Jump to content

Lighting A Ghost


Recommended Posts

I have started a short film project on the legend of La Llorona. A Mexican Folklore tale of the ghost named the Weeping Woman. Last year I saw a 'Got Milk' commercial starring "La Llorona". I would like to make the ghost seem transluscent and a slightly glowing blue. But I would like some advice as to how to film this. I thought about shooting each scene twice, once with her there and once without. Or maybe just use a green screen composite. Please share any ideas.

 

Thanks. :huh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I googled "Got Milk La Llorona" and it turned up lots of info about the commercial and the success it had/didn't have in the hispanic market but couldnt' find the actual video.

 

But, lots of images were found and here is what I can think of.

 

She looks like she is dressed in a white gown kind of like a wedding gown, if you do the same thing, you could light her one or two stops brighter than anyone else, or you could use spot lighting on just her. IE: I would use a 1000w with blue gel just spotting her and have the light come from above her so that it gives her this omious look whenever she is on screen. For the close ups, just bounce the card from the bottom and put another light from behind her with a blue gel so that it gives the illusion she is in three d space.

 

Make up would have to come into play to make her face up really pale so that when the light hits her it looks unreal. Very dark eye line, and perhaps even black/blue/purple lipstick.

 

My only problem, which I ran into before when trying to film couple of music videos with green screen is rotoscroping it later to match the action. If you have the $$$ to do it. Go for it, but I think I would go practical and over expose her a stop or two or gel the hel out of her. One thing would be that you will have to pre-plan all your lighting in advance.

 

C.-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's just a few thoughts, as I want to produce a similar effect with my Bolex. I would film the set, (under normal lighting), without the "ghost," (noting the frames used), rewind the film back to the first frame, add a diffusion filter, and, then, film only the "ghost" on the set, (with all lights off except a small spotlight directly on the "ghost"). By removing a door or object, and by controlling the area illuminated by the spotlight, (or using a black curtain), the "ghost" might walk through a door or object, and it could be made to materialize, glow, or disappear by varying the intensity of the spotlight, (or by using the shutter control).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

If you planned it carefully enough, you could do it with double-exposure or a simply composite in post without needing a greenscreen. You could shoot the ghost against a black screen, overexposed with diffusion on the lens, and simply overlay the image or use a luminence key instead of a chroma key, but only half-way key her in so she is more translucent.

 

The trick is choreographing her so she matches the environment. You can even use black foreground objects that match objects in the real set so that she goes "behind" them. Obviously this is all easier in a locked-off shot.

 

Another method if you are on a stage is to use a partial glass mirror and simply reflect the ghost from off-camera standing against black, with the set in front of you. But you lose the ability to have lens diffusion on her but not the background.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
Another method if you are on a stage is to use a partial glass mirror and simply reflect the ghost from off-camera standing against black, with the set in front of you. But you lose the ability to have lens diffusion on her but not the background.

Hmmm.... There might be a way to rig that diffusion. If we make the partial mirror as small as possible and as close to the lens as possible, and we rent big diffusion filters, like 4x6. Filters with a visible pattern like stars might not work, but most everything else should be OK. I'd start by building a little platform that clamps onto the matte box rails, maybe a scrap of plywood. The rest could be show card and black camera tape. This could be the most cost-effective approach.

 

 

-- J.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

I'd most likely blue screen it. Film the character, get the transparent layer, filter it with blue and then add it to the film, but give it a 50% transparency to give it a see through ghost effect.

 

Surely programs like Photoshop could give it some kind of an extra blue glow around the character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With Photoshop you will have to export each frame of the scene and fiddle with it. So at 24 frames per second, if you have an extended scenes with La Llorona, this will become xtremly onerous.

 

After Effects will probably be a better solution. You could do something similar as to what everyone that has done in a star wars fan film done for light sabers.

 

C.-

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
With Photoshop you will have to export each frame of the scene and fiddle with it. So at 24 frames per second, if you have an extended scenes with La Llorona, this will become xtremly onerous.

 

Just import it as a film strip, and then apply a glow around edges to the whole strip. This takes a huge amount of processing power though. So a very stable or very fast system is needed. It can still be done with slow computers but it will take a very long time and if it's not stable then the chances are it will crash.

 

Editing film strips properly is where the G5's come in, aswell as lots of money....

 

You could do something similar as to what everyone that has done in a star wars fan film done for light sabers.

 

Well, it will probably do the same as Photoshop. It involves importing the film strip and creating the light saber glow for each and every frame. And since as Photoshop is designed for advanced graphics I'd imagine it would be easier.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
you could do it with double-exposure

 

I suppose that would work but your using the same background in both exposures so the background would come out over exposed. You could always higher or lower the light levels on the shot without the character though.

 

I suppose double exposing must be quite a challenge in film. Unless you somehow got a 60 fps camera and used two frames for each of the exposing areas on the film.

 

--------------------

 

Oh and also, when you shoot the ghost, if your camera has DSE effects try and give it a motion blur or ghosting effect. Failing that lower the shutters speed. It should give it a soft trail behind, might look quite good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith

Can you even do double exposures in film? Thing is when you shoot the second scene you?ll have to rewind the film and stop it in the exact position. And unless you have some special marker on it, that?s gonna be a bit tricky, hit and miss sort of thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another method if you are on a stage is to use a partial glass mirror and simply reflect the ghost from off-camera standing against black, with the set in front of you. But you lose the ability to have lens diffusion on her but not the background.

