How to simulate: Fire illumination, Pyro Effects, Living room on fire

[Daniel Reed]

Greetings,

I'm researching options/methods for creating the illusion of parts of a living room appearing on fire as a dialogue scene with talent on a couch.

We obviously will not be setting a living room on fire :mad5:

Think Barton Fink, Syndoche NY

Please see my better detailed post on the cinematography.com forums:
http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=71850


Thank you for any and all advise/guidence

 

[Lakis Amarantithis]

fumefx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXL1Nrv4qB8

 

[Daniel Reed]

Thanks Lakis; however, I prefer to employ as much physical practical effects for this as can be mustered.

 

[Marc Wielage]

SimFlame would do it:

http://www.simflame.com/

 

[Mark K.]

Dual flicker boxes controlling tungsten fixtures is a good way to create a natural-feeling sense of firelight. Combine that with say a flame-bar in the foreground of the camera and some vfx on objects on the edges of the frame, and you might have something worthwhile.

 

[Daniel Reed]

cool, thanks Mark!

Magic Gadget appears to make a popular flicker dimmer

I've never worked w/ a flame bar, and frankly feel a litle intimidated by it

I've put candles underneath and in front of lenses before(out of frame),
not for the flame, but for the warping heat effect - thought about doing something like that


beside making my own fire plates, purchasing pre-keyed fire assets is an option such as:
http://www.detfilms4k.com/fire.html

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

Illumination part: cut the orange color gel into a striped curtain and have someone shake it in front of a strong light source. Usable depending on the fire light effect you want to achieve.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

You can also use a sheet of glass at a 45 degree angle to the lens to reflect a fire burning against a black background at a right-angle to the camera.

 

[Daniel Reed]

David, that's a very cool idea! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Daniel Reed]

David's idea got me thinking about front projection...

film a hot set, do effects work on it, project via a one way mirror during actual.
I suspect front projection may not work well with haze filled sets - thoughts?

If using plain glass, or making your own oneway mirror, is low-iron/starfire glass the way to go?
I found this place for custome glass work: https://admglass.com/

 

[Nathaniel Haban]

I've taken a 6x6 of gold lame' and loosely draped it, the gold side facing the subject you want to illuminate. Shoot a tungsten source into it, and have somebody give it (the gold lame') a gentle movement, and the flickering bounce off the fabric approximates fire well enough.

...This obviously only for the illumination part of the challenge.

 

[Daniel Reed]

Interesting suggestion, Nathaniel.
Is there a specific brand/source of lame' fabric that worked best for you?

I imagine i can pretty easily hang a sheet between two cstands,
point tungsten lamps at it on flicker dimmers,
and then have just one person give the sheet slow/gentle movements

 

[Christopher Mills]

Have had very good results with flicker boxes and tungsten instuments with red and orange party gells for the effect of off camera flames. I like using 3 or more flicker boxes, all slightly off form one another. Smoke and haze helped a lot. beware that this can set of a smoke alarm

 

[Daniel Reed]

For anyone interested, here's a write-up I found by Andrew Davidhazy about front projection:
http://scholarworks.rit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1439&context=article