Capturing a falling strand of hair in slow motion?

[John Sharaf]

Sorry, but effect you describe requires a specialized high speed camera like a Phantom HD which can shoot at 1000 fps. Cost with technician is about $2500/day. Abel Cine Tech is source, as is Panavision and other owner operators.

JS

[Rick Wise]

Hmmm… a falling strand of hair offers some options that a falling nail would not. There may be a low budget solution(s).

Questions: Is this hair against a real background? How do we know it is “falling”? Can it be shot against green screen?

Possible solutions: I would try to make a rig that allows me to control the intensity of a fan and the volume of air so I could produce a very, very gentle up draft. It will be extremely difficult to get the right and even dose of updraft to allow the hair to fall slowly and not be buffeted off track. Alternatively, if you can suspend the hair in the air by the right updraft, place a solid color (white/black/yellow/green/blue etc) behind it and tilt up past the hair, the viewer will think the hair is falling.

Or this idea: place the hair on a sheet of high quality glass or perfect plexiglass. Tilt the glass slightly, and have someone off camera blow the hair lightly. Angle the camera so that it is at an acceptable angle to the “falling” hair. Of course, you have to deal with what is behind the glass, and also the fact that most glass has a green tint to it that you can probably remove in post.

Any of these solutions will take a lot of trial and error. The first, second, and third rule of table-top shooting (which in a way this is) is Patience, patience, and patience. The act can be rather Zen.

In post you can also manipulate the speed of the “fall.”

I’m sure others will come up with other ideas.

Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

Yeah, even before I read John’s response I thought “Oh, that’s a Phantom shot.”

Alternately, you could shoot high speed film. But it probably would be as much if not more expensive (would probably be close), and you can get a higher frame rate from the Phantom anyway.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Richard Herd]

I think you mean: 24pN at 60 fps — it’s an important difference.

[Mark Suszko]

A single strand of hair should be easy in cgi. You think the floating feather in Gump was real?

[Rick Amundson]

My question is, what is the final use? If we have a little more info we can offer more solutions.

Best of luck!

Rick Amundson
Producer/Director/DP
Screenscape Studios
Bravo Romeo Entertainment
http://www.screenscapestudios.com
http://www.bravoromeo.com
http://www.indeliblemovie.com