This $80 Projector Trick Makes Incredible Films | Live Projection 101

these go watch that video where the camera flies into the head and the head like explodes what good morning Andy Mowgli's Ted here and welcome back now today we're heading the Steiner Studios to go talk about live projection what is it and can buying a cheap $80.00 projector really help you be a better filmmaker now cloud projection is the process of using real video in your video which sounds a little complicated mostly cuz I was a bad way of explaining it live projection is when you use footage or scenes that he shot elsewhere to mimic backgrounds or other parts of your scene without having them actually be all together in real life and believe me this is a technique that's actually been around forever in fact if you remember the opening of that 70s show it's live projection that's actually making that background here I know what you're thinking it's super I don't know I'd want to remake it and cameras are affordable and they're lightweight now so why can't I just jump into a car and shoot it for real to find out more we headed out to the Fierstein school of cinema and the Steiner Studios lot which is the biggest film lot in New York City and this is Charles Charles is a great guy with an amazing beard he's also a feature film maker a writer at no film school and a professor of cinematography yet the fierce game school cinema which is a place I promise to say a bunch of times think you think you think you think you think fierce new fierce tears team dress school ever it is also the only film school on Steiner Studios a lot which is where they film things like venom and mist nasal it's pretty incredible so make sure you check them out but I digress remember the amazing beard this is just a small portion of our interview with Charles but be sure to check out the full length discussion in the podcast link below when you first said we wanted to build it around their tutorial the first idea that came to me was the idea of doing it with sort of a front projection kind of setup because it's one of those things that gets a terrible rap I think we all picture like a terrible Saturday Night Live sketch where it's like two people and they're like pretending to ski and there's like a projection behind them which is like funny inside ant life but it's not what you want in your movie I get it SNL can get away with live projection because comedy and looking a little cheesy looks part of the show but how does it look when it's used in a real serious movie how does it look when you say give it to one of the greatest most meticulous directors of all time so when you look at something like Eyes Wide Shut that's what they were doing it was a scotch light screen the projection was dim on Tom Cruise and and brighter on the screen in the background it doesn't it it's not Kubrick qualities [Music] why do I keep seeing live projection getting used in movies the number one situation I recommend it for the number one situation I've used in my life is for what we call poor man's process know if you don't know what the poor man's process is here it is in a nutshell in film if you want to shoot a scene with two characters acting in a car the traditional way to do this is by hooking up the whole vehicle to a processed trailer and that way the characters can fact and pretend like they're driving when in actuality they're hooked up to a trailer that's driving them downtown and around you have to do this because it's safer yeah you should never have an actor performing while physically driving the car and took in a crash it's kind of has happened I mean if you haven't watched it please go watch that video where the camera operator is holding a thing and they pop an airbag off and like you know the camera flies it's a mannequin but flies into the head and head like explodes like what oh yeah that's why you should never do that so for me I love using projection because I think it accomplishes a couple of really important things that bring the footage to life first it gives you just color and texture in the background reason one color and texture now no we're not talking about just throwing a projector in front of a live projection hoping that it looks like he's in the scene because it's not gonna work so to make sure we knew exactly how to make it work we asked Charles to show us a live demonstration of live projection and the poor man's process now because it was just us on a stage Charles opted to use a tiny projector and also a tiny eight-inch car honestly the clip we're using it's a standard definition projector and a standard definition video clip you don't need to go out and get a 4k projector because it's gonna be out of focus in the background is it gonna be the best like a part of your image now but it at least adds something instead of nothing which is not a super convincing reason and I'm not super convinced either so what's reason number two I just had this conversation the other day with a guy who works on the bigger shows and he was talking about how frustrating process trailers are because for him he can never line up the right background with the right line of dialogue reason to better timing now one of the hardest things to do in a car scene is timing the scene exactly the way you want to and he's like oh yeah you're constantly like watching the actor and you're like talk faster talk faster the backgrounds about to get good I need you to get to that line if you're anything like David Fincher try multiplying that by a hundred takes and you've got your entire day of filming there if you even get it in the tape by using live projection you can actually control the surroundings or under scene and achieve better timing and then the third real benefit for me is the interactivity between the crew and the video but usually when you're doing that in like the true inky blackness I'm driving through a cornfield way that's all kind of random whereas when you've got a video projection you can watch the stuff up there and you like a video projection slowing will do some brake lights so when you're there and like every single electric and grip is watching the video playback together and trying to timeout their things so the car bumps when the video bumps and the light bumps it's really fun tip three better motivation now this one this is super tricky one basically what Charles is saying here is that by being able to control your surroundings you're live projection gives you any light sources or motion sources that you want to motivate something happening in your scene the number one way I think you need to do it is really paying attention to the interaction between what's going on back there what's going on in the foreground the closer you can get those the happier your gonna be this all makes sense and these are three pretty solid reasons for a lot of projection but there is still one problem if we're gonna go through all this effort to recreate our surroundings and I say this not ironically why not just fix it in post these days green-screen is easier than ever the tools are better the paint of fabric everything's more advanced and if I'm just replacing a background why not just do it in the Edit it turns out cars have lots of reflective surfaces even our toy car the inside