Shooting practicals is the funnest thing I do with my epic, totally unexpected

[PatrickFaith]

I'm sure many of you guys have done it, but coming from the art/finance world I had never shot any practicals ... nor understood the process. Some of my scenes were taking forever to do in VFX, and really i didn't like the look of them, so was "hinted" at that I should do a lot more with "in camera practicals". So I took a class on practicals (taught by some major experts), also went to a talk by Claudio Miranda on how he shot oblivion ( I btw saw some of 4k oblivion footage which is pretty sweet). Any way I'm finding shooting practical effects is the funnest thing i do with my epic - it's not something I expected or really even new existed.

I've also noticed the cliques that shoot practicals are often a mix of 1st and 2nd camera crews, with a lot of input from the director/cinematographer (though they are often not their for the actual shoot since there are a lot of somewhat long processes in practical shoots). I have also noticed in every case that I saw it, that EPIC's were involved ... I find myself just amazingly lucky ... I bought the epic and scarlet not even knowing what a practical was ... and find out that I have accidentally bought the best practicals camera ever and shooting practicals is my favorite thing to do in photography.

I am just starting off in practicals, I haven't found any good books on modern practicals (lot of good books on older approaches), but mainly just picking up from people how to shoot digitally, project digitally and capture the interaction via camera motion control. I included a test shot where I used a hdrx from the epic to light something, but would enjoy what other are doing with practicals, tips and tools for digital practicals.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Hey, Patrick. I'm really not sure what you mean by practicals. Practical light sources? Practical special FX? I can't seem to get any clues from the image you posted.

 

[paulherrin]

practical fx... have you seen the fountain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgR5YV3JhwA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6xb8Qbi1cc

 

[PatrickFaith]

Hey, Patrick. I'm really not sure what you mean by practicals. Practical light sources? Practical special FX? I can't seem to get any clues from the image you posted.

I think the term "practicals" is going through some revisions, some people say "in camera effects", others sfx - I don't think there has ever been a solid definition of the word. For a more modern definition, my "opinion" is if the shot starts with a digital sensor, then is re-projected and then re-captured via digital processing ... that is a modern practical (like in Oblivion, but the reprojections can also be fully virtual if that is best). The shot I included was a re-projection of hdrx image sequence taken on the monochrome viewed through a "plastic" element creating a distortion(i.e. the plastic element was not there when the original sensor shot was taken). I'm working on right now a shot with physical steam and re-projections with motion control cameras.

practical fx... have you seen the fountain?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6xb8Qbi1cc

Excellent example, I didn't even realize the space sequence was done with practicals. That video where the guy is playing with chemicals and shooting through a macro lens is a good example of how I'm building shots (I'm also fairly sure they are bouncing between projections to get some of those effects, not sure). I will have to go back and watch the dvd extra's for that film

 

[Marc Wielage]

"Practicals" always meant on-set lighting fixtures to me.

"Shooting practical effects" makes more sense.

 

[Justin Chin]

Yeah. At first I thought you meant practical lighting.

I've been fortunate enough to have worked on several big VFX films with my Epic right in the middle of miniatures being destroyed, dropped, shattered and lately water canons. Too much fun!

 

[Brett Harrison]

"Practicals" always meant on-set lighting fixtures to me.

"Shooting practical effects" makes more sense.

'In camera effects' 'practical effects' 'special effects'

'SFX' predates CGI, so to communicate the visual trickery of actually building things up out of simulated light and surface, 'visual' was substituted, VFX.

As Patrick says, lines are blurring, but 'in camera' and 'practical effects' are pretty unambiguous.

I agree with Marc that 'practicals' in the unqualified context of camera shooting would mean practical light fixtures.

 

[PatrickFaith]

"Practicals" always meant on-set lighting fixtures to me.

"Shooting practical effects" makes more sense.

Another "casual" term I have been hearing from the actors/producers/directors is "on set", like that will say "ya... all that was done on set". I kind of like the "on set effects" term, since it is technology agnostic and means from a actors perspective that it was a more immersive acting experience. I have also heard some of the older directors say "in set", meaning they built the set to be realistic and so things would not have to "go out" to vfx.

Yeah. At first I thought you meant practical lighting.

I've been fortunate enough to have worked on several big VFX films with my Epic right in the middle of miniatures being destroyed, dropped, shattered and lately water canons. Too much fun!

It is such a blast. I think from a career viewpoint, it's also a good move, in that it seems like it's a way to move from 2nd unit to main unit crew. (i.e. 2nd unit does the matte's that go into the onset projectors normally, but there is a lot of cross over on the crews when doing practical effects).

As Patrick says, lines are blurring, but 'in camera' and 'practical effects' are pretty unambiguous.

A good example of the blurring is when I use my ipad to "boost" candle output (i.e. i aim the ipad camera at a candle that is lighting the actors face, then ipad screen boosts the light as it projects onto the actors face). Using an Ipad to boost candle light includes all three "practical" words: "practical effect" as in physical flames being invovled, practical light as in "found" or consumer lighting being used, "mechanical effect" as in capture and re-projection being involved. Roger Deakins btw commented on this as it relates to the new cameras in how they don't need "film lighting". With my monochrome which will probably be like what people will get with the dragon, I find I have a lot of just insanely cool things I can do which were not possible with the older cameras. Using ipads/iphones/personal_projectors as both effect engines and light sources is an example of this new world.

