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Author
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Topic: abandoned city.
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red chris
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posted 01-23-2001 01:59 PM
how am i going to show a whole city that has been abandoned? |
Jeff F
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posted 01-23-2001 02:10 PM
You can create a matte painting (or digital) and animate some leaves or a newspaper blowing down the street to add some movement to the shot to keep it from looking like a still picture.You can build a miniature model city in forced perspective and shoot that. You can shoot a real city scape and digitally alter it to remove cars, people, and activity, but that's something for the Computer Magic forum. ------------------
Jeff F - Moderator
Magic and FX
Amazing the Masses |
Frank Milne
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posted 01-23-2001 02:16 PM
Ever been to the bronx? Hit the south bronx at about.. 7am on a sunday and everything will look like its been abandonded for 20 years. No people.. buildings falling apart... etc... Shoot that set creatively and you'll have no signs of living civilization and no production expenses except for train fare! unless you;re not a new yorker. which you're not cause it says you're from england... hmm... does London have dilapidated areas? You get the drift.------------------
www.frank.milne.com |
EricM
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posted 01-23-2001 02:36 PM
Set your camera up on a tripod and shoot a city street for a few minutes. Then pull the frames into a paint program. If someone is in the shot on one frame, but not there in another frame, then use the empty frame to paint them out. Do this until all the people are painted out.
If you want the city to look run down then you can paint in weathering. |
sketchman
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posted 01-23-2001 05:16 PM
if it's eye-level, then i offer a variation on eric's idea: find the most desolate street you can find and shoot it for a while. if there are some people around, you can kindly ask them to hold on for a few seconds. if you're on a tripod you can probably just edit out any passers-by. then put some matte or other CG background of an abandoned city and there ya go.
if you want like an aerial view, i suggest either a physical scale model or a CG model, CG probably being the easier of the two.------------------
Monkey Sea Entertainment - renovated as of January 2001
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Moviemakers Portal (moviemaking-only search engine) |
World_Empire_Films
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posted 01-23-2001 05:30 PM
ABONDON CITIES R THE COOLEST! What do ya need the footage for? whats ur movie about? Sounds cool! |
CaptainStubby
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posted 01-23-2001 05:47 PM
There's a way to do this with a still camera. You could get a good abandoned shot and then matte it into your film and this will be a way to pretty much get any building you want in the shot.To do this find a nice city shot where you could leave a still camera for a few hours during the middle of the day.
Like a balcony, or out a window, or maybe a storefront that will let you.
Set the still camera on Bulb or Time (most cameras only have one) on the shutter speed setting, line up your shot and press the shutter...
Now, if the camera has Bulb setting you can press the shutter and walk away... just make sure that nobody touches your tripod... if it has Time, you'll need to find a way to keep the shutter depressed. (Or maybe it's the other way around...) Don't worry about people walking in front of your camera... as long as they keep moving the background will expose through them and you'll be left with empty buildings and whatever else isn't moving. (watch out for parked cars and don't move the camera) --Trey |
Nayman
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posted 01-23-2001 06:36 PM
I dunno how long you can wait. Ever been out on the streets on new years day. I couldnt find someone if i tried. Same thing on easter, or any big holiday morninggoodluck |
Frank Milne
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posted 01-24-2001 10:26 AM
and what if you want a recently abandonded city... one that's mysteriously lost it's population a-la the Marie Celeste? Anyone remember the Virgin Atlantic Airways commercial where the guy or the dog is running about empty spaces finally asking "where is everybody?" Just find a place that is mostly office space rather than residential and shoot early on a sunday morning. ------------------
www.frank.milne.com |
red chris
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posted 01-24-2001 01:27 PM
thanks for all your help, i've decidd to use a mixture of empty streets and computer editing to get this effect. The reason i need this is because for the next few years, i'm going to be making about 4 half an hour long movies, that are continuing the alien saga. so i need an abandoned city( that has been devistated by the aliens) and then after we have seen the city, we see a huge alien hive as big as a sky scraper!
