Search the Community

Greetings, First off, my apologies for not writing a shorter and more concise piece. I will revise this post as time permits - Think of this as a living document. During a recent creative meet for an upcoming short, the idea emerged to simulate parts of a living room appearing on fire during a dramatic dialogue scene The thought is to simulate fire illumination and smoke and composite pyro physical effects plates in during post. We will be shooting this in 8K anamorphic at low compression ratios Think of the end sequence of "Barton Fink" and some scenes from "Synecdoche, New York" This is for a micro/no budget production by former film students & both semi pros and serious pros as a portfolio/fun/festival/creative piece. We are using our own camera and a lot of gear, and renting additional lights/grip/stuff as need WE HAVE NO INTENTION OF SETTING THE SET ON FIRE NOR IS ANYONE PAYING US TO MAKE THIS The idea we are kicking around is that during a sequence of a couple locked off shots, two people are sitting on a couch exchanging drama rich dialogue, and in the background(maybe out of focus) we see curtains and the wall on fire. additionally, we also want to have fire/smokes elements appearing in front of the talent. Think of the subjects as being sandwiched between fire elements. Something sorta like these, but as static/locked shots Barton Fink Fire scene: https://youtu.be/P_8O-iDvlmA Synecdoche's Burning House https://youtu.be/SF9yFCSICE8 How to set a living room on fire: https://youtu.be/yLqVmBeJre4 Our thoughts on how to achieve this look so far: 1) bouncing a 1K tungsten (maybe a couple of 650s) off a gold reflector to simulate the fire flicker - this would be similiar in application as using a silver reflect to simulated water reflection from moonlight 2) candles + incense in front and underneath the frame to provide heat warping and some smoke during principle 3) Make fire plates and luma map - Match and duplicate the angles/distance of the camera in relationship to the set, hang curtains in a dark area in front of black, such as in a cleared warehouse or on a paved surface somewhere remote (maybe at night), make sure they are similar in setup to the hot set, set them on fire - then luma map the fire in post as a layer effect for the backgrounds 4) purchase and use prematted green screen fire effects for additional layer/post work 5) shoot the scene with the actors on set with a green screed behind them, then shoot it again w/out the actors there, to more easily control the layer effects in post 6) Hazer to, well, add haze (we'll be using one anyway for depth/texture, but may kick it up a bit for this part) We may do the composting in aftereffects, as none of us have experience with Nuke. We absolutely welcome the addition of any interested nuke/fx compositor in the bay area who is interested in building their portfolio and/or willing to contribute to a creative project for a reduced rate. Push comes to shove, we are willing to work something out for payment, it just may delay our initial shoot, as this is all out of pocket and none of us are in the six-to-seven figure salary club. We will most likely not use a generator on location We are still a few month away before we can begin developing the shoot schedule/etc. We want to explore the possibility as a narrative component near the ending before finalizing the script (twenty pages) Thank you for any and all advise and guidance. It is very much appreciated.