MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

Recently I've been totally masturbating to any movie where you can see the rays of light shining in from holes, windows, openings in general.



I know they spray a mist or fog in there for that effect- but I was wondering what kind of machine would they use exactly (in my price range, or something similar). I was thinking of using a fog machine to recreate the effect, but fog masks everything and that'd suck.

you should stop masturbating over films. You should only masturbating over films that has a gorgeous girl in the film naked.

i do to barnes, without the whole masterbating part... its beautiful

i think fog is the only way to go

tecmeister wrote:you should stop masturbating over films. You should only masturbating over films that has a gorgeous girl in the film naked.

I'll masturbate to whatever I want to, fascist! Even if it's only electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength that is visible to the eye!

Recently I've been totally masturbating

LMAO!!

We did this once in on of Gyro's films. We used a normal fog machine, sprayed it out for a moment and then just spread it out by fanning it.

We did this once in on of Gyro's films.

Can you refresh my memory please?

Firstly, this thread gave me some LOL's. I too have been known to stimulate ones-self over such visual imagery.

Use a fog machine in an enclosed space and wait for the mist to take over the room (will take about 2 mins for the fog to settle down). If the mist is still a bit thick then just play with the levels, colour curves or contrast (not much, just a little bit) to stop things looking misty

I know that my fog machine lets off a thick mist, but a friend's lets off more of a thin smoke-type look, which is perfect for this.

If all else fails, maybe dry ice?

If you use too much fog it'll look like smoke. The idea behind shafts of light is that there's a dense enough layer of smoke for the particles to be lit by the light, but not enough smoke that you can actually see it. So, essentially anything that produces smoke or mist can work, just don't over do it.

kene555 wrote:I know that my fog machine lets off a thick mist, but a friend's lets off more of a thin smoke-type look, which is perfect for this.

If all else fails, maybe dry ice?

If it's thick it should die out in to a perfect thin mist and fill the room if you're filming in an enclosed space

to speed up the process of filling a room on a budget, buy (a new unused) bug fogger from a hardware store and fill it with theatrical oil smoke. These things crank out the smoke pretty quickly. We don't use old ones due to the nasty chemicals that get used in them-harmful to cast and crew.

...

Or just have two people smoking cigars.

Ha ha!

SgtPadrino wrote:...

Or just have two people smoking cigars.

Actually that does work quite well, if you've ever seen the short trailer film "Grayson", shot on film about Robin from the Batman Comics, a lot of the shafts of light were created with cigar smoke. Interesting stuff.

You can still use a smoke machine but you would have to wait for most of the smoke to disperse. You only need a tiny amount for light rays to show up.

maj_barnes wrote:

We did this once in on of Gyro's films.

Can you refresh my memory please?

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At about minute mark 4:08. You can see. It is too thick but if you play with it you can get it. If you have ever seen "The Hire" with Clive Owen, the short with the girl trapped in a sinking car, the shots in the house with the psycho was done by burning green foilage in the corners or where windows were to get the rays of light. Because it is green it will smoke and smolder rahter than burn. This is probably the best technique I have found.

Bee smoker

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baby powder!

You can acheive that effect with a 4x4 starburst filter in your mattebox.

Fog machines are the greatest thing on this planet. Especially for DV; they add a cinematic glow to the picture, and help with the depth of field problem. Not to mention they make light look cool like that picture above. And believe it or not, they help your camera's dynamic range, because all the little fog particles are reflecting light into the shadows, so you can lower your exposure a tad.

Examples below have a basic S-Curve and Levels adjustment applied. Notice the highlights in particular, especially on the wood.

No smoke:

Smoke: