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More Practice
I’m also working on this 30 second excercise where a guy gets chased up a stair well. See my blog for the info on what I’m doing.
(www.MichaelBrodner.wordpress.com) and it’s the latest entry called “Run.”
Basically I was thinking about having one character swing a bat at the other characters head and actually connect with him. I want blood to kind of shoot off the side of his head where the bat connects and have him fall to the ground. Are there some things I should do to help me out before filming? What’s a good way to set up the shot to make it easier to composite later on in AE? Thanks again everyone
Bones
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3 Replies
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The key is to shoot the scene in slow motion, then speed it up later. Have your actor swing the bat pretty slow, giving your other actor time to “react” to being hit and fall out of frame. If they act the scene out too slowly, the action will look wrong when sped up (and other elements such as moving backgrounds will be obviously sped up), so you need to work with them closely to find the fastest speed they can safely and accurately do it. I would try to frame up your shot where you see the back or side of the victim’s head when the bat hits, rather than trying to show the hit directly. This way, your victim can react and fall without the bat even having to make contact with his head. Rehearse the shot over and over so that your actors are comfortable and know exactly what to do, or someone could walk away with a concussion.
You can then speed up the footage in After Effects to make it seem like the guy really swings the bat fast and hard. For the blood, simple is usually better and less prone to looking cheesey. Video Copilot has a cool set of assets called Action Movie Essentials (or something) that includes video clips of blood splatters, all with alpha channels for easy compositing.
One of the things that will sell this shot more than anything is convincing sound FX. You should look around to find a good bat-hitting-head “ping!” sound effect to use. Even if people don’t see the bat hitting the head, hearing that sound on cue will really go a long way. Just be careful to mix it in with the audio properly, if it’s too loud in your mix it will be obvious that it’s a sound effect. Subtle is good.
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[beenyweenies] “One of the things that will sell this shot more than anything is convincing sound FX. You should look around to find a good bat-hitting-head “ping!” sound effect to use. Even if people don’t see the bat hitting the head, hearing that sound on cue will really go a long way. Just be careful to mix it in with the audio properly, if it’s too loud in your mix it will be obvious that it’s a sound effect. Subtle is good.”
And to add to what Brandon has said here: Good audio beds/sfx are usually done with more than one effect. Sometimes, depending on the scene, you might want to place a very low-frequency sound very subtly into the mix to make it “feel” like someone has been struck. Do not make it obvious or oversell the effect as it will then draw too much attention to itself. Other things might include a quick shoe shuffle sound, as if the guy has lost his balance and his feet are reacting to the blow. Again, don’t overdo it but keep in mind that a good audio track is usually made up of much more than a single sound.
Keep it real…
Ron Lindeboom
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The way I initially envisioned doing this (maybe because I’m just a little sadistic) is by actually having the actor hit in the head with a bat… a foam covered bat to be clear =) This would give him/her something concrete to react to, then shoot the same scene (locked down camera would help) with a stand in for the head (a pole? manequin? something that the bat can ‘react’ to) and a real bat. Compositing the two should be pretty easy if you’ve managed to keep the camera still and maintain lighting conditions.
If this actually sounds appealing (I just like hitting things), you’ll want to consider the possibility of the foam bat going in front of the head/face of the actor (try to avoid it, if it happens make sure you can cover it up with the real bat, maybe use a very small foam bat). After that the compositing should be a simple rotoscoping job.
Your mileage may vary with this technique depending on the way you want to shoot the scene. Just another possibility =)
I also think sound effects would be essential on selling the shot, and I would suggest some ‘crushing’ effects. The sadistic side of me shining through again i guess (;
Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA
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