Movies & TV Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for movie and TV enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
As far as I know Conan films all his shows in a studio in front of an audience
However there are few episodes, like this one
There was another one where there were two Andy Richters on stage, which I don't have a link to right now, but it's freely available on Conan's YouTube channel
Are these episodes filmed in front of the audience too? What is the audience doing when they are preparing for effects like these? How are these episodes filmed?
In short, with the stationary camera, a still image of the set is captured. This still image is then split into halves* (one half for Andy's chair, and one half for Conan's chair).
The two "empty desk set" photos are overlaid onto the live camera image. For the start of the bit, the opacity is set to 0% (transparency at 100%).
During the bit, the half with the Conan "empty desk" picture slowly has its opacity increased (reducing the transparency) - thus providing the feeling that Conan is disappearing. (The same process is applied for Andy later in the bit). As we see more of the "empty desk" photo, we see less of "live Conan".
Both actors are in their normal position on the set during the bit. The audience, in order to understand the joke, must look at the monitors inside the studio.
*Note: It may not truly be a "half", based on the needs for special lighting used later in the joke. In fact, if you look at Conan's finger tips on the desk - you can see a bit of the "overlay cutout" leaving his fingertips at full opacity for most of the bit. Though, it looks that way towards the end when Conan has his overhead lighting increased and Andy is fading out.
This is probably done with a camera trick.
However, I would point out that a similar thing can be performed to a live audience using an effect called Pepper's Ghost. Disney's Haunted Mansion uses it to produce transparent figures.
A large glass screen, set at an angle, catches a reflection from a brightly lit actor in an area hidden from the audience. Not noticing the glass screen, the audience mistakenly perceive this reflection as a ghostly figure located among the actors on the main stage. The lighting of the actor in the hidden area can be gradually brightened or dimmed to make the ghost image fade in and out of visibility.