windows of the car are reflecting the world around it all of those reflections pick up your green screen but with live projection you're not using a green screen you're using real video in a real space that's emitting real light so if you catch reflections of that projection in your scene what Charles is saying is that that little bit of added movement that a little bit of added texture that appears in those reflections will actually help sell the effect makes it look like your characters actually in that space that you're projected but this is just talk and I hate talk so how does live projection really work when you're doing it on a full-blown real-deal set well we are gonna find out alrighty guys so we are currently on our way over to Best Buy we're gonna go pick up a projector so we can do some of these lighting effects that Charles is talking about we went back to Los Angeles when I went to Best Buy to go pick up the cheapest damn projector I could find you know where I can find a projector that may or may not probably return when this video is done and then we went to go visit my friends over at hurling Studios first thing we did was load our car into the space and then back it off that back wall since hurling had this amazing 50 foot wide psyche we throw up our projector behind the car and then remembered Charles's most important tip for making this work interaction between the foreground and the background so in this case since the video was of a car moving through a space at night the first thing that we did was put off a soft light to extend and mimic our moonlight this is a 120 D and a light dome with a full C TB gel on it then since this cars on steady straights who want to introduce a little bit of chaos into the lighting so to accomplish the spec we throw up to 120 DS in the back of the car just outside of the frame and then set each of them to pulse at two different frequency settings of firework mode it's just some random light they were adding a little chaos next since this car should be moving through the city the next thing that we did was add two panning lights both 120 ds1 with an extra blue push on it and then another with a sodium vapor gentle on it then to mimic movement and the color of street lights whizzing by in the distance we had two operators moving the lights from one end to the other the key of course making sure that the lights only moved in one direction forwards to match up and interact with that background I was also moving forwards we also thought it would be realistic for the vehicle to stop every once in a while say at a traffic light or a red brake light so we used a little bit of timing plus the dimming of a red gelled ls1 panel to mimic a brake light adding even more interaction between our foreground and our background and then finally for the front windshield of the car we wanted to do something special something that showed how live projection can look even better than CGI so to do this we whipped out our second projector that I actually bought a couple of days ago we shot the second projector right above the windshield of the car into an ultra bounce which is basically a super reflective white fabric that film people use you don't need it if you don't have it you can use a white sheet or a cardboard sheet if you want to go super indie and for the image we went ahead and just vertically flipped that image that we had in the background and played this video in Reverse [Music] and then we also need somebody to shake the card which is gonna be me I'm gonna shake the car hey let's give this a take let's see how it goes [Music] [Laughter] now this was shot on a red helium in 8k with like asuma lux lenses and it looks pretty damn okay obviously right well actually I lied this was not shot on the red this was actually shot on the Canon 6d a vlog camera that is about a thousand bucks the point that I'm trying to make here is that with good lighting you can completely transform even an average image so for all of you guys out there that think that the camera makes the image you know who you are here's the red helium and here's the canon 6d and yes while the helium obviously looks much better the sixty is definitely usable now here's this technique again this time with me bringing out my motorcycle into the exact same lighting and this time with adding just a little bit of camera movement to help sell and bring the scene to life now we do is add a little too crazy motorcycle in sound effects maybe a little bit of score and bang now does this live projection look as good as the real thing like when say crazy stuntman or master class VFX guys doing of course not but this scene does look pretty good you can absolutely use this technique to make a movie and if you need to make a scene like this the money saved by using live projection may just save your film and just in case you're wondering if this technique will soon become outdated here is me asking that question to Charles himself how long do you think live projection will be around for my suspicion is what I'm 84 and doing an all new york driving movie we will still live project the background projection because it's just one of those things of like every production you are always balancing like time money and and quality and likewise actually it's add-on to that point projectors are getting brighter you see crispy projector is better resolution all those problems that you had before of the you know the back projections in that 70s show you're an Eyes Wide Shut of the projector looking a little soft you're not getting that as much anymore so you think it's more likely that live projection is getting better and that we're probably to use it you know maybe even more frankly it's possible the only thing that might take this out of my hands is like if way Moe does like an automated self-driving process trailer that like comes with its own self-driving cops and it's very affordable robots are the only thing that will pry this out of my ass absolutely oh hell mister suck so there you have it live projection has been around and probably will be around for a pretty long time to come is owning an $80 projector gonna help you make better films not necessarily but very possibly yes if you know how to use it and build that interaction between your program and your background finally if you liked this episode make sure you hit that subscribe button hit the like button if you do also be sure to check out the full discussion the Eternals and the podcast link below how do you do a post house on Indy features and I was like you you don't make sure you check out our next episode when we go meet up with Chris from YC imaging to learn how to make a music video with no budget no time and literally watch us give it a shot as well I'm Ted from Indy mogul and people catch you guys in the next one

Channel: Indy Mogul

Views: 424,880

Rating: 4.7578354 out of 5

Keywords: indy mogul, film, filmmaker, indie, independent, filmmaking, behind-the-scenes, DIY, video, how to, techniques, nofilmschool, Feirstein, Film School, Charles Haine, Projector, Poor man's Process, Driving, Car Scene, Chase scene, Red Helium, Canon 6d, Hurling Studios, projector

Id: KG8QApXlSBE

Length: 13min 29sec (809 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 05 2019