Instantly Pitching Tent Effect? - IndieTalk

Beatlesfan1225 · 08-01-2012, 04:14 PM

So this Saturday we are filming a scene in a new show I am working on where a character sets a small cube on the ground, and it expands into a camping tent. Now, I'm fairly advanced in After Effects, I just recently upgraded myself to CS6, but I'm perplexed on how to do this effect. Any ideas on how I could shoot this so the tent pitches itself within a few seconds? I'm thinking worst case scenario, the character turns away, you hear the sound effects of it happening, then he turns back and the camera sees the result, not the action. But if I can find a neat way to incorporated the action, that'd be cool! Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks!

mussonman · 08-01-2012, 04:22 PM

at least you have a worst case scenario. the only thing i can think of is CGI

Dreadylocks · 08-01-2012, 04:29 PM

Maybe a combination of a reversed shot (letting the tent fall collapse) and then a composite with cgi. So, don't move the camera, get your 'empty' shot of just the cube. Then, keeping the camera stationary, pitch the tent and film it collapsing. Do some rotoscoping of the collapse and then warp/bend the tent, reversing the footage, until it fits in the cube.

Get a lot of options on set so you have several different things to play with when you get to post.

Mannie Bothans · 08-01-2012, 04:30 PM

You could partially cheat it. Do it the way you suggest to get it from cube to spread out on the ground. For the "inflation" of the tent, I'd shoot that part in reverse, prop the interior up with temporary sticks that could be yanked down with the pull of a string. When played forward it would pop up all by itself.

Mannie Bothans · 08-01-2012, 04:32 PM

Doh! I was typing while Dready was posting.

wheatgrinder · 08-02-2012, 01:48 AM

I was thinking something else ENTIRELY

rayw · 08-02-2012, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheatgrinder

I was thinking something else ENTIRELY

LOL!
Not pitching THAT kind of tent instantly!

Back on task...
I was thinking allowing a tent to collapse against a chroma keyed background, overlay, key out back ground, run in reverse.
Relatively simple.

wheatgrinder · 08-02-2012, 01:52 PM

Yeah, I think the expanding from collapsed part is easyish.. its the going from a cube that you can hold in your hand, to a ready to "magically" set its self up tent is going to be the hard part..

wheatgrinder · 08-02-2012, 01:52 PM

can it look all magical with sparkles and smoke.. cause, thatd be easier. ???

Will Vincent · 08-03-2012, 01:20 AM

set it up, get footage of it falling, reverse that in AE

rotoscope it, so it has a transparent BG

scale over the course of the reversed collapse from cube sized to 100%

position that into your live action shot, probably behind the cube initially would be best. At some point you'll need to paint out the cube, or whatever, make the cube go away.

Likely you'll want to cut to a different shot before the character interacts with it to avoid any jump cuts and whatnot.

Should be doable, and not too terribly difficult

Beatlesfan1225 · 08-03-2012, 01:37 AM

Thanks for all the fantastic responses guys. I think one thing is for sure, I need to film this tent collapsing and reverse it. The only issue I see with that is that the shot is outside, so the trees blowing in the wind and general surrounding might have noticeable awkwardness when reversing the shot.

I think I may try to film this in an artsy fashion to limit the AE editing, (A LOT of the show is very AE intensive and I need to focus on some much bigger shots in a limited time to edit) so I think I what may be interesting is if I get close up shots of the tent collapsing, then reverse those. So you can't see anything besides the tent in the shot. If I got 4 or 5 angles of that, I could switch between them all quickly to give the impression it randomly inflated up. Any thoughts on that?

GeorgiaHilton · 08-04-2012, 02:17 PM

Set up the locked camera. Shoot with the highest possible frame rate.

Shoot background plate for a 60 seconds. ( just to be safe )
Set up a small green screen big enough to mask the cube placement.
Shoot the cube being placed it the appropriate spot.
Set up a larger green screen or blue screen sheet (depending on the color of the tent) behind the cube and big enough to mask around the tent.
mark the spot remove the cube.
place the tent into as small a pile of "tent" as you can, shoot that, go back and make it bigger, shoot that, repeat slowly creating the pitched tent. Then use a morph tool to manipulate the tent to render the in-between frames and matte into the background movie plate, along with the "real" cube shot and the matte cube shot.

Or just take the pitched tent and crush it into the cube using standard tools for manipulation of an image in AE or FCP even...

cheers
geo

Will Vincent · 08-07-2012, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beatlesfan1225

The only issue I see with that is that the shot is outside, so the trees blowing in the wind and general surrounding might have noticeable awkwardness when reversing the shot.

This is why you'd rotoscope it, so that only the tent is actually used in the final effect shot, not all of the surrounding scene.