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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Creating Blizzard Indoors or In Post

Savva Svet

Savva Svet

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Hey Guys,

So I'm prepping a spec shoot for Gillette that covers the history of the male beard. The spot will be shot at high-speed (still deciding on camera...phantom miro, epic or fs-700 w/ r5 recorder).

The history the spot covers will be ancient Greece (Spartan Warrior), Middle Ages (Blacksmith), mid-1800s (bar-man) Arctic explorer and finally the modern man.

I'm trying to re-create a blizzard, in a studio environment, for the Arctic explorer. I'm debating whether I should shoot against a backdrop with snow and haze machine, or shooting against a green screen and creating the elements in post. Either in 3D, or shoot each element (snow, haze, actor) individually against a green screen and layering them in post.

Any thoughts/tips/advice on what the best way to do this? Keep in mind everything will be shot at about 240fps.

P.S. - Having never worked with green-screen in such a detailed way, I shot a few tests. Granted these were lit with just (2) lights, but if anyone might be interested in taking a stab at it I can send the test footage over. And perhaps, if green-screen is the way to go, we can add you to our team and talk details.

I've attached a visual reference, shot by photographer Joey L.
 

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I would always lean towards practical or at least a combination.

Savva Svet said:
Hey Guys,

So I'm prepping a spec shoot for Gillette that covers the history of the male beard. The spot will be shot at high-speed (still deciding on camera...phantom miro, epic or fs-700 w/ r5 recorder).

The history the spot covers will be ancient Greece (Spartan Warrior), Middle Ages (Blacksmith), mid-1800s (bar-man) Arctic explorer and finally the modern man.

I'm trying to re-create a blizzard, in a studio environment, for the Arctic explorer. I'm debating whether I should shoot against a backdrop with snow and haze machine, or shooting against a green screen and creating the elements in post. Either in 3D, or shoot each element (snow, haze, actor) individually against a green screen and layering them in post.

Any thoughts/tips/advice on what the best way to do this? Keep in mind everything will be shot at about 240fps.

P.S. - Having never worked with green-screen in such a detailed way, I shot a few tests. Granted these were lit with just (2) lights, but if anyone might be interested in taking a stab at it I can send the test footage over. And perhaps, if green-screen is the way to go, we can add you to our team and talk details.

I've attached a visual reference, shot by photographer Joey L.
Click to expand...
 
I agree with Paul -- I think having some real snow and some CG is probably the ideal combination. Green screen will be tough dealing with little tiny objects that move quickly. Definitely shoot tests beforehand.
 
I have found getting "real" falling objects like snow/rain in camera to be really hard;) Seems like it always moves to fast/blurs(like it has to be 5 times more dense then it would be in real life, and if in real life it was that dense you would be in a white out, so rain/snow to me in camera is always a sfx with compositing). Would be awesome to get it in camera though.

"Girl with Dragon Tatoo" did a lot of shot breakdowns of how they added snow(is on the blu-ray). GWDT i am just so impressed by the craft in that film, is what I aspire to. I've seen a bunch of walk thru's of those techniques in nukex (i have some of the old nodes, but i'm moving to deep pixels for that type of stuff). You need to go with the high end packages if your going to add snow decently though (probably 15k of software, and a total expert to do it - also need coverage shots,clean plating,matte painting sometimes, etc ... ).
 
i agree with the other guys on a combo... and i actually think rear-projecting a matte painting might be a good idea in this case rather than greenscreen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDGqKyNV-HU

in addition to gwdt, matrix revolutions has a good discussion of practical/cgi combinations for rain effects - patrick is right on at how difficult it is to get what you want for the camera. it's almost always a good idea to augment with visual effects for these kind of elements. if you have the disc, look for the 'super burly brawl' bts...
 
And if you're going to photograph tiny pixels like snow, I would also reduce the compression rate as much as possible. You should do tests, but I bet 4:1 might be the minimum you can use in order to get maximum detail with the fewest artifacts from on-set snow.
 
Everything you guys are mentioned is correct. And in theory, combining in camera effects and post should do the trick. But evidently theres more to it (software, lighting and most importantly the VFX artist(s) behind it all).

That Girl With The Dragon Tattoo VFX Reel, that's exactly what is needs, but that's an entirely different ballgame/budget.

Here's a test I did in After Effects using Keylight. I think we can all agree it looks like a cheap Christmas special commercial for ABC.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ytpb2t9j1nzk35m/Arctic Explorer VFX Test.mov

So what's wrong in this test I've done? Any VFX artist interested in taking a stab at it?
 
haha, those are the craziest snowflakes i've ever seen! i would recommend more wind and more whiteout... again i'll recommend rear-projection for best results.
 
Yea a buddy of mine had a snow machine we used (http://www.amazon.com/American-Dj-Snow-Flurry-Machine/dp/B000GISTEA). There were two modes, High and Low..this was with the low mode. Definitely considering getting another snow-machine, or finding a way to make these flakes even smaller.

I'll take a look into rear projection and see how I can work it into our set-up.

Here's another take with 'less' snow

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8x39ww4bde5a0rl/Arctic%20Test%204.mov (background fits a bit better than the previous one)

But it's still all the same..cheap looking.
 
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that dropbox link doesn't work...

maybe that could work if you focus it all between him and the backdrop, but really that just complicates the key and would probably be better clean if you do greenscreen instead of rear-projection. either way i would do cg foreground snow.
 
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