Garden State: Film Effect?

[Meade87]

Has anyone seen the movie Garden State?
Well in the film they do this effect where everything surrounding the chracter in focus speeds up drasticly but the chracter in focus stays in real time. And it doesn't seem to be an effect where the character in focus just stays still and they speed up the film. It seems to be like two seperate pieces of film put together but looks slightly difficult. I don't know. Does anyone know how to create this effect?

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

green screening/masking

[Themovieman44]

If you watch the film with director's commentary you will learn that he sat still for 20 or so minutes while everyone around him moved normally. They then sped up the footage to give the look. Watch the "Party Scene" with commentary and he and Natalie Portman talk about how they did it. They also duable into it when they are making their entrance to the hotel to meet with Diego.

[U.S.Amateurfilmaker]

20 min sitting still in the exact same position w/o flinching? that must have sucked

[Themovieman44]

Well Zach Braff said they spent all of their special effects money of the little they had on the "Quarry Shots" so he sat perfectly still for 20 minutes. The sacrifices made for films.

[Carnage7p]

seems like it would have been a lot easier and cheaper to do masking. i think i'll try that effect this week.

[Matt]

Doing by sitting still does mean it only takes 20 minutes to do. Masking would obviously take hours of effects work later. Sitting still gives you 20 minutes of pain but once it is done it is done.

[Carnage7p]

yeah i guess i agree with you there but he talked about the effect in the commentary. he was talking about how expensive it was. i'm guessing just because of the amount of film they used (especially if they mess up and have to do it over) i think moneywise it would have been cheaper to use masking. but that is only my speculation. i don't know anything about hollywood pricing.

[I3lade203]

seems like it would have been a lot easier and cheaper to do masking. i think i'll try that effect this week.

Yes it would. You just film the shot 3 times, once without anything just background, once with the guy normal time, once with the speed up footage. Speed up the footage in that one, then mask the guy into it. The empty footage is there just in case.

[Themovieman44]

They said because the film was so anti-Hollywood, and against the standard ways of script format, they wanted to stay true to a low budget film.

As Matt said "20 minutes of being still is better than hours of work"

The whole party scene was shot at three different speeds. 6fps, 24fps, and 40fps. They got gutsy and flipped the speeds while filming. Which gives the effect of the extacy daze of the main character.

[I3lade203]

Nicely explained movieman. Meade87, the choice is up to you. however, if you come across any issues with the masking, feel free to contact me, and I will be happy to help.

[PapaMurf]

Geez, I can't sit still for FIVE minutes!

[Towels42]

Maybe if you were heavily sedated and held up by strings...

[Themovieman44]

Maybe if you had the will to make your dream film that you never thought would get made, then you could probably sit still for 20 minutes.

[Spike_P_2]

i saw something similar in Queen of the Damned when they were walking and everything sped up around them? it was really cool.

[Themovieman44]

They did a similar effect in Queen of the Damned, they had a much larger budget and used greenscreening/masking.

[chchaisson1]

this was used in the Butterfly Effect, also.

[santi]

Don't you ever seen any of the weird guys who pretend statues in places visiting by tourists?

[Carnage7p]

yeah though their method worked, masking would probably be the easiest to make sure it came out well (just in case you move or have to sneeze or something). It would be really hard because blinking would be so much fater so you would have to blink less often. its a cool effect though and for an amateur to do, i think it would impress a lot of people who aren't as knowledgable. sadly i wont be able to try it this week because my computer crashed.

[Themovieman44]

We are talking about time effectivness not easyness. Yeah it won't be easy but it would save hours of time to do.

[Passit]

Imagine he had an itch or sneezed after 15min or so!!!
'lets do it again guys!'

i suppose its like my signature says:

[2nd_Recon]

It would be really hard because blinking would be so much fater so you would have to blink less often.

At the speed they sped it up to, you wouldn't be able to see him blink, unless he held his eyes closes for a few seconds. I wouldn't worry to much about it if you're going this route

[Themovieman44]

He blinked normally and it didn't show. I actually appeared as he never blinked. So that is not a problem.


If you sneexed or blinked well I guess your screwed unless you took the footage you had and looped it to make it appear longer.

[Bugalicious]

i loved that queen of the damned effect. The colors of the traffic lights and cars were wicked

[pdj]

... looped it to make it appear longer.

There's your solution right there-if he is sitting still, you would not notice the looping process-unless you're the bad guy in Speed