red eye effect

[Ian Coad]

for a long time i've been wanting to know how to get that 'red eye' effect that you see in tons of low quality consumer-grade photographs, often from disposable cameras. this effect showed up in blade runner (the owl) and in some of the replicants eyes. mark romanek's music video for fiona apple, 'criminal' recreated the disposable camera effect - light over the camera, lots of fall off, red eyes.

 

i red something about it on wikipedia mentioning that it had to do with the fact that with flash photography the iris in the human eye doesn't have time to close before the flash goes off, so light bouces off the back of the eye and is reflected back towards camera.

 

any suggestions of how to do this?

[John Sprung]

What you want is a bright hard light as close to camera as possible. It is in fact light bouncing off your retina and back out thru the iris. Nocturnal animals often have even more reflective retinas than we do, which is why you see their eyes reflecting your car headlights.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Ian Coad]

thats pretty much what i thought, which is why i feel like i have to wrap my head around what cronenweth did: http://www.scifitv.com.au/Content/Blog/Pic..._525/blade4.jpg

 

the relationship of that bright light close to camera, yet not overpowering the rest of the light shaping the faces

[Chris Keth]

thats pretty much what i thought, which is why i feel like i have to wrap my head around what cronenweth did: http://www.scifitv.com.au/Content/Blog/Pic..._525/blade4.jpg

 

the relationship of that bright light close to camera, yet not overpowering the rest of the light shaping the faces

 

Once you know the trick, it's really not all that hard to do because the light needed isn't all that bright if it's perfectly on the lens axis. For Blade Runner, a rig was built that is essentially the same as a teleprompter. A sheet of glass or half-silvered mirror is positioned at 45 degrees to the lens. A light is aimed 90 degrees to the lens axis so that it reflects off of the glass and straight down the lens axis. I've done it in lower light levels, fairly close to the talent with a 1x1 lite panel and a sheet of plain glass.

[John Sprung]

Good idea. You could also use a fully silvered mirror with a hole in it for the lens. Have a glass shop cut it for you, or use a plastic mirror.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Chris Millar]

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?sh...hl=teleprompter

[Keith Walters]

for a long time i've been wanting to know how to get that 'red eye' effect that you see in tons of low quality consumer-grade photographs, often from disposable cameras. this effect showed up in blade runner (the owl) and in some of the replicants eyes. mark romanek's music video for fiona apple, 'criminal' recreated the disposable camera effect - light over the camera, lots of fall off, red eyes.

 

i red something about it on wikipedia mentioning that it had to do with the fact that with flash photography the iris in the human eye doesn't have time to close before the flash goes off, so light bouces off the back of the eye and is reflected back towards camera.

 

any suggestions of how to do this?

There are quite a few problems involved here.

First of all, the Wikipedia is correct in that the “red eye” effect from cheap stills cameras comes from the flash going off while the irises of the subjects’ eyes are still wide open. More up-market cameras simply shine a light in the subjects’ eyes to close their irises down a bit before the flash goes off. (Some cameras attempt to achieve this by firing the flash a couple of times before the picture is actually taken, but the trouble with this is that the subjects often drop their pose after the first flash!)

 

With motion pictures, this effect cannot easily be achieved, because the light needed to produce the red-eye phenomenon will of course cause the subjects’ irises to close up. Also, by the time most people reach their 30s, the amount their irises open up in low light starts to progressively reduce. By the time they reach their mid-50s the irises remain almost permanently closed down, which is one reason why older people find night driving more difficult.

 

One way of overcoming these problems is to simply hire or otherwise persuade an ophthalmologist to administer a couple of drops of the atropine muscle relaxant they use to the actors’ eyes. This will make their irises open up fully and remain unresponsive to the light level. (They will need to wear sunglasses until the drops wear off). You might be able to simply obtain the drops and have the on-set nurse administer them, if one is available. They did this on an episode of “Mythbusters” once, so there appears to be no legal obstacle, and these drops are widely used as part of eye examination procedures.

Once the irises are opened up, any point-source light such as a single-LED flashlight should produce the effect.

[Chris Millar]

or give em an E :blink: