How to achieve the Mystery Science theatre efect

[Mark Suszko]

The setup those guys used was very simple, from behind-the-scenes stills I once saw: a white wall or sheet, a black cardboard or foamboard cut-out of the seat back shapes, and they sat on stools or folding chairs, watching a monitor low and unseen by the camera. It’s really just a big luminance key, matted and scaled. A google images each will turn up many versions of the silhouettem ready to layer into a scene, but of course, it will not have any motion.

[Jerry Wise]

shoot your audience on green screen. key them over your favorite movie. then apply color correction to the audience shot and bring down your whites/mids/blacks down to zero…there you go.

[John Fishback]

You can add the chairs as an intermediate graphic layer thereby simplifying the greenscreen shoot and increasing your option in post.

John

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