The Schufftan Effect

[Marty Hamrick]

Does anyone have any experience with this,or any other effect where half silvered mirrors are used?I've seen the old diagrams showing how a half silvered mirror can be placed at a 45 degree angle to the lens and a male and female matte can be used on either side of the camera to do similar effects as is done with opticals or CGI.

 

It was used extensively in the film Metropolis and I was wondering if anyone is still messing with it today.

[e gustavo petersen]

Here's a non-matte related example. Back when I was a gaffer in the late 90 (wow, that sounds like I'm 100!), I worked on a show that did just that. It was an early HD feature length movie. We where taping (wow that leaves a bad taste in mouth) a guy through the window of a radio booth. Over his image, we processed pre-edited Super 8 footage of a girl that his dialogue was reminiscing about. I worked very nicely and didn't require any post work.

 

Later this year, I'm shooting a feature and the director wanting to do everything very old school so we're working with our special effects vendor to do a miniature what we'll be placing our actor in - all in camera.

 

Ah, Eugene Schufftan. Yet another giant whose shoulders we get to stand on.