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Lighting for replicant's eyes


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It's essentially a cat's eye or red eye effect like when you shoot with a flash on a small camera. Apparently Jordan Cronenweth has a piece of glass in front of the lens at a 45 degree angle to reflect a 650w Tweenie at a 90 degree angle into the glass, where it bounced straight away on axis to the lens, and was reflected in the eye. From the point of view of the actor, if they looked at the lens, they should have seen a bright light in the center of the lens coming from the reflection. Now it may have been a diffused light to create a bigger reflection, I don't know.

 

The glass rig is similar to what is used for front projection process shots, or dual-camera 3D set-ups.

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Thanks a lot! I will definitely make some tests beforehand.

Even if I am shooting two characters with that, but not in the same frame, what thrills me is the fact that in the frame I uploaded, both characters are in the same frame and both are lighted to have that glow in their eyes! Indeed Blade Runner is a masterpiece.

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Not as easy effect to achieve. We tried it with just a little bulb right above lens and it was hit and miss. Maybe the half mirror Jordan used works better.

The basher isn't coaxial with the lens. The only way to be sure of the angle is with a beam-splitter- the same principle as front-projection.

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It's essentially a cat's eye or red eye effect like when you shoot with a flash on a small camera. Apparently Jordan Cronenweth has a piece of glass in front of the lens at a 45 degree angle to reflect a 650w Tweenie at a 90 degree angle into the glass, where it bounced straight away on axis to the lens, and was reflected in the eye. From the point of view of the actor, if they looked at the lens, they should have seen a bright light in the center of the lens coming from the reflection. Now it may have been a diffused light to create a bigger reflection, I don't know.

 

The glass rig is similar to what is used for front projection process shots, or dual-camera 3D set-ups.

 

Fascinating! Thanks David, I'll definitely test that out and see what sort of effect I can get.

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Also worth note that the method of using the 45 degree 50% mirror was also used to do the original light saber effects in the first star wars before they rotoscoped over them, and also used quite a bit for effects in the Superman Films by coating a miniature in 3M reflective materials and then fading up a red light above the mirror to make objects glow with "heat".

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