I'll soon have a website up about this series of movies. |
Actor
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posted 01-24-2001 07:43 PM
To do it with a still camera:
- Mount camera on tripod. Duh.
- Stop down as far as you can.
- Take meter reading.
- Compute shutter speed. Should be at least 30 seconds. One minute should be enough unless something is moving really slow.
- If shutter speed is still too short then add a two or three stop neutral density filter.
- Don't forget reciprocity failure.
I used this method to get an empty college campus.
[This message has been edited by Actor (edited 01-24-2001).] |
Frank Milne
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posted 01-25-2001 10:23 AM
Alien Saga. Is that the films title? I wonder why no one on here (myself included) ever wants to make a romantic comedy or something. Someone mustw ant to do it since so many of them are filmed every year.------------------
www.frank.milne.com |
red chris
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posted 01-25-2001 01:40 PM
your right about the romantic films, i guess it is just as hard to do as an action film, maybe even harder if you want it to be good! But i prefere action, since there are only a few romantic films i like(well, most are actually more of a comedy than romance!)
The title of the films is ALIENS EARTH WAR: -name of episode-. the alien saga is what i've based my movies on. i did some filming last summer, but it will really kick of this summer. i'll tell you when my site is done!! |
Jeff F
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posted 01-25-2001 01:45 PM
I'd venture to say that many of the folk here are in this for the love of movies, and that cold, hard commercialism is a lesser factor in the equation.Funny timing for your comment, I just started a screwball comedy script last week that I have no interest whatsoever in making myself. This one is simply something to sell. A nice change of pace, most of my other stuff I'm so close to that I loathe turning it over to someone else to potentially misunderstand and ruin. While I prefer art to commerce I was struck by an idea that works quite well as standard Hollywood fare. If it sells, I made money. If it doesn't, I had some more practice writing. ------------------
Jeff F - Moderator
Magic and FX
Amazing the Masses |
Frank Milne
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posted 01-25-2001 02:32 PM
There can be an art to romantic comedy, just don't cast sandra bullock, Gweneth paltrow, jennifer lopez, freddie prinze jr... mathew lillard.. any corey!!! ack!! My brain is dieing just thinking about it.------------------
www.frank.milne.com |
deaf to reason
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posted 01-25-2001 02:39 PM
I also think the holiday idea is good. Just this past christmas I was out at about 10AM and there was literaly not a soul anywhere. I wanted to go grab my camera and shoot some footage, but I had to go do the family thing instead. The next big holiday maybe try to shoot some footage since you said it was going to take you a few years to complete the films. Good luck! |
DigiteyeZ
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posted 01-25-2001 04:36 PM
i think a romantic comedy is just hard to do because ithas to have a really good, solid script, and it has to be unique. i'm not too good at making love stories or comedies, so i've never attempted it. but it would be nice to see someone try it, and maybe we'd all be forced to give input and stretch our minds a little. |
Frank Milne
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posted 01-26-2001 11:02 AM
what might be considered hard is writing and directing a good dialogue driven film regardless of it's genre. Think about it. We sill dramas and thrillers with bad plots and cheesy lines that not even great preformances can save. Then we have films with great scripts but poor direction that ruins it all. In other ways it's easier to shoot a dialogue driven film. Action films need so many shots to make up a scene while talking could use less, depending on directorial style. ------------------
www.frank.milne.com |
red chris
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posted 01-26-2001 01:25 PM
ok, the website is up, with some info, click here: http://www.clik.to/alienearthwar |
Mr. Sable
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posted 01-31-2001 10:41 AM
Some cities charge a very small amount of money to block off a street ($15 per block where I live).You could wait behind a traffic light on a one way street early on a Sunday morning and shoot while the light is red - I've done a lot of creative, non digital shots to make Calgary, Alberta, look abandoned (and partially destroyed) in my current film. Even thought I like to use in-camera matte paintings, I've never even had to for this. ------------------
Indie Film North |
