Hot answers tagged film-techniques
40
If you look closely, you'll almost always note that the mirror is angled so the camera is out of its view. This is sometimes masked by the actor looking directly into [the reflection of] the camera, which gives the impression that he is looking at himself in the mirror.
However, there are at least two other options for getting a shot in which the camera ...
33
Well for the first film and for most of the second, the Bride is on a revenge mission where she is hunting her victims. Her identity wuld have to be a secret to make sure she doesn't get followed or caught. It could be Tarantino's way of breaking the 4th wall and including us in the element of mystery and disguise that the Bride has to undertake to remain ...
27
Kill Bill is basically a homage to dozens of films from the past, which were generally shown in black & white on television to cut down on the gore. The same happened to Kill Bill to be able to achieve an R rating and be released in theatres.
IMDB's trivia section confirms this:
The black and white photography is ultimately an homage to '70s and ...
24
Well, I think there is perfect reason for it, audience appeal. Of course those things are totally unrealistic and over the top, but show a simple black-white console to the audience or a basic database application and they will just find it boring to look at or think there is not much to it.
Of course it bothers the hell out of those who know better, but ...
21
Because the resolution of film is better than the resolution of standard-definition TV. It is difficult to define the resolution of 'film' since it is not a digital, pixel based media. But film is designed to be sharp even on much larger screens than any television. We can however use the resolution of digital cinema projectors as a good proxy figure.
So ...
20
In 3D films, the 3D glasses are the reason for the dimness.Because the 3-D glasses are
darkly coated with polarized filter that decode the images and give them depth dim.
I've found a good link and let me summarize the stuff from that site.
According to the so-called father of 3-D cinema, Lenny Lipton,
because it projects two separate pictures, viewers ...
20
This was done using a prosthetic chest on his real chest (make sure to sing that to the tune of "We Want A Rock" by They Might Be Giants).
Skip to 2 minutes in for an explanation.
...
19
In Iron Man, there was a heavy physical suit they sometimes used, but the bulk of the footage was CGI, as the proportions of the Iron Man suit aren't that of a human's. Wikipedia mentions sometimes, Downey would only wear the helmet, sleeves and chest of the costume over a motion capture suit.
From here:
[The Iron Man 2 suit] was only a half suit -- ...
17
It's the same for professional as well as amateur actors - I've known some pros that have a hard time reaching the crying point.
One technique includes allowing the actor to focus on the saddest memory they have, in solitude, then pull them out for the take. I recall seeing a documentary that showed Gary Oldman looking through a book of photos of his family ...
17
Aerial shots don't necessarily require a full-size helicopter.
[Source]
Helicam
... used to obtain aerial pictures or motion images using video, still or motion film cameras. The remote controlled camera mount system allows pan, tilt and roll movements.
[Source]
Spidercam / Skycam
... a system which enables film and ...
16
I can't speak for Bollywood or Kollywood, but in America, the director's credit is last because of Directors Guild of America requirements.
Wikipedia defines it as:
...an entertainment labor union which represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry.
Quoted from Lawyers.com article on Director ...
16
This article gives a proper insight as how guns are used in movies.
Blanks
Blank-fire guns are real, working weapons that have been minimally modified to fire blank cartridges. Blank cartridges contain gunpowder, but do not fire a shell or bullet. They are used for scenes that require a believable muzzle-flash and a loud report. They can be costly ...
16
There are several ways to do this.
You would be surprised how many actors have teeth missing under those perfect veneers so, as in the case of Ed Helms, the filmmakers can just utilize those gaps.
Then there are varying degrees of concealment;
Black-out tooth paint - this is a quick solution for long shots, but has to be reapplied several times over the ...
15
Performance capture generally refers to the practice of capturing very subtle movements from real actors and using those in animation. Movies like Ice Age are fine without performance capture because the characters aren't realistic.
The problem you run into when trying to make realistic human animations is that the human brain is wired to detect very ...
14
The question begins with an incorrect assumption. Currently, when movies are made, they are mainly made for 2D setups (i.e. theaters, and home systems). Due to the different ways films are made, this has to be broken out into different options:
For live action films where they are recorded in 3D, they can just use one of the two images they've filmed for ...
