The Final Cut - mirror shot

[Heidi Strand]

Take a look at 0:16 when the person looks at the sink and then in to the mirror.

 

 

Does anyone know how its done? Special effects or great production design??

[Jim Hyslop]

Well, to be pedantic, no matter how the shot was accomplished it was "special effects" :-)

 

I can't tell. Given that the effect is repeated several times in several different bathrooms, I'd lean towards a green screen on the mirror and lots of post-production work and attention to detail.

 

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Jim

[Guest Tim Partridge]

Looks like it's very simply two wash basins built back to back in the style of a mirrored reflection. Camera move and actor movement in synch with no mirror between them. In-camera with no digital work.

 

There's a very famous transformation scene, I think a Dr Jekyll movie that used this same technique but more elaborately.

[Chris Millar]

I'm thinking the hole in the wall myself ... (Tims suggestion, and what I assume you mean by 'great production design')

 

I reckon if it were done in post then they may have put more effort into making the camera shake follow the reflections eye/head movement

 

+ its way more fun that way :lol:

[Kevin W Wilson]

I have this film on DVD and they talk specifically about how they achieved this effect.

 

They weighed out all the different scenarios of how to pull it off and finally settled on doing it all for real, right in camera. They built mirrored bath sets and put them up against one another where the mirror would typically be, so when the camera is looking up at the "reflection" that is actually an actor on the opposite side of the set. When the camera would tilt down they had a stand in on the camera side mimicking the actors movements so that we think we are seeing the actual set of hands when we are really looking at an addition set from a stand in.

 

James Cameron pulled off something similar in a deleted scene from Terminator 2 where the chip is removed from Arnold's head.

 

(shot begins at about :24 in)

 

He used a mirrored set and had Arnold sit on the opposite side so he looked like the reflection, he placed a prosthetic head directly across from the real Arnold to make it look as though the chip was really being removed from Arnold's actual head. He used stand ins on the opposite side to make it look like it was all just part of the reflection. It's quite brilliant and you would never know unless someone had told you.

 

I miss this kind of SFX work, made everything feel so damn real when it worked.

[Jim Hyslop]

I'm thinking the hole in the wall myself ... (Tims suggestion, and what I assume you mean by 'great production design')

Well, to elaborate on my earlier comments - since the trick is repeated several times, that would involve building several different mirrored sets, which could get quite costly for a short film. I figure a green screen effect would be cheaper.

 

I reckon if it were done in post then they may have put more effort into making the camera shake follow the reflections eye/head movement

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow you - do you mean it would require extra effort to match the movement of the inserted shot with the movement of the wall? If so, yeah, that could get tricky. Maybe it's time to do some experimenting :-)

 

+ its way more fun that way :lol:

No arguments there!

 

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Jim

[Chris Millar]

Sorry, I'm not sure I follow you - do you mean it would require extra effort to match the movement of the inserted shot with the movement of the wall? If so, yeah, that could get tricky. Maybe it's time to do some experimenting :-)

 

Not sure if I follow you there either ! (rushing about with work, no time to digest much) - but I can say that I meant the gag so to speak was that the POV was that of the person at the mirror - when they look down at their hands for instance - but there are moments if I recall (only watched it once), where the protagonist goes dutch with his head but there is only the generic camera shake at these moments and no corresponding mirror dutch in the camera POV...

 

The generic camera shake works well until these points - personally I feel jogged out of the actors POV and into that of another perspective at these points - basically a fail in the effect - and before we get all 'film theory 102', I don't think it was intended ! :)

 

(but yeh, some worth in trying that though huh)