poor man's process

Joseph Zizzo · November 21, 2007

hi all,

i am looking for some good examples of a poor man's process for reference, in recent (or not so recent) films. does anyone have a favorite?

thanks,

joe

David Mullen ASC · November 21, 2007

See "Frailty" and the behind the scenes doc where Bill Butler is shown doing some poor-man's process shots.

Joseph Zizzo · November 22, 2007

thanks, david, its first on my netflix queue!

Andrew Koch · November 24, 2007

Rodney Charters does a lot of great poor man's process on 24.

Matt Read · November 24, 2007

Could someone explain what a poor man's process is? I've never heard of that before. Thanks

Matt Read

David Mullen ASC · November 24, 2007

Could someone explain what a poor man's process is? I've never heard of that before. Thanks

Matt Read

Faking a driving scene in a parked car.

Joseph Zizzo · November 24, 2007

thanks, andrew.

you wouldn't have any particular episodes you like, would you? narrow down the search a little...

Matt Read · November 26, 2007

Faking a driving scene in a parked car.

Oh, cool. Thanks a lot, David.

Matt

Andrew Koch · November 26, 2007

thanks, andrew.

you wouldn't have any particular episodes you like, would you? narrow down the search a little...

I can't think of a particular episode, but there were some interesting ones in the last (6th?) Season. Pretty much any of the episodes where Jack is driving at night. I think even some of the day driving scenes were done with poor mans process.

I work at Mole and we had Mr. Charters come in to recreate a poor man's process for some AFI students. He used a whole bunch of mirrors with tape all over them to break up the light shining into them and spun them to create the effect of lights passing by. It's funny that it is called "POOR" mans process because some rear projection systems can make it fairly expensive. Although I must admit, since I am used to working on mostly low budget shoots, everything seems expensive to me. Perhaps it is comparatively cheap in the realm of a large budget show.

I'd be curious if anybody has some examples of really well done poor mans process done for very cheap.

David Mullen ASC · November 26, 2007

I'd be curious if anybody has some examples of really well done poor mans process done for very cheap.

It's hard to get much cheaper than manually waving some tweenies or other little lights over a parked car, short of just driving with the camera handheld and shooting in available light.

Shane Foster · November 29, 2007

I can't think of a particular episode, but there were some interesting ones in the last (6th?) Season. Pretty much any of the episodes where Jack is driving at night. I think even some of the day driving scenes were done with poor mans process.

I work at Mole and we had Mr. Charters come in to recreate a poor man's process for some AFI students. He used a whole bunch of mirrors with tape all over them to break up the light shining into them and spun them to create the effect of lights passing by. It's funny that it is called "POOR" mans process because some rear projection systems can make it fairly expensive. Although I must admit, since I am used to working on mostly low budget shoots, everything seems expensive to me. Perhaps it is comparatively cheap in the realm of a large budget show.

I'd be curious if anybody has some examples of really well done poor mans process done for very cheap.

For a night driving scene, I just parked the car facing a white wall. This provided great bounce light. Then I pulled another car behind it to get the proper light reflecting on the actor from the mirrors. Then I had some crew run in front of the lights of the car the actor was in, and in front of the car parked behind the actor. I also had the actor move ever so slightly as they were acting out the scene giving the look of vibration. The camera shot was from the passenger side and it was too dark out the drivers side window to see anything and the slight movement of light on the actor drew your attention away from what was out the window. Now this probably wouldn't work in a city driving scene, but it looked great.

As far as day goes, I usually just put the camera down low shooting up towards a blue sky and have the CG guys put in a cloud moving slowly. You're limited in the type of shot, but it works! HEY what can I say, I'm a poor man!