I tried searching to see if this was posted about before but didn't find anything (although I might have missed something) But I was wondering..

Does anybody have an idea of how to go about reflecting an image in someone's eyes? Like, for example, if a person is in a building on fire, you can see the fire reflected in their eyes. That's the easiest way I can describe it. I'd imagine it might just have to do with overlapping images, like taking the flames and making them almost transparent and putting that image over the eyes...but I'm not quite sure that'd work (again, it's just an example that popped into my head. I'm not filming anything that involves this but I wanted to know for future reference)

Thanks to all who may know (or took time to read this)

You're on the right track.

What you will want to do is shoot the shot (I presume it's a close up?) and also shoot some flames against black. You would then use a lumakey to remove the black background and composite the fire over the eyes. Of course, you would have to resize the fire clip adjust the opacity to your liking. Maybe even add a bit of spherical distortion. What software do you have access to?

I would reccomend that you use compositing software such as Combustion or After FX.

Basically I would suggest that you track the eyes (if there is movement).
Then on another layer have the fire and change the opacity to a level you like to see, perhaps 63% or something.

If your software doesn't track, you can rotoscope each frame with the flames in the right location.

OR you can do multiple layers. Mask out the eye where the reflection will be and put the fire on a separate layer.

I'm sorry I don't have time to go step by step but if you can tell us your compositing application I'm sure we could be more detailed, either I or someone else.

Sometimes its unintentional.

In my short 'Bad Cat 3' you can see the reflection of my PD170 in the cat's eyes at the end of the short (You have to download the big MPEG2 version to see it clearly). :lol:

I'm in the process of getting a bunch of software from a buddy who used after effects and the liking for film school. I don't know all of what he has but once I get it (should be here before christmas, hopefully) I'll let you know.

Hopefully not illegally! ;)

Let us know when you're ready. We have people here with experience using just about any software you can think of and I am sure they can provide a great intro.

If it was fire, I'd just have the actor sit in front of a fire and look into it.

The flame thing was just a random example (the first to pop into my head)

An actual effect I want to use, which I think are along the same lines but I'm not quite sure...is I wanted to film someone walking on a path, and on each side are roses (so a row of roses, the path, and then another row of roses) and as he walks past them they shift from red to white or some other color. I figured it could be done using the same technique (well, roughly..Composing an image on top of another and then making the original translucent slowly so it sort of fades out)

I got the programs (He gave me his copy of After Effects, Premier Pro, and Vegas Video. I didn't get combustion because he doesn't have it, just those three)

So if anyone could specify with After Effects or the other two, many thanks.

Uh Oh man...you shouldn't have said that. Prepare to be told about your bad-doing! Not that I care, of course, but others will...

Well, I'm trying to figure out the program really. (After Effects) I think the technique wouldn't be that hard if I knew what I was doing. I tried looking for After Effects tutorials but couldn't find anything on the basics of the program (Creative Cow and the Adobe website didn't really give me anything besides advanced techniques)

You can download Total Training on the net, it's a set of DVDs that teach you all about After Effects, or you can buy it I think