Keeping an empty street empty

419 Films

419 Films

Hi, all.

I'm getting myself prepared to shoot my very first short in a couple of months (I'm working away from home for 3 months). One shot in my piece is a child dreaming that he is alone, completely. I want to have him run to the end of his driveway, look left and right, and the street is totally devoid of anything living.

What I want to know is this: I can't really block a residential street off and tell everyone to stay inside while I do this (well, maybe I can, but... :idea:). So, what I was thinking to do was either get a still shot looking either direction, or maybe a few seconds of video (which may get looped if I need more time) when the way is clear, and then green screen the child in.

Putting aside the fact that I've never done this before (I'm going to practice a lot while I'm away), do either of these sound like reasonable concepts to anyone out there with more experience than me. (Granted, more experience than me could mean someone sitting in their very first film class. :lol:)
 
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When I was about 17 I made a movie where an astronaut returns
to an empty earth. We didn't have the use of greenscreen or video
compositing back then so we shot all the scenes very early in the
morning. We ended up with some amazing shots of freeways,
residential areas, schools and even the main streets of the city
by taking a lot of time and care in getting the shots.

It seems that in a residential neighborhood there will be a few
minutes at some time during the day when there is no one out
and about.

I'll let those who advocate greenscreen and effects cover that
aspect.
 
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That shows you how new I am to this. I hadn't even considered getting shots early in the morning. It would be perfectly in keeping with things, as well, as this dream is supposed to be when the child first wakes up. Definitely a (much easier) idea than what I had. :lol:
 
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Think of it as several shots making one scene. Do you relay need to see the kid, the driveway and up and down the street all in the same shot? One long shot would be boring anyway.

Shot one:
Camera at the end of the driveway, not quite in the road. Kid runs up the drive way towards the camera.

Shot two:
Close up of kids face looking worried as he looks left, then right, then left again..

Shot three:
Over the shoulder shot of kid standing at the end of the driveway looking left..

Shot four:
Over the shoulder shot of kid standing at the end of the driveway looking right..


Edit and reorder as needed, but this way, the street never has to be completely empty in both directions. It just needs to be empty one direction at a time. Dont do any dialog in this scene and no one will ever know that a moving van just went by..

Get up early enough on a Saturday or Sunday and this wont be a problem.
 
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I get the feeling that this is being shot at your own property/location? There's no reason why you have to.

If you know someone who actually lives on a quiet street, you could easily just use their exterior. One simple edit/cut and voila. The audience will never know.

Good luck. :cool:
 
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It’s a real long shot, and there are undoubtedly easier ways to do it, but if it's just 1 scene that features the house, maybe you can find a housing development not too far away where the houses are built, but are empty. I have been to a few of these, and they are like brand new ghost towns.
I’m always amazed at the musical film Godspell, where they pulled off making NYC look empty.

-Thanks-
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Dont do any dialog in this scene and no one will ever know that a moving van just went by..
Click to expand...
None of the outdoor shots have any dialogue planned, anyway, so that's not a problem. :)
Buddy Greenfield said:
maybe you can find a housing development not too far away where the houses are built, but are empty
Click to expand...
That's a great idea, as well. I'll have to look into that.

Thank you, everyone.
 
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It's not too difficult to pain out people and vehicles if you've got enough footage, unless you've got a moving camera in which case it can still be done, but becomes much more involved.
 
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It's all about timing. You can do it. You know how you waited for cars to pass to play stickball when you were a kid? ;)
 
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It's nowhere near as tricky as you might expect, 419. I once managed to get about ten full minutes of empty streets in my city and surrounding suburbs, even though there were cars and shoppers walking by all the time. The trick is to set up your camera, set it running, and wait. When you run through your footage later, you're almost guaranteed to find a bunch of 4-5 second segments where nobody appears in shot.

The second part of the trick is in the editing.

(a) Show your kid in closeup, preferably from an above head angle, then show him turning his head.

(b) On the turn, cut to one of your 5 second "empty street" shots.

(c) Cut back to kid's face, reacting.

(d) Cut back again to a different 5 second "empty street" shot. Or even the same one as before!!

(e) Cut back to kid, big reaction.

Your audience thinks they've been looking at that empty street for ten seconds. As you no doubt know, ten seconds is a long time in a movie, especially if nothing's happening.

Here's another way. Take a good high-res shot of the street. Photoshop out anything that you don't want in the shot. In your NLE, put that image in the bottom layer, add a Blur Effect to it, and then add your greenscreened kid on top. As he turns away, keyframe the still image layer so that it loses its Blur effect as he sees it. Should look like you've pulled focus and that will add to the illusion of depth.

Too easy.:yes:
 
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Will: LOL. One of my favourite scenes in one of my favourite movies!

4Dman: Yet another thing I hadn't considered. I know there's a lot of professionally made films on IMDb that list average shot times, and they're always in the under-10-seconds time frame.

The longer I'm on this forum, the more I'm glad I signed on to it. :)
 
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Will Vincent said:
LOL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHolxXWLho8
Click to expand...

Game on! :lol:

As a native of Aurora, IL, I thank you for your Wayne's World reference :P

@ 419, if you're having a hard time with finding non busy times for your street, don't forget you may be able to get a permit from the city to film and block the street off from traffic. i know here when people have block parties the city puts up no parking signs and blocks the streets.

My grandma actually grew up on the street where Al Capone's mother lived. She said whenever he would come to visit his mother, the police would block all public access.
 
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