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Tracking Explosions (fun stuff)
I will be doing a video in the summer about a few modern day soldiers (army rangers) who get into a woods battle fight. I want the camera to be almost like the perspective of a soldier in the fight, meaning the camera is going to move and jitter a lot!. So when i have people running out and explosions going off i need to track the explosions to the scene, i was thinking about taping a few trees with tape to track, but my question is if i use rotation and position and track and explosion would all i have to do to put the explosion where i want it is to adjust the anchor point?
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2 Replies
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Well, would particle illusion, combustion, or particular help this cause at all?
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Also, when planning your shots try to keep them within your effects limitations. It’ll kill your video try to “get away with it” in regards to the depth of the explosion. To counteract this, do what most LB films do. Plan the shots thus, that the explosion is cut-to or from. A.K.A. show the incoming mortar, slam the Sound FX and show a simultaneous reaction shot with debris sprayed on your actors. Then cut back to the smoking crater (which can be done as a practical at anytime even B-roll, with a smoke bomb from the local Fireworks shoppe.
If you really want to show the burst, use a trucking (tracking) shot from the side. This can be done Hand_Held of course, but the point is not to dolly in or out, eliminating the need for concern in regards to depth and perspective size changes. Also don’t forget the point of impact effects. When the smoke clears there needs to be a remnant of the explosion or the effect will look darn cheesy. My suggestion would be to have a ping-pong ball (your color choice) glued to a golf-T as your tracking point in-shot. Or, if you don’t want to have to remove that later on, us a small patch of flowers (which you can “plant” anywhere). Depending on your surroundings, there’s always something innocuous to the human eye that could be used as tracking point.
Andrew Kramer has some good army shots on his website and tutorials on how to do them; you should check that out. https://www.videocopilot.net/
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