we did use quite a bit though. Other than a pre broken plastic glass not really. Depends on how they want to use it, good movements with the cam might work. Whatever works best ! I would hope that as 2nd years that have some idea on what works with lighting, then again we had second years who were oblivious to white balance. To be fair I would hope they are creating risk assessments for all this. We would not let students film until we had checked off the RA's and made them discover why breaking glass was not a great idea. Ah yes... it's not my fake wall, it's a borrowed one, and we have no floor cover, so the paint will just make a mess. So if it was something that could be washed away with water, yet be good enough to make a solid splat. This one isn't too much of an issue, we have a plan B, using real paint would just make it look better. Yes... the second years have got an idea in their head, it was a mirror at first, we said it was too dangerous, use something else like a photo frame, they went away and thought a vase would be safer... so before I totally break their ideas, I thought I would check I haven't missed some amazing new material that won't injure anyone! The second years want some clever editing where a little girl flickers into a big girl in the same room, yet hadn't thought about filming the big girl at all....so... guidance and encouragement is method! Thanks for the tips, I will tell them to get a lot more feathers that what they intended.I'm sure I'll have more questions to follow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Floor covering, chat with your maintenance dept, I assume they paint walls. I think between 6 pillows we used 1 or 2 pillows worth. If you cant afford sugarglass the other options are more expensive, people make plastic rubber resin things to break which are good. If they want to make a picture break they could easily make sugar glass themselves lots of how to online. They could even make a big sheet and cover with ali tape (sticky thin tinfoil) it will look enough like a mirror for filming and they could shoot with a real mirror until its broken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 Paint-at-wall - you want to be looking for something that's /not/ paint (ie doesn't have pigment dyes in it) but which is the same consistency & water based so that afterwards a quick hose-down and it's all gone. I'm not going to spoon-feed you specific products but go wander around the supermarket and you'll find several great products that fit this specification.... Glass - no, it's sugar glass or nothing at all. The hassles (and risks) involved in breaking actual glass or almost any other glass-like object almost always fail the risk-assessment. Would now not be a good time to teach them the value of spending some money either on a proper effects designer, or on some actual sugar glass which they use to plan and film some stock footage which multiple people could use if it's filmed properly? A valuable lesson about budgeting, practicality, risk-assessment and planning shots all rolled in to one. You might also want to have a word with them about the "art" of film-making; some of the most famous and respected films of all time /don't/ actually show you the things you think they do (Alien never shows any more than a glimpse of the aliens) precisely because the film-makers didn't have the budget or resources to present things literally, forcing them to find creative ways to convey the ideas through suggestion and art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
empyfree Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 For the feathers, shoot in a high frame rate then slow it down! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave m Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 never done it but I would guess that a smallish space is best to be used for the pillow fight with some hidden desk type fans to try to keep the feathers in the air? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LexieDavey Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 Thank you so much for all of this.We have tried to tell the group all about budget and storyboarding a hundred times, and it's not going through. I really needed them to see that it's not just us making it difficult.I think if I say a bunch of professionals can't see a way round this, they might understand. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 erm basic tennant of teaching - stuff you're told isn't nearly as memorable or impactful as stuff you do and discover yourself. Saying to them "this annonymous group of people on the internet says it's not possible" isn't going to convince them of anything, asking them how they would do it, getting them to do the research themselves and them learning about risk-assesments and the importance of asking for things that are actually possible within your budget are all very valuable lessons they could be learning right now from this.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LexieDavey Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 Oh I'm not the teacher, I'm just the technician.It wasn't so much the teaching I needed help on, just the practicality of things and whether there was any cheap tricks people have discovered over the years to create something special. I just wanted to see as a last resort if there's anything we could let them know about before telling them it's not possible.They know about risk assessments, health and safety, planning etc. They're just stuck on this idea at the moment and seem to be finding it hard to move away from it. And I just though letting them know that 'we've asked around', and unless they can find something, because we can't, then we would suggest not using glass. (In fact, we've suggested just using a photo frame that breaks already, but that was lost.) They are 17 years old with very strong ideas that won't stop. We're a normal school with a very small media department, and they want to create a specialist media school video, with specialist budgets. They get to the point where they're just about to learn the lesson of planning and then stop. Which is our issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 It wasn't a critique, it was a pointer of how best to deal with this. Just telling them "someone says it's impossible" is a waste of time; they won't learn anything and they won't believe you because they can youtube 101 clips of other people doing this in other films. Thus you need to speak to the course tutors and get them to understand the importance of teaching the kids these process's and research procedures now - they've got to learn this stuff at some point and if they learn it now everyone will have a much less stressful year AND they will be better filmmakers because they understand more of the process and get to use their artistic skills to overcome problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave m Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 with respect to lighting and two redheads, bouncing the light will give you soft even lighting. using three gives more depth if you use 3 point ;ighting - otherwise it can look like a floodlit car park using huge sheets of polystyrene ( paint attention to the fact that it's flamable) will help to bounce and soften the light. cotton sheets on frames work but not as well. Tin foil can be used as reflectors. Avoid pointing the light at the subject. Using a white ceiling as a bounce also works. Look at some "splosh" videos which are an er.... gentleman's specialist video for ideas re the paint? 7 hours set up/clean up and 1 hr shooting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LexieDavey Posted October 15, 2014 Author Share Posted October 15, 2014 Amazing advice everyone, thank you!! Alex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted October 15, 2014 Share Posted October 15, 2014 get em to make there own sugar glass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.