dry for wet

[Bjorn Charpentier]

hey, i'm a belgium DP and will shoot a submarine shortfilm shortly

we have scale submarines and I'm wondering how to shoot dry for wet in studio

are there rules or fx (smoke)I need to know

 

thanks

bjorn

[Chris Keth]

Hi, Bjorn. I don't have a lot of model experience but I did this same thing once and was happy with what I got. Everything was shot against a very dark blue seamless background. There was a light layer of haze (make sure it's completely even, any visible wisps give it away) to give some atmospheric perspective. Lighting was soft toplight with some strength (I forget which) of calcolor cyan mixed with CTB. I made the toplight softer and less intense as the sub was supposed to be deeper.

 

With the haze, it was pretty effective to move away from the backdrop and arrange the models in three dimensions. You only need a light layer for the effect to read.

[Al DeLory]

Bjorn,

As Chris mentioned, the smoke layer is very important... smooth and even. Deep sub shots don't require as much attention to lighting, but here's a trick for 'shallower' shots. We started with a set-up as described... large dark backdrop, model suspended on monofilament in front and dolly track for smooth controlled movements. Behind the backdrop, atop a stepladder, we placed a large flat tray (like a lasagna dish) with smashed-up mirror pieces and about an inch or two of water in it. We shone a Leico at about a 45 degree angle into the dish of water and mirror and gently stirred the water. This reflected upwards, where we had someone holding a large mirror above the backdrop to reflect the light back down onto the model. As the water tray was stirred, it reflected beautiful fingers of dancing light onto the model from above, making it look like sunlight penetrating the 'smoky' depths. As always, the level of smoke was very important to be able to see these highlights. This ended up giving us some absolutely tremendous shots.

Good luck !

 

AL

[Chris Keth]

Sounds nice, Al. Gotta love the water gag. Do you have any stills you could post?

[Bjorn Charpentier]

thank you very much

 

is there any type of smoke I need to use

I also saw that the camera speed is important

Reel model / scame model X 24= camera speed (is that correct).

 

greetz

bjorn

 

 

Bjorn,

As Chris mentioned, the smoke layer is very important... smooth and even. Deep sub shots don't require as much attention to lighting, but here's a trick for 'shallower' shots. We started with a set-up as described... large dark backdrop, model suspended on monofilament in front and dolly track for smooth controlled movements. Behind the backdrop, atop a stepladder, we placed a large flat tray (like a lasagna dish) with smashed-up mirror pieces and about an inch or two of water in it. We shone a Leico at about a 45 degree angle into the dish of water and mirror and gently stirred the water. This reflected upwards, where we had someone holding a large mirror above the backdrop to reflect the light back down onto the model. As the water tray was stirred, it reflected beautiful fingers of dancing light onto the model from above, making it look like sunlight penetrating the 'smoky' depths. As always, the level of smoke was very important to be able to see these highlights. This ended up giving us some absolutely tremendous shots.

Good luck !

 

AL

[timHealy]

maybe you can look for the cinefex magazine about the hunt for red october. it is one of my favorite sub movies and i believe they did dry for wet

 

best

 

tim

[Al DeLory]

Unfortunately I don't have any pics from my sub shoot... we did it back in like 1994 or 1995 and I don't even have a copy of it anymore. (for shame) My business partner from the project has a copy but we've parted ways since then.

 

A good point that was brought up though was camera speed. I don't recall the actual frame rate we used, but is was definately overcranked. Not to the extreme, but enough to smooth out the camera move since we were not using motion control.

 

And again, the amount of fogging more or less depends on the sub depth you want to simulate. Deeper is darker obviously.

 

Hunt for Red October is an excellent example of dry-for-wet as is The Abyss. The Abyss used extensive motion control and even tiny projectors inside the mini-subs to project the image of the sub operator out of the sub window, frame by frame.