Ship at sea shot

tomcod · Post by **tomcod** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 6:56 pm

I need to make a video of an old sailing ship at sea during a storm. I am hiring a model of a ship from a builder and I am going to put it in a swimming pool. Also hiring a high power fan to blow and make waves. I am shooting it on DV with a fast shutter speed so I can slow it down for realism.

Does anyone have any further suggestions, anything would help.

Twabi2 · Post by **Twabi2** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 7:41 pm

make sure you have a
a) dark, cloudy background or
b) a green background (wich I wouldn't recommend) so you can greenscreen it later
only want to see the footage!!

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:16 pm

Pick up the latest copy of Cinefex.
This issue contains LOADS of details for how the effects were done for "Master &
Commander" as well as "LOTR-Return of the King".
Professionally, most shots like this are done dry-for-wet. The ship model is shot dry, hanging in the air in front of a bluescreen or greenscreen. Real and CGI ocean effects are then composited into the shots.

Boat-in-a-pool shots are generally not very convincing because you can't get the water to behave to scale, even shooting slow motion.
Also keep in mind that a video camera shooting with a shutter speed of 1/500 is NOT shooting slow motion like a film camera. It's still shooting video a the standard NTSC or PAL frame-rate.
You can cheat this a little bit by shooting interlaced (standard) video, and then seperating the two fields within each video frame to double your effecive frame rate.

Sounds cool though.
Good luck.
Have fun.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 2:16 am

Ah yes, I love the Cinefex books. I have a small collection of them.

Check out the behind the scene of Pirates of the Caribbean. They show how they did the exact thing you are talking about.

Actually, most of the time they do use real water. It is the quality of the waves that gives it the realism.

Famous · Post by **Famous** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 2:47 am

-Use fog and dim lighting.
-Make a model THAT FLOATS.
-And keep it dry.
Peace

insert_coin · Post by **insert_coin** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 5:26 am

how do u seperate the fields and double your frame rate?

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 6:28 am

Many editors will do this for you automatically if you simply set the video speed to 50%.
The current version of Media Studio Pro does this if the project output matches the source video field order and the source clip is slowed to 50%.

Another trick is to place two deinterlaced copies of the clip into a project on seperate tracks.
Each clip should be deinterlaced to extract a different field (A&B or Even&Odd).
Slow both clips to 50%.
At this point, playing either clip by itself repeats each field for two frames.
Now the trick...use a black & white strobe clip that alternates every frame to control the transparency of the top clip! This way, the first clip show for one frame, then the second clip, back to the first (now at the next frame) and so on.
If the result looks shaky, you've reversed your field order, so just invert the strobe mask and you should be set.

Follow that ???

Have fun.

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 8:36 am

You have to make sure that it doesn't show only half the lines at a time and get that awful interlaced effect.

Famous · Post by **Famous** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 6:38 pm

hes not even replying to us...

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Thu Jan 22, 2004 9:20 pm

Maby hes found all the information he needs who knows

Epsilon · Post by **Epsilon** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:21 am

There have been several member that posted once. After we all gave our advice and suggestions, they never posted again. I am pretty sure he found out what he wanted. Either that or lost his password!

I3lade203 · Post by **I3lade203** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:34 am

lol yeah that never happend to , i always remember my password

tomcod · Post by **tomcod** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:49 pm

Don't get your panties in a bunch lads, I am very busy but I appreciate your feedback. Thankyou very much. I have decided to shoot this in real water on 16mm and DV at the same time, if the 16mm does not look how I like it I can use the DV and add some lightnin bolts n stuff. I can get a pretty large boat so the scale of the water should be good. This is for a film installation that is going in an art gallery, I would like it to look like a special effects shot, but a good one. I can also take the DV and transfer it to 16mm myself using a Bolex with an animation motor and shoot on frame at a time off a plasma monitor. Further to the disscussion on water and scale, I have read that in the pre-digital days (not very long ago) of filmmaking, they would sometimes use isopropyl alcohol instead of water, beacuse of its viscosity it behaves like a much larger volume of water, sound very dangerous though, do not try this. Thanks again.

Themovieman44 · Post by **Themovieman44** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:21 pm

How much does Cinefex go for?????

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 7:53 pm

I think it's like $10 US, per issue on the news stand.
It's usually in the Film/Movies section in the periodicals area of bigger book stores.

Here's the Cinefex site

Have fun.

Ivan Speilberg · Post by **Ivan Speilberg** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 7:18 am

To make the pool look deeper, have some dark colored fabrick in the bottom of the pool. In the movie "Free Willy" they even added lots of milk and green food coloring to the water , to make it look more dense and deep.