When shooting outdoors, say if I do get legal permission to use, say a parking lot for example. The public sidewalks in the background will still be free to use for whoever wants to walk by. I need to make these people unrecognizable since I do not have their permission from them to be in the movie. Can I use blur on them and then it would just come off to the viewer as a shallow depth of field or is that not good enough? I'm not only asking legal wise, but also style wise, if the blur is acceptable? Thanks.
Using blur to mask out unwanted people in the background.
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
Is the footage already in the can? If not, you have two nice options 1) post signs informing those who enter the scenes that they are granting permission by entering or 2) shoot with extremely shallow dof to begin with.
No the footage is not already in the can, it's for an upcoming project, a guy wants to do an a short film he wrote, and asked me to help. We are just wondering what to do with people in the background. If it's the front of the their heads, then what? I mean blur doesn't always work legally does it? I've seen real crime documentaries where perps were caught on camera, and even there the faces where blurry, it still didn't help their case legally.
Stop talking.
Go and try.
Put someone in front of a camera.
Have people in the background and test your blur idea.
Really: do it!
Finding out yourself is worth a lot more than any theoretical anwser you'll get here.
BTW.
You are still thinking 'fix-in-post'.
There is also 'fix-in-camera' (DoF, different angle, exposure difference fore- and background), 'fix-on-set' (trafficcontrol, placing extras to 'fill' background, blocking the view with persons, cars, whatever), 'fix-with-paperwork' (get people's permission), 'fix-in-script' (place the scene somewhere else).
PS.
Time for action!
Go and try.
Put someone in front of a camera.
Have people in the background and test your blur idea.
Really: do it!
Finding out yourself is worth a lot more than any theoretical anwser you'll get here.
BTW.
You are still thinking 'fix-in-post'.
There is also 'fix-in-camera' (DoF, different angle, exposure difference fore- and background), 'fix-on-set' (trafficcontrol, placing extras to 'fill' background, blocking the view with persons, cars, whatever), 'fix-with-paperwork' (get people's permission), 'fix-in-script' (place the scene somewhere else).
PS.
Time for action!
H44, sorry for coming out at you a bit harsh but i'll be honest, without any frosting on the cake:
You keep asking questions about how to do this and how to do that without WANTING or TRYING to figure it out yourself, so just put the camera down. Filmmaking isn't for you, bro. (I hear BOOs at me now).
Filmmaking is more difficult than what you expected at first and you have to learn learn that there are no yes/no/how-to answers on the questions that you keep asking.
If you want to make a movie and be a filmmaker - stops asking stupid questions like your original post.
And with all due respect, it was a f**king stupid question, because the answer is - go and FIGURE IT OUT! Does it look weird to you? Does it look OK?
Because if you know what you're doing - you can make it look good, where if I have limited knowledge of what I'm doing, and no experience - my stuff will look like crap.
Can you compose the blur on the footage and make it look good and not weird?? I don't f**king know. and I don't think anybody knows on this forum.
Im sorry if that sounded harsh, but I accept the penalty lol
You keep asking questions about how to do this and how to do that without WANTING or TRYING to figure it out yourself, so just put the camera down. Filmmaking isn't for you, bro. (I hear BOOs at me now).
Filmmaking is more difficult than what you expected at first and you have to learn learn that there are no yes/no/how-to answers on the questions that you keep asking.
If you want to make a movie and be a filmmaker - stops asking stupid questions like your original post.
And with all due respect, it was a f**king stupid question, because the answer is - go and FIGURE IT OUT! Does it look weird to you? Does it look OK?
Because if you know what you're doing - you can make it look good, where if I have limited knowledge of what I'm doing, and no experience - my stuff will look like crap.
Can you compose the blur on the footage and make it look good and not weird?? I don't f**king know. and I don't think anybody knows on this forum.
Im sorry if that sounded harsh, but I accept the penalty lol
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Just like The Netherlands an hour ago was denied a penalty during the Euro Cup, you don't get the penalty.
@H44:
You need to learn to think for yourself and try things yourself.
You want to be a filmmaker?
That involves creativity on a lot of levels.
(And stop all this kind of 'can I spent 100 hours in AE to fix this 3-second-shot?'-questions.)
How much time does it take you to type a question or reply?
Even if it's only 1 minute: you spend a lot of minutes with not making films.
Finish your first short before moving on.
Time for action!
I dare you to prove dlevanchuk wrong!
PS.
There should be a rule: never use After Effects in your first project.
Why?
Because that first project never gets finished with AE.