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[Music] Look at your reflection. What do you see? If you're a character in a movie, hopefully it's not the camera.
Learn how to shoot reflections in movies while avoiding unwanted camera and crew reflections with practical and post-production techniques.
Key Takeaways
- Reflections require careful planning on set to avoid unwanted elements in shots.
- Combining practical effects with post-production techniques yields the best results.
- Polarizers and strategic camera angles are essential tools for managing reflections.
- Post-production fixes are costly and time-intensive, highlighting the importance of early planning.
- Using pre-production software can streamline the creation of complex reflection shots.
Summary
- Reflections on film sets pose challenges such as unwanted camera captures, hot spots, glares, and stray crew visibility.
- Location scouting helps identify reflective surfaces like windows, mirrors, cars, and polished floors to plan accordingly.
- Techniques to reduce reflections include using dulling sprays, anti-reflective coatings, dirtying surfaces, repositioning props, and wearing dark clothes.
- Shooting at strategic angles and using longer lenses help avoid capturing reflections of the camera and crew.
- Polarizer filters reduce glare but have limitations with mirrors and curved surfaces and can darken the image.
- Practical effects include faking mirror shots using body doubles, one-way mirrors, and extensive planning for synchronized movements.
- Post-production methods involve green screen setups, stitching shots, rotoscoping, compositing, and painting out cameras in software like After Effects.
- Post-production fixes are time-consuming and expensive, so early planning with a VFX supervisor is recommended.
- Famous examples include mirror shots from movies like Terminator 2, The Lady from Shanghai, and Contact.
- StudioBinder offers pre-production tools to help storyboard and plan complex mirror shots effectively.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Reflective surfaces are everywhere. And on a film set, that means danger. How can you use reflections on set so that you see what you want to see and don't see what you don't? This is how to shoot reflections.
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Before we fall in love with our own reflection, be sure to subscribe to StudioBinder and click the bell to stay up to date on all our new videos.
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Time to take a good long look in the mirror. A clever use of reflection can create a dynamic and layered composition, and there are no shortage of famous mind-bending mirror shots.
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But playing with reflections is also playing with fire. One wrong move and your shot may become unusable.
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Reflective surfaces don't just cause problems by catching a camera. They can create hot spots and glares and capture other unwanted elements like a stray crew member or boom pole.
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So before we get into how to utilize reflections, let's look at how to mitigate their risks on set.
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Dealing with unwanted reflections starts during a location scout. Take note of any reflective surfaces. Windows and mirrors are the most obvious culprits, but things like cars and polished floors can also cause problems.
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Being aware of reflections is the first step in avoiding them. On set, you can also modify the environment. Dulling spray and anti-reflective coatings can be used to mask shiny surfaces.
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You can also dirty a surface, which can give it character while also obscuring film equipment.
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Props can be repositioned. Tilt mirrors and other surfaces in ways that will avoid the camera and crew.
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There is also preparation that can happen behind the camera. Duvetyne can often be used to hide the crew and equipment. And crew members should wear dark clothes to avoid drawing a viewer's eye. Of course, the simplest way to
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avoid getting caught in a reflection is shooting at a strategic angle. In other words, shift your axis to stay out of frame.
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If a light flare is your problem, take into account the angle of incidence, a rule in physics which states that the angle a light hits a surface is the same angle it leaves the surface.
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Often, however, this means simply shifting lights around until the glare is gone. Using a longer lens can also help move the camera farther from a scene, therefore reducing chances of reflection.
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Another option is to use a polarizer, a filter which reduces reflections by eliminating polarized light. A polarizer can be adjusted by turning it until it is canceling out the unwanted glare or reflection.
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Polarizers, however, don't eliminate reflections in mirrors and don't totally eliminate reflections on curved surfaces. They can also make an overall image appear darker, which may require additional light.
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There are also more creative ways to make a camera disappear. Let's look at some practical effects.
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One of the most popular ways to shoot directly into a mirror is to fake it, filming on the other side of a frame that doesn't in fact have a mirror. To sell this effect even further, a filmmaker can use a body double for the
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subject, like in this sequence from La. [Music] Terminator 2 takes this idea even further. The body double is played by Linda Hamilton's twin sister, and Arnold is doubled by a detailed dummy. Of course, to pull off this kind of
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trickery, a shot must be extensively planned and rehearsed since the actor and their double need to move in unison.
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For scenes with many mirrors, a camera can be hidden behind a one-way mirror, a technique used in this scene from The Lady from Shanghai.
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These mirrors, it's difficult to tell. You are aiming at me, aren't you? I'm aiming at you, lover.
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Today, practical effects are often used in conjunction with effects in post-production. Sometimes a mirror is two shots stitched together. On set, the area where the mirror will be is a green screen. Then the crew will shoot whatever needs to
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take place within the mirror separately. This is especially useful for horror and thriller movies where what happens in the mirror is out of sync with what's happening in front of it.
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This process can still be extremely complex. In this famous shot from Contact, Robert Zemeckis and his team stitched together two different shots, but because the camera is moving, they needed to make sure the speed of motion in both shots was as similar as
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possible. Other options include painting out the camera in software like After Effects. For this process, it's typically best practice to get a plate on set, a shot of the space without the camera in it.
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Rotoscoping and compositing can also be involved for shots with movement or characters crossing in front of the camera, but fixing it in post comes with its own drawbacks.
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The process is typically time intensive. Because those are real mirrors, there were hundreds of cameramen reflected.
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So, we had to spend months erasing those cameramen from all these mirrors. This shot probably took 10 months total to work on. And therefore it can end up being expensive.
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We had a very limited visual effects budget. So for the very big, big tricky ones, we could have help, but after that it was, uh, trying to hide the crew.
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This option is always better when it's planned for with a VFX supervisor rather than a band-aid for a mistake.
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Reflections are everywhere in the real world, and so more likely than not, they'll be in your movie. So, keep your eyes peeled when you're shooting. And if you see yourself, hide.
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Plan your own elaborate mirror shot with StudioBinder's pre-production software, where you can storyboard, shot list, and more.
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Until next time, don't be afraid to pause and reflect. [Music]
Topics:reflectionscinematographyfilm productionmirror shotscamera techniquespractical effectspost-productionpolarizer filterStudioBindervisual effects
