Turn Around! (A Short Film/Special Fx Test Shoot)

Following on from my first special effects test shoot, The Game, I was eager to try shoot some bigger effects stuff, this time collaborating with evil genius Dave Minogue to produce another short film/special fx test shoot; ‘Turn Around‘.

Myself and Dave have talked about working together for quite some time, we’re currently working on scripts and fleshing out ideas, but we were both eager to just get out and shoot something quick and simple. I have a growing list of effects shots I want to try out so we decided to try shooting somebody getting hit by a speeding car.

The first attempt was pretty much a disaster, shooting in an industrial estate on a Sunday afternoon, the weather turned against us and the battery on the camera began to die in the middle of shooting. But more importantly, the car-hit effect itself was awful. Given my lack of green screen or After Effects I had to be able to create the effect in Final Cut Express 4, the first attempt involved reversing footage to make it look like the car was speeding towards me and it just didn’t look good enough.

The second attempt went a lot better, although the weather continued to be a pain in the ass on the day making the continuity of shots a bit rough. We started by shooting all of my sequence in the car park, running through “my lines” and then me reacting to the car hitting me. Then, using the same set-up, I cleared the frame and Dave drove the car through the shot.

Whilst the sky provided an awesome cloudy backdrop in the shot, continuity would prove a problem later when I tried to put the shots together for the car-hit effect. For anybody else trying it, I recommend using a background that will not change. There was also the problem of cars moving from the parking spaces behind me and poor sound due to the main road beside us. But we didn’t worry too much about it, that’s the joy of test shoots.

As we began shooting the car sequences we had to move quickly as the weather got worse, meaning most shots had one take. Dave insisted on being beside a lake polishing his car so we shot that first. This sequence is the only one shot on my Canon HG10, using my MiniDV Steadicam to track in for Dave’s dialogue. Everything else was shot on a Canon XA H1 (thanks Sla). We’d pick a spot of road, I’d set up and Dave would drive by, then he’d turn around, pick me up and we’d move further down the road and repeat the process until we made it back to the car park. Then we shot the car interior.

When it came to editing I began with the effects shot; using the master shot where I turn and react to the speeding car then cropping that shot, matching it with the shot of the car so that it all happened at the same time. I pulled a screen shot from FCE and using Photoshop I removed a still image of me reacting from the background. I then replaced the background with green and imported the image back into my timeline.

Then it was a matter of replacing myself with the still image, just as the car hits me and chroma-keying out the green in the image. Then using key-frames I moved the still image with the car as it drags me out of the frame, adding motion blur to the still image to make it blend in. I deliberately kept the framing of this shot pretty tight, standing near the edge of frame so that once the car hits me it all happens very quickly.

The only problem was that in the time between shooting my reaction to the car hit and the shot of the car speeding through, the clouds had changed dramatically in the background. Once the car entered the frame, it caused a ripple as the skyline jumped from one shot to the other. At first I attempted to crop the shots but it was still noticeable. I then tried to use key-frames to move the crop as I moved and the car moved but again it was still too noticeable, as the crops created little boxes around myself and the car.

To solve the problem (like all my editing problems) I asked Alan Slattery, who gave me a crash course in “nesting”. To be honest I don’t really know how to explain the process but it involved pulling sections of one skyline and layering it on top of the effects shot to eliminate the changing clouds. To add more movement to the still image of me being hit by the car, we distorted the shape of the original green screen image and then added it a couple of frames into the effect; the result gives that impression of me buckling and hitting the bonnet of the car.

I added some sound effects to add to the viciousness of the impact and used a royalty free orchestral flurry as the music used when Dave is driving. It’s a bit repetitive (the loop is only 13 seconds long) but I think it adds something funny to the whole thing.

I sat in with Sla as he worked his colour correcting magic and then used Magic Bullet to add a cooler look, bringing up the blues along with the contrast and saturation. Having viewed ‘The Game‘ on several different monitors over the past month, I noticed there was quite a big difference in the overall look, depending on the computer I was using. In some cases, the footage was a lot darker and a lot more saturated so we were careful not to over do it this time.

As always any feedback or criticism are welcome (bear in mind that this was a practically improvised test shoot) with the emphasis more on the effect at the end than the dialogue making sense etc. If anybody has any questions on the effect then feel free to ask.

Also check out whatsdaveminogue.blogspot.com for Dave’s version of how the shoot went. We’ll soon be getting to work on our next collaboration. But for now, please enjoy: ‘Turn Around!‘