14
Actually the film makers claim that the cigarettes used by the minors are tobacco-free cigarettes or nicotine-free cigarettes. They are commonly called herbal cigarette.
According to wikipedia,
Herbal cigarettes are also used in acting scenes by performers who
are non-smokers, or -- as is becoming increasingly common -- where
anti-smoking ...
14
This will be achieved through a series of shots.
Let's pretend you want to show a scene where two people are talking in a diner - here is the classic way to go about it.
First you shoot an establishing shot of the whole room - your actors can perform the whole scene and it doesn't matter if they mess up, as you will not be using the dialogue from this shot ...
13
Do you define bullet time as slow motion bullet dodging, or the spinny effect from multiple cameras in an arc?
There's a slow motion scene in the first Blade film where you can see the bullets moving through the air, giving the target enough time to reacting and move out of way. Blade came out in 1998, a year before The Matrix.
It's in the scene in ...
13
Nowadays horses are trained to fall safely. almost all animal performances are under the close supervision of the Film and TV unit of the American Humane Association. Stunt horses can be trained to fall on command safely. Some techniques used to ensure the horses safety :
Each horse has its hoof in sponge rubber to soften kicks and mouths are taped to ...
12
2D to 3D Video Conversion is the process of transforming the original 2D video to a 3D form, which in almost all cases is stereo, so it is the process of creating imagery for each eye from one 2D image. That is why the transformation is also called 2D to stereo 3D conversion, or stereo conversion.
Two approaches to stereo conversion can be loosely ...
12
The Dark Flaw in 3D's Bright Future:
The figure of 16 foot-lamberts is the standard established by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers for a projector with no film in it.
If you add a 2D film to a projector that meets the brightness standard, you’ll generally wind up with about 14 foot-lamberts, considered an appropriate level of ...
12
That's really up to the actor (if they have enough clout).
Very often it is written into contracts whether an actor will go fully or partially nude, regardless of whether their on screen character does so.
During filming it is not unknown for filmmakers to use body doubles for close up shots, and many times during mid to long shots an actor might request ...
12
Stage Money
To create the illusion of massive wads of cash, TV and film producers
don't take real $100 bills and put them on the front and back of a
stack of $1 bills (or even just pieces of paper cut to size) but
instead use fake bills.
This is also seen any time where the character shows a bunch of bills.
Rather than going to the bank ...
11
This is one of those interesting questions which gets more complex (and harder to answer) the more you learn about it. Unfortunately I cannot answer definitively how theater projectors work. I'll explain why I don't think that question can be answered. And I'm going to reference 100fps.com a bit.
First, I don't think the question can be answered now, ...
11
From the script:
From an interview with Uma Thurman:
Why do they bleep your name?
That one eludes me. You'll find out her name. You will definitely find out her name, I can tell you right now, but that'd ruin it.
From an interview with Vivica A. Fox:
What name do you and Uma say when they bleep it out?
Beatrix. Her name is ...
11
The primary technique used for flying stunts are wire harnesses and then wire removal. The actors wear a harness which is connected to wires that suspend the actor in mid-air. If the scene is filmed in front of a green screen (chroma keying), then the wires can be removed automatically in most cases, before the background is added. If no chroma keying is ...
11
Computer artists start by developing a hand drawing of a character, and places like ILM will sometimes create small clay figures as references.
These are then passed to the modeling artists who convert the concept into a digital character with high level of detail. This is often done with special digital clay sculpting software.
Here are some examples I ...
11
From the article The Naked Truth about on-screen nudity
The subject of nudity clauses has come up with increasing regularity these days, particularly as more flesh is being revealed on network television. Though naked actors may be more prevalent than ever, the choice not to show all is also more accepted.
Megan Fox, Jessica Alba, Scarlett ...
10
An explanation based on secrecy from other characters isn't self-consistent or internally consistent. She is hunting people who know who she is and beeping the name for the audience doesn't stop the characters knowing who she is (the name isn't beeped for the characters but for the audience). And the people she is hunting know they are being hunted by her.
...
10
Wikipedia leads back to Constantin Stanislavski and the Stanislavski system, a system of acting techniques to access emotions. He prefered to refer to it as system (little 'S'). The system is the result of Stanislavski's many years of efforts to determine how someone can control in performance the most intangible and uncontrollable aspects of human behavior, ...
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