working with miniatures

[Lucas Cristo DP]

Hello group members.

i'm about tu star in a project in which i'm gonna use some models of the Venezuelan Place of Miraflores, i'm shooting in Arri Alexa , optics Leica Summicron and Innovision lens, what frame rate and F number should i use, to achieve more realism.

and in general what tips and advices can you give me working with models and miniatures.

 

thanks.

[Lance Soltys]

Is there any motion going on in the miniature? Any atmospherics? If not, then frame rate shouldn't matter. As far as f-stop, going higher is better for the illusion. Imagine if you were actually shooting the real location, you'd be pretty far back, so the dof would be pretty large. Try to simulate that with your miniature.

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes, unless there is some motion like falling dust and debris after an explosion, etc. then you don't need to over-crank to create a fake sense of mass. Many spaceship models, for example, are shot at very low frame rates with very slow-moving cameras in order to get more exposure on the models, because it is important to get as much depth of field as possible.

 

Think of it this way, if your miniature was a real building and was 50' tall and 100 feet away, then you'd expect that most of it would fall into focus on a camera lens even at a wide aperture. But if your miniature is only 1' tall and only 2' from the camera lens, then you'd have to use a very deep f-stop to hold most of it in focus.

 

You also want to think of camera height in terms of scale, do you want to get the lens down to the height of a person taking a picture if this were a real building.

[Lucas Cristo DP]

Thanks a lot, the only motion that we are going to have are some WAR VEHICLES but we are not going to explode any thing :angry: jajjajaajjjajja, so i guess im going to leve the frame rate as it is and work to get the most depth of field as possible.

 

muchas gracias .

 

 

and best of wishes

[Landon D. Parks]

We are currently doing test shots on a 78th scale model of a palace exterior. The one trick I have learned over the past few weeks is that most of what sells the model shots is the atmosphere and lighting. Lighting is very tricky to accomplish, since it too needs to be scaled down to match correctly. Don't really have much advice to offer on f/stops and things like that since I'm pretty new the the miniature process as well - but DO pay close attention to the lighting - that is the part that has been giving me the most headaches in getting right.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Landon D. Parks

[Tyler Purcell]

- Build the model as big as you can

- Choose angles that reflect realism, try not to move the camera

- Be very careful with DOF. If you use longer lenses with a larger imager, you will have unrealistic DOF.

- Since you are trying to have flat DOF, closing the lens as much as possible is a smart idea.

- If your set is suppose to be lit by the sun, shoot it outside. Don't try to light indoors to get an outdoor look.

- On bigger models, you can add layers of smoke to define depth. It doesn't work on smaller models because the smoke layers will simply blend together.

- Any model or camera that moves, should be over-cranked by a minimal of 48fps.

- If you are mixing live action with models in the foreground, be very mindful of the ground and scale of the other objects in shot. One rock or chunk of dirt that looks disproportional, can spoil an entire shot.

- Models tend to reflect light differently then the same object full size. This is due to them most of the time being made of different materials then the actual full size object. This is where you need to be very careful about lighting as you may have to reduce/control the light on the models a tiny bit to compensate for this issue.