Part
7 of 8:
I Never Did Mind the Little Things
It
was important to the makers of 405 not to miss any little detail
(although we are well aware we did miss a few). With the availability
of today's digital tools, solutions can be achieved for problems that
would have caused a movie maker to make horrible compromises in the
past. For one shot, a violent collision causes Jeremy to be thrown back
against his seat. Unfortunately, Jeremy's hat flew off backwards during
this shot and although several other takes were available, none had
the same qualities of this take. Therefore, a simple digital hat was
created and matched, frame by frame, to the actor's head, and the shot
was saved.
One
of the great aspects of digital filmmaking is that it allows you
to shoot individual elements, like ingredients of a recipe, and
put them together exactly as needed later. One exaple of this
is the shot where the old woman passes and flips off the typical
LA driver.
This
scene was shot in a parking lot at Santa Monica Airport. In order
for the shot to appear as one take a few things needed to be added
digitally. First the reflection of Ange driving by was created
by using a still frame of footage shot of Ange sitting in her
car. This was bent to conform to the contour of the Jeep and animated
across its surface. Next a still frame of Ange's hand was shot
using a digital camera. A matte was created, outlining the finger,
and the image was animated passing through the frame. Then the
nose section of the digital DC-10 was rendered and placed on top
of the vehicle. Also, notice that there is a restricted parking
sign on the pole in the background. This sign would be quite out
of place on a freeway shoulder, so it too was removed.
It
was important to the makers of 405 not to miss any little detail
(although we are well aware we did miss a few). With the availability
of today's digital tools, solutions can be achieved for problems that
would have caused a movie maker to make horrible compromises in the
past. For one shot, a violent collision causes Jeremy to be thrown back
against his seat. Unfortunately, Jeremy's hat flew off backwards during
this shot and although several other takes were available, none had
the same qualities of this take. Therefore, a simple digital hat was
created and matched, frame by frame, to the actor's head, and the shot
was saved.
This
scene was shot in a parking lot at Santa Monica Airport. In order
for the shot to appear as one take a few things needed to be added
digitally. First the reflection of Ange driving by was created
by using a still frame of footage shot of Ange sitting in her
car. This was bent to conform to the contour of the Jeep and animated
across its surface. Next a still frame of Ange's hand was shot
using a digital camera. A matte was created, outlining the finger,
and the image was animated passing through the frame. Then the
nose section of the digital DC-10 was rendered and placed on top
of the vehicle. Also, notice that there is a restricted parking
sign on the pole in the background. This sign would be quite out
of place on a freeway shoulder, so it too was removed.
