Prism

[dominiclahiff]

I'm looking to shoot a scene where a rainbow of refracted light from a prism plays over a young girl's face. Can anyone tell me how to achieve this?

[Jason Fratis]

High Lumen video projector with digital rainbow/prism footage. If you try a prism you might find you will need a very large one to cover the face. You might be forced to move the prism too close to the face and will look too immediate giving away the gag. I mention digitally created prism look because the light from an actual prism is very saturated and you will want to mimic this. Im sure you could just shoot footage of a prism effect with different angles of the colors as well. You could also try using a zoom leko with a removable side door. With the door open you could try to focus the beam into a prism and use the front elements to widen out the effect. Kinda doubt it would work but its worth a try. What i think will be the biggest issue is controlling the size of the rainbow. You might find a small one looks right but if you decide a larger more full-face effect would fit the story better you need to be prepared for this. Whatever method you find works its possible you will need to flag/scrim the spilling light that hasn't been separated off the talent so as to not compete with the effect. Let use know what you come up with.

[Phil Rhodes]

Slide projector is another option. If you make up a slide with red, green and blue gels in it, then project it very defocused, you should get a spectrum.

 

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