perldiver ([info]perldiver) wrote,
@ 2009-05-29 12:19:00
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Anyone know how TV does that trick where part of a scene freezes?
You know that trick that a lot of shows do, where part of the scene freezes in time but the rest of the scene continues?  Anyone know how they do that?

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[info]coorr
2009-05-29 04:35 pm UTC (link)

I'm not quite sure what you are talking about. Are you talking about a single person stepping out of a frozen scene, usually to break the 4th wall? In that case I would guess that they film the scene, skipping right over the frozen bit assuming its going to resume with every one in the same spot.

After the scene is done, they position everyone but the person who is going to step out of the scene and get a still shot. The person who steps out of the scene films their bit in front of a green screen and the still is inserted behind them. The tricky part is making sure everyone is in the exact same place during the transition. To make this simpler the camera shot often changes just as the person steps out so that there is no direct comparison.

If your thinking of something else, can you find me an example? If don't know how its done someone here at my work almost certainly will.

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[info]perldiver
2009-05-29 05:08 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, that sounds about like what I was thinking of. Specifically, I meant scenes like in Hustle, where most of the scene freezes and the protagonists have a conversation and manipulate objects in the scene before resuming their places and then everything continues. Or, alternatively, the laundry scene in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, where Penny is dumping laundry into the machine and time stops for her and her laundry (in mid-pour) while Dr. Horrible sings to her about his love and his freeze ray.

Hmm...has anyone ever done a shot where time moves at a different rate for some characters than for others--e.g. one person is moving full speed, the rest of the world is in molasses? I'm sure they have, but can't think of an example.

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[info]coorr
2009-05-29 05:15 pm UTC (link)

They do that in a the coors light commercials that are on TV right now, but its generally only one object in the scene that is moving fast enough to not be "frozen" other than the person talking to the camera.

It works pretty well and is fairly simple since the person talking isn't in the shot when it freezes but comes in from off camera. The very fast moving object is probably CGI as well to make things easier.

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[info]sinboy
2009-05-29 04:55 pm UTC (link)
You mean like this?. Actually, that's all frozen, isn't it?

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[info]perldiver
2009-05-29 05:10 pm UTC (link)
I'm pretty sure that's 100% digital though, with the possible exception of the dictator-looking guy at the beginning/end of the loop. I note that they were careful not to give us closeups of any people except the clowns...presumably because people are very hard to render photorealistically in close-up.

I'm talking about something where live actors are mixed with a frozen scene. And it sounds like coorr has the right of it.

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[info]coorr
2009-05-29 05:19 pm UTC (link)

I believe it is mix. Some of that seems like it was done digitally, some was done with that freeze frame camera that was used in Gap commercials (I think) and in NFL broadcasts. In that case, its 100 or so cameras on a rail around the subject. They all take an image simultaneously and the images are shown in order, given the illusion of a single camera moving around an object or person frozen in mid air.

They probably did this in chunks and spliced it together. When the camera goes from the street into the building you can see that one of the cops faces seems to be mangled by the transition. His face is split down the middle.

Still, that's a pretty impressive piece of work.

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[info]sinboy
2009-05-29 05:48 pm UTC (link)
You can watch the "Making Of" here. It's pretty surprising how much of the video was actually real. I think it's similar to what you're asking about, except no one is moving inside of it.

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