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viewer’s vantage point, compositing in AE, how to photograph the action in stills
In a movie, suppose the scene shows a stable background and movement in the foreground. Example: a football field as a constant, with play in progress. Example: a side view of a road with traffic moving in left to right. Example: a broad landscape with a plane flying from left to right.
All of these examples pose the problem I am trying to understand as I am trying to composite action on top of a still image using AE 7.0 Pro with motion tracking.
To bring the problem down to the specific: I have an image of a landscape of a canyon, a bridge, a mountain, and the waters of Puget Sound. It was taken with the 50mm end of a zoom lense on a D200 and it is formatted for a 16/9 wide pixel DVD prsentation over six seconds (180 frames).
Now I want to create the illusion of a Navy plane flying under the bridge and across the scene from left to right. I am planning on taking a series of pictures of a 1/48 model plane with a 90mm macro lens against a green background that I can key out in AE.
Now comes my question, which is really about the eye action of viewers of the DVD. Does the viewer see “A” the whole scene prodominantly from the vantage of the camera took the background stable scene. OR, “B” does the viewer see the plane as the dominant feature of the scene from the vantage of the camera which takes the multiple pictures of the model.
The answer to that question, it seems to me, determines how I should set up the shoot of the model. Namely, should I set up the tripod with the camera in a stable position shooting along the orthogonal line of sight toward the background and take multiple shots of the aircraft in various attitudes as it is moved from left to right. (Difficult because of the need to hold the model) OR, should I allow the camera with the tripod in constant position to tilt downward and pan left to capture the plane in first position (as it emerges from the bridge), then bring the camera to the horizontal position along the orthogonal line to shoot the level flight attitude, and finally bring the camera to an uptilt above the horizon and rotated rightward to shoot the plane as it climbs away from the scene (heading out over Puget Sound). (In this simplified version of the question, I have described three keyframes, but in truth I would expect to take several intermediate interpolated positions as well).
Thanks for your thoughts.
Palmer.
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1 Reply
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Simple rule: Motion is always predominant. So more than anything else it is important to properly line up your airplane shoot and have correct lighting. It does not really matter that much if your BG plate is aligned perfectly as long as the viewer has the impression of some parallax and the aircraft is always on the right depth plane in relation to the BG.
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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