Tim Smyth

Thanks David, Always a lot of confusion with these processes. And yes, Ben Hur used blue screen process, I think developed by the same guy you mentioned, since maybe they were shooting widescreen, and the other cameras could not handle that. There must have been two cameras made, since one was in England, and did the traveling mattes for several Harryhausen pictures. I think the prisms were different though, the Disney one cheaped out a bit. The Disney camera was also used for at least one shot in The Black Hole, where the characters are running across a bridge, when a miniature asteroid is rolling towards them. It is a bit regretful that all these processes are now extinct due to the advancement of the computer. Of course a bit of irony there, since we are all communicating to each other using computers.

What David is saying that any blue spill on the white Enterprise will create hole in the matte, creating holes in the Enterprise as it flies through space.

Great screen grabs David, thanks for posting them. I believe the top one is exactly as filmed, the same as when it leaves dry dock I think the Enterprise is actually moving through the shot, or that the dry dock is moving past the Enterprise. I do not think it is a traveling matte. Yes I agree, the Star Trek show has really amazing visuals, and like I said made the same way as Star Wars, just that they had to push the camera past the space ships by hand, rather than have a computerized camera set up do it.

So much to take in. I haven't seen Outland in a few decades, will have to check it out again, as I too am not too thrilled with to many of today's sci fi offerings. Someone asked why weren't the effects of Star Trek TV show up to the standards of 2001, or something to that effect, because the effects show different things, and the budgets are quite different. 2001 the ships as I recall do not have to pass by many solid objects, just star fields, so they created the traveling mattes by hand, and used as few pieces of film as possible to put together their effects. Star Trek the ships had to constantly travel in front of planets, shoot phasers and all that, requiring using the blue screen method to produce the traveling mattes. In fact other than the motion controlled camera of Star Wars, the effects of Star Trek and Star Wars are put together the same way. Star Wars also had too much going on to do all hand painted traveling mattes. Alien, Moonraker and other films have just double exposed ships onto space backgrounds to great effect, and this cuts down on the film generational loss, and avoids matte lines. As far as the Dykstraflex motion control camera, it could shoot the frame while moving, or not. ILM just liked to shoot the shots with the camera moving in case someone could pick up on not having a blur, but they themselves looking at the footage could not tell, since the moves were so precise. ILM saved all the camera moves for Star Wars, and re-created the opening shot, in IMAX with a larger model, but the same move. Yes, the shooting stage was pretty big at ILM, they could shoot a model far away, whether they built a smaller model for the opening shot I do not know. They just create a garbage matte wherever the blue screen is not as they move away from the model ship. The only stop motion in Star Wars to my knowledge is the chess sequence, and the Walker sequence in Empire. The Millennium Falcon leaving the dock of the Death Star is a motion control shot. I disagree on ED-209 from Robocop, I think there is just too much unnatural blur, it stands out as much as the jerkiness folks talk about in stop motion. The best go-motion shots I have seen are the Taun Tauns from Empire, and Vermithrax Pejorative from Dragonslayer, in which one of those shots is actually just stop motion. Great thread.

Hi Sam, I meant film in general, for that scale of production. Once Kodak raises it price Super 8 may be the most expensive, for what you get. I agree, the fewer stocks to deal with the better. I wish him the best with his film, hope more folks decide to shoot on film, even if it is Super 8.

I did not know 16mm cams shot at 18fps, I always thought it was 16fps. I thought it was the Super 8 cams that adopted the 18fps as a norm, even for sound. More than likely in the transfer they will fix it to run at 24fps, by doubling up frames, as opposed to transferring the footage at 24fps.

That does indeed look fun, Would love to go and see the screening, but it is a little far from me. Funny, how they use the most expensive format, to re-create the cheapest of movies. Best of luck to them. Thanks for posting.

It still has the old price on their website? If you order 3-4 rolls, the shipping is free. Oops! Just checked that out, and it looks like no more free shipping. :( Must have changed that from last week.

I was just wondering how these shots came out, and could you post a pic or two?

I hate to be nit picky, though not really, and I do understand this is a very old post, so just for future's sake, no one shoots animation at any frame rate. Animation is shot one frame at a time, be it on ones, twos, or whatever. When one discusses frame rates for animation, we are talking playback rate. Wallace and Gromit while shot on twos (mostly), is played back at 24 fps, just like every other movie. Unless it is 25 in England? But it is certainly not 12 fps. Just trying to set the record straight here.

The video is pretty poor quality, s it is hard to tell. Bruce was amazingly fast however as you can see in his Charlie Chan screen test which you can find on youtube.

I, like Simon, think you may want to read up on the subject. It will not be as easy as doing green screen, and may end up being way more expensive, as you will also need a bigger studio. You may want to do is talk to effects guys, you may be interested in hiring for the project, and they can probably let you know the best ways of doing things. I love old time effects, but some of them are just hard to recreate, of find the need to do so, in today's computer age.

It is a nicely done piece, and this form of stop motion is called pixilation, if anyone is interested. My professional guess is they used no software to do this, as that would take a bit longer, as David above mentioned, and quite frankly it just does not look like they used any frame-grabbers, in some ways it is just to fun looking. I think they winged it blind, which also makes me think they used a tripod, as taking so many frames that line up is not the same as taking hand held photos then having to match them in the computer. Certainly they used tripods for the steady shots, so they probably did for all, as again, it would have saved them a lot of work. Anyone who has ever tried stop motion with a hand held camera will understand this.

Ah I got that to quote thing work. Most stop motion is done with two exposures per puppet move advancement, camera moves are usually done on ones. I think you are adding a lot of work for nothing. Stop motion usually does not look real, nor does it need to. We have no idea what this proposed project is supposed to look like, nor do we even know if it even went through, so we really don't know what we are discussing at this point. The go-motion shots for Dragonslayer took one week to do each one, just to let everyone know. So true go-motion is a time consuming proposition. And yes for more realistic things shooting on ones, or doing go-motion, is the way to go.

The issue is that go-motion, done practically, is a lot of work, requires specialty tools, and will increase time and budget. Most people just add blur using software nowadays. It's a breeze compared to doing it practically. With frame grabbing technology one does not really need go-motion, unless one is making a film like Jurassic Park. For most puppet type films, plain old stop motion will do.

Hi David, Thanks for the answers. The last time I shot film under these conditions, the film was a little slower. I shot Plus-X, Kodakchrome 40, and Tri-X for some scenes with no sunlight on the shaded side of side cliff. Anyway, I was a bit unprepared or the light reading I got on the test shoot, now with the ASA of 250. Speeding the camera up is not an option, since I am shooting at 16 fps. I will look into slower film, although the slowest I have found have a ASA of 100. I will also look into some ND filters for my camera, which may be hard to find, I have a Kodak Cine Special II. Thanks again for the quick response. Edgar, thanks also for responding, hope your footage is okay.

I have no answer to this question, but would like to change the rules of the question. So if one was to shoot in outdoors in the sun, where 95% of the film takes place, and one does not have ND filters, what does one do? I am assuming get a slower film as one poster would have done without the rules of the original question. Also, the stock must be B/W. Is there a way to get away with good images with good contrast with Kodak Double X film, without using ND filters?