Large scale model looking small

[Philipp Kunzli]

Hey everybody

 

I'm in preproduction for a commercial in which we compose a large scale model with real people into a 10cm real model.

Does anyone have any recommendations or tips how to achieve more or the biggest realism?

 

I'm also playing with the thought about a shift-focus lens. But I'm not sure if it's smarter to keep the dof as large as possible for the vfx compositing

and adding the "shift impression" in post...

 

(We're shooting on the Amira with Zeiss T2.)

 

Big THX for your thoughts and recommendation.

 

Philipp

Edited May 10, 2016 by Philipp Kunzli

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Is this a force perspective set?

 

By using a shift focus lens you will achieve the opposite of what you need. It's what they use when they want to do that fad effect of making a full-size set look like a miniature. See example. No, the right way is normally to use a wider lens, stopped down. The ASC manual has a good chapter on shooting miniatures, but huge depth of field is your friend with miniatures.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Adam is right, you need to be stopped as far down as you can for maximum depth of field. Having the camera at height that it would be in real life if this were not a miniature also helps, often low and wide-angle.

 

Think of it in terms of how it would look to a camera lens if it were real, not a miniature. That building in front of the camera would, in real life, have a front edge maybe 50' from the camera and the far edge maybe 500' away from the camera. And in real life both ends would fall into focus even at a fairly open stop on many lenses. But your miniature may have the front edge only 12" from the camera and the far edge 120" away, so that would be hard to hold in focus even stopped down quite a bit, so getting as much depth of field as possible is key to selling miniatures.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Now, there is a possible scenario I can think of when it might help to use tilt/shift. By using a T/S that's stopped down and "help the focal plane" along to connect two objects that might not otherwise both get acceptably in focus. Could be two miniatures that are too far apart or something. But this would need experimenting and might not work at all in all scenarios. But in theory I can see how it could help on rare occasions.

[Philipp Kunzli]

Hey Everybody

 

First, thank you for your input – but it looks like I didn't communicate it the right way...

 

Our real object is 11cm x 11cm x 11cm. And our model that has to be "shrunken" is oversized. (2mx2mx2m)

 

In the final output, the big scale model hast to look like it's 11x11x11cm.

That's why I was asking If I should shoot the VFX Compositing shoot with a "normal" lens and add the shift focus impression in Post,

or if I should shoot it with a shift focus Lens...?

 

I'm just not sure if I get into trouble since we have to recreate the shoot twice.

 

THX for your feedback.

[David Mullen ASC]

So you have to make a model look even smaller? I didn't get that before.

 

If so, all our advice is backwards -- you want to decrease depth of field by shooting with a very fast lens, like wide open on an f/1.4 Master Prime.

[Joe Taylor]

To see a great example of how tilt/shot or shallow DoF was simulated and made a real landscape appear like a miniature or diorama, check out the rowing sequence in Social Network.

 

On true miniatures, you may be able to use an extension tube to shallow-out your DoF

[David Mullen ASC]

Tilt-focus lenses are necessary for shooting full-sized settings and miniaturizing them because shooting at f/1.4 isn't enough to throw a lot of the image into soft focus.

[Philipp Kunzli]

To see a great example of how tilt/shot or shallow DoF was simulated and made a real landscape appear like a miniature or diorama, check out the rowing sequence in Social Network.

 

On true miniatures, you may be able to use an extension tube to shallow-out your DoF

 

 

 

Exactly as you said and a typical tilt/shift shoot.

 

My point is, the look they were going for was a kind of "toy-like" look.

 

This is not my intention and therefore I'm not sure if that's the right way to make something look small?

 

Specially since we VFX two shoots together. If we compose a regular- with a tlit/shiftshot I'm not sure if the of focus part matches together.

You know what I mean?