Falling Body
Falling Body- special effects and filmmaking
My friends and I are making another parody based on Groundhog Day but he doesn't wake up
after dying. He merely tries to kill himself and gets back up and tries it again, and each time he does it, he grows more in pain. Stupid, I know. Its like he tries it the first time and then he goes back up in a wheelchair, and it progresses like that. We threw a mannequin off, but it looked very FAKE. I want it to move and flail its arms and legs. If you have any other ideas, lemme
know and if at all possible how the effect could be accomplished. Or an idea for a parody. I think the first time, he'll wear a neck brace, then one leg cast, followed by the wheelchair. Thats kinda what I had in mind. So I can use the mannequin for the final scene. Then he would wake up in a hospital and be released to do it again, because everyday he wakes up in the hospital.
I'm kind of looking for it to turn out like a joke. Any ideas?
[This message has been edited by Pyromaniac (edited 03-28-2000).]
make yourself a dummy. heh. Ive never tried this before, but here goes.
take some boards and hinges and build a skeleton, roughly proportionate to a skeleton, with the "bones" hinged in the proper direction and what not, using some sticks and chicken wire for the rib cage, and then, well, I guess you could use the head of your mannequin, or even hack it to bits and use its limbs instead of the boards, but I dont know about that. anyway, then you stuff the little bugger with fairly firm material, and if you want some sort of splat effect when it hits, put some fake blood and cold cuts and such around the parts where you want splattage, cover it with enough newspaper to keep it from oozing out on to the clothes ahead of time, maybe with strategic weak points so itll burst better..Oh, maybe even paper mache, dont know that that would work to well really, just kinda thinking out loud. anyway, you may want to take some artistic license with your design, main idea is just to have the underlying "bone" structure so that your dummy will act like a real body in air, you may even want to add some fairly weak but sturdy elastic bands to kinda simulate tendons so its not like your throwing a big sack O skeleton off a building. hope this helps, I hope to try this idea out myself sometime soon.
You could do like Kubrick in A Clockwork orange and show a first person view by throwing cameras out the window until one landed face down. :-)
I have made stunt dummies - one in particular that we had a lot of fun with and beat the tar out of.
Check the archives - I believe 've posted on this previously. The main idea is to make sure that the joints have about the same range of motion that a real body does. Stand up and move your arms and legs to their limits - Each joint will only move so far in a number of directions.
------------------
Jeff F - Magic and FX
Amazing the Masses
Or, to kinda guide it down, tie a string to the back and kinda tug it a little bit on the way down to keep it aimed down....or you could weight the lens side, that would probably work best....course...then youd be out a camera...if youre shooting on vhs, you could get a cheapo old camera and try it that way, ey. OH! OHH OHH OH! you could weight and pad the lens side of the camera, so its out of cam view of course, then tie a rope/string to the back and lower it down slowly enough that you dont fudge it then speed it up in post. eh? eh? hah.
Sack o skeleton.. haha Oh man thats such a funny concept.. haha he said sack o skeleton. Oh man.. I need serious sleepage...
All times are ET (US)