Sniping someone

2nd_Recon · Post by **2nd_Recon** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 2:28 pm

In one of the films I'm thinking about doing, someone gets sniped by a high powered sniper rifle, and I want a shot showing the crosshairs lining up aganst the targets head. I have a way of doing this, I just need to know if it's the best way.

I would fire up Photoshop, and create the crosshairs with a green background, load it up to premiere, and use a combination of the movement feature and chroma-ing out the green to lay it into his head. Does anyone have any better ideas?

TimXL1 · Post by **TimXL1** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:01 pm

Not sure what NLE you're using but if it supports Photoshop transparency that would be a better way of doing it (just have the background transparent, rather than key it out).

padawanNick · Post by **padawanNick** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:47 pm

Shoot the source video from as far as possible, with your camera zoomed in as much as possible. Use a telephoto adapter if you've got it.
Use the camera like you would the sniper scope.

For the cross hairs, you may have a more realistic effect by having an image of white circle on a black background with the cross hairs through it. Blur this a bit too. Then you can apply this as either a multiply, or luma mask to the video. With these kinds of mask modes, the black area of the image darkens to black, while the white areas are transparent.

This should look more realistic than the green options, since you can have better control of the blurred scope edges and crosshairs.

Have fun.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Fri Jan 23, 2004 10:35 pm

2nd Recon i have done it just the way u explained in your first post and it was a very quick method and it looks good also

2nd_Recon · Post by **2nd_Recon** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 12:34 am

cool. Now I just need to convince the principal to let me get my fake guns inside.

SgtPadrino · Post by **SgtPadrino** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 1:34 am

Or you could just stick the camera right in front of the sniper scope. Easy, simple, and works.

slimdog55 · Post by **slimdog55** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 2:48 am

Hey 2nd _Recon, I did this effect in a short I'm doing. All I did was zoomed in with the camera and pretended that that the camera was the scope. Then in Paint (Windows Program) I made the crosshairs with the middle green. It turned out really good. I recommend you to try this method. Oh ya, I used Premiere Pro to edit. Good luck.

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 11:28 am

yeah it is an easy to do technique.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Sat Jan 24, 2004 6:02 pm

if you have an Lcd screen I would suggest putting an eraser board marker dot in the middle of your screen, so its easyer to keep your subject in the middle of your shot.

Famous · Post by **Famous** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:43 pm

I was wanting to do that too ...thanks

Grant · Post by **Grant** » Mon Jan 26, 2004 11:26 pm

we are here to serve