 

[Christopher Mills]

to further confuse things.. here's some more jargon

to further confuse things.. here's some more jargon

As someone who has also in their checkered past held a special effects union classification..
"Floor Effects," "Mechanical Effects," and "Atmospherics" are also terms we use to refer to filming things that actually happened in front of the lens, ideally edit ready.

frequently this can include pyrotechnic effects, stunt work, water , wind, smoke, actual manipulation of objects on screen (that can overlap puppeteering)...

fer example... in "Remember the Titans," we made a falling oak leaf behave much like the CGI feather in "Forrest Gump"

In Substitute 4, we blew up a porta potty, and landed a flaming roll of toilet paper on the ground in front of the camera lens.

In another movie (I think it was swordfish, but I was not on set.. back at shop prepping the rig) we used a mechanical ram to make a full size limo flip up n the air with a flash bang happening in forced perspective to hide our launcher..
no CGI needed to use those shots...


In lots of shows we made lovely rain drip down windows on sets (Sweet Home Alabama and Fighting Temptations are two I worked on)

 

[Brett Harrison]

slightly off topic but this is a great example of practical effects augmented by VFX and you can tell how much fun they had on the show.

https://vimeo.com/69153710

Check out the guy's vimeo channel for the actual clip and other examples of the same style.

 

[Dr. Sassi]

Hey Patrick,

Certainly a very interesting topic.

Working in mixed media is certainly always an advantage to discover new options and perhaps to save some money.

I use in my CG work since the late '90s camera projection. (As in the current link in my signature, the music video was done for a tutorial series, CINEMA 4D).

The first prominent use was in Terminator2 to my knowledge (for the background cities, to keep the parallax in the "city").

The "3D" geometry on which such projection is mapped, works then as a perspective -un- distorting set up, so the "render" camera can move to a certain degree around.



Talking about practicals -- I think everyone has seen the use of this technique, such as projected images of buildings in exactly the same way they were shot, but altered e.g., in AfterEffects. To have details added to the facade or just additional animations.

I think there is certainly a lot to explore. Perhaps even to reduce sometimes details (taking the image, alter it, and re-project it to the covered original.

I wish you tons of ideas with this.

All the best

Sassi

 

[PatrickFaith]

As someone who has also in their checkered past held a special effects union classification..
"Floor Effects," "Mechanical Effects," and "Atmospherics" are also terms we use to refer to filming things that actually happened in front of the lens, ideally edit ready.
... In Substitute 4, we blew up a porta potty, and landed a flaming roll of toilet paper on the ground in front of the camera lens.

Ya, that's what I'm talking about !!! I do think with all that's happening, the cross discipline people like you have a heads start on this new trend in complex/modern practicals.

slightly off topic but this is a great example of practical effects augmented by VFX and you can tell how much fun they had on the show.
https://vimeo.com/69153710
Check out the guy's vimeo channel for the actual clip and other examples of the same style.

That is excellent, it looked real difficult to do with all the mixing between practical and models. I'm hoping with openexr 2.0 integration to maya and nuke with the new render engines, that layered practicals like this will be easier to do.

I watched "The Fountain" again, and they were doing some thing similar. I was looking at the box office numbers and cost of this type of production with the older technologies for practicals , and the numbers are hard to justify the cost. My hope is with the newer technology these "art" type of projects can be done for considerably less, allowing more of these type of productions.

Hey Patrick,
Certainly a very interesting topic.
Working in mixed media is certainly always an advantage to discover new options and perhaps to save some money.
I use in my CG work since the late '90s camera projection. (As in the current link in my signature, the music video was done for a tutorial series, CINEMA 4D).
The first prominent use was in Terminator2 to my knowledge (for the background cities, to keep the parallax in the "city").
The "3D" geometry on which such projection is mapped, works then as a perspective -un- distorting set up, so the "render" camera can move to a certain degree around.

Talking about practicals -- I think everyone has seen the use of this technique, such as projected images of buildings in exactly the same way they were shot, but altered e.g., in AfterEffects. To have details added to the facade or just additional animations.
I think there is certainly a lot to explore. Perhaps even to reduce sometimes details (taking the image, alter it, and re-project it to the covered original.
I wish you tons of ideas with this.

P.S.: The Björk video has a little coverage in the HDVideoPro/April2013, page 84-87. (I picked this issue at RED for free, perhaps others took one as well, while getting my Epic in Orange County.)

Your so right, I think I have this working when projecting into background of the scene (the re-projection such as in Oblivion, etc) ... but recently I've been trying to move the reprojection into the foreground (i.e. using re-projection of candles on actors faces with the projector in the foreground). I did my initial testing of this with cinema4d and after effects in linear mode(you get a huge bang for your buck that way). Currently I"m focusing on foreground projection because of all the animation of my characters mixed with practicals, with foreground project I need to be fanatical on camera angles vs light projection. Using the motion control systems is basically allowing me to cheat through these problems.

 

[paulherrin]

just to +1 here on general terminology

practical effects (fx), special effects (sfx), and in-camera all refer to the same general idea of non-computer generated effects.

visual effects (vfx) and computer-generated-imagery (cgi or cg) refer to digital effects.

sometimes people use special effects and visual effects interchangeably, which is fine by me. i'd like to see less delineation and more crosstalk between the two fields. in the examples i posted above from 'the fountain', the plates were all captured practically (macro/micro photography) before being significantly enhanced and digitally composited. optical printing (early compositing) doesn't make a whole lot of sense these days, so i think it's okay to call something special/practical even if it's gotten digital treatment along the way. ymmv