 

It's a very good solution and requires no post production work. I did a similar setup on a very low budget film, and for this kind of ghost effect it is not necessary to use a high quality front surface silvered mirror, a sheet of glass will do it.

To get some diffusion on the ghost, we stretched a household plastic wrap foil (actually for kitchen use) between mirror and "ghost", which produced both a diffusion and slight deformations of the image. It certainly looked like an expensive effect! The actor was strongly backlit from below which gave a slight halo contour through the plastic wrap.

 

We tried a thicker foil sold for gardening purposes and it looked spectacular, but the actor's features were not recognizable any more which was a must in that shot.

 

Just my $ 0.02...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm all for doing as much in-camera as possible but, I'd shoot it bluescreen and composite in After Effects. Actually, I'd probably try it both ways and have the bluescreen shot as a backup. You have alot more control and can experiment with different techniques in AE. It seems like a fairly simple composite - key out the ghost, adjust opacity, add a blur and maybe a plug-in effect like Shine. http://www.trapcode.com/products_shine.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

More than anything it's a matter of how much they can spend on this shot. The partial mirror rig could probably be scrounged up for under $20 if you really had to. Or you could just write a big number on a check to ILM. There's a huge continuum of cost and control here.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two words for you ?Pepper?s Ghost?. I?ve done this effect many times. It is fun and it takes a little magic show to produce it. It can be easily achieved with a ?Ghost Matte Box?. It?s a matte box with an angled piece of glass and was very popular from the 20? to the 50?s. Point the camera at your lit set and lock it off. Turn off the lights on the set and illuminate the area reflected in the matt box with a work light. You will see it through the view finder like you are looking at something in front of you. Hang a black, a 12 x12 might just be big enough, so that all you see is the black. Actually you won?t see it because it is black. . Turn the stage lights back on. Have an actor stand in the real set where you want the ghost to appear. Have your actress stand in the ?Ghost? set and move her until her reflection matches the stand in. Now light her so she looks ghosty. It will take more light then you think because it only a partial reflection. But playing her under key will help the ghost elements. If she needs to walk behind objects make solid black versions on the ghost side to matte out her reflection so she can walk behind a table for example. I find that if you stretch a nylon stocking between the mirror and the reflection but not between the lens and the mirror it will help her ghostiness. She will look better against darker rather then lighter objects. Try an e-fan on her clothes. Try slow motion if you can get away with it. One problem is the camera must be locked off. If you operate the ghost image goes nuts. I believe if you took a large high quality piece of glass 3? x 3?, mounted it separate from the camera, and use a nodal head like a weaver you may be able to operate. I haven?t done this yet.

 

The "Ghost Matte Box" is the easiest way to so the effect but I've also done it using a 6x6 optical flat on a prime and rocked the Matte box out to 45%. This worked pretty well. In a jam last year I did it with a 4x5 optical flat and it was very difficult forcing me to use a longer prime then I wanted and I spent a long time lining up the effect. Regardless ?Pepper?s Ghost? has been a fun old fashion and still effective technique.

 

Bob

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

bob's i dea and the previous stated are exceptionaly easy. You can create a housing to hold the 50% silvered glass cheaply which can attach to the mattebox rods set at a 45 degree angle to the film plane(helps if it is made to change its angle slightly). the only pricey part is the half silvered glass. I think that a company named pancro does this, but this was a long time ago. good luck. effect looks great when it comes out. Just remeber that the glass soaks up 50% of the light.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you even do double exposures in film? Thing is when you shoot the second scene you?ll have to rewind the film and stop it in the exact position. And unless you have some special marker on it, that?s gonna be a bit tricky, hit and miss sort of thing.

 

 

All you have to do is put the film in the gate remove the lens and use a marker to mark which frame is in the gate. Then string out some of the head of the roll and draw a line along its length through your gate mark for a few feet on either side.

 

When shooting, shoot a pass with lit foreground and background. Then rewind the film (will require different methods for different cameras) find your mark and align it with the gate. Then kill the lighting on the FG and BG and cover them with commando cloth. FG objects will need to be covered exactly. Then light just the ghost for the second pass. It's easy to make the ghost appear and dissapear by using a dimmer.

 

The problems you will run into are camera registration and getting the action to match. But if you have a small area and a locked off shot, it works beautifully.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith
All you have to do is put the film in the gate remove the lens and use a marker to mark which frame is in the gate.  Then string out some of the head of the roll and draw a line along its length through your gate mark for a few feet on either side.

 

When shooting, shoot a pass with lit foreground and background.  Then rewind the film (will require different methods for different cameras) find your mark and align it with the gate.  Then kill the lighting on the FG and BG and cover them with commando cloth.  FG objects will need to be covered exactly.  Then light just the ghost for the second pass.  It's easy to make the ghost appear and dissapear by using a dimmer. 

 

The problems you will run into are camera registration and getting the action to match.  But if you have a small area and a locked off shot, it works beautifully.

 

Wow... (Think I'l stick to doing it digitally... Less money and not to mention crap involved)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...