PREPARE FOR THIS WEEK’S VIDEO.
From day one, the plan had been for Paul to play the part of the bed owner in this video. Naturally, that didn’t happen. I was wicked sick with a cold on the day we shot this, and I came by Graham and Kathleen’s place for… I don’t remember. And Paul was there to play the part, but couldn’t do it because… I don’t remember. That should be reasonable evidence of how sick I was when we shot this. I felt like balls, and don’t remember most of the evening. I do, however, remember suggesting the stinger. I think that turned out well.
Spoilers- go watch the video before reading more:
The shot of Graham and I outside the burning house looks brilliant but is constructed in a way that is hilariously low-tech. We had to do that shot on a subsequent night, and we were short on people to crew. The embers are a post effect, obviously. Paul’s manning the camera, if I recall, and Kathleen is holding the boom in one hand, and swinging an incandescent light fixture back and forth randomly, in such a way that the light bounces to our faces in a random slow flicker. It looks awesome, but I’m sure to any passers by it probably would have looked like the most ridiculously unprofessional lighting system in the history of film.
Unskippable this week was Fracture. the video can be found here.
Cheers!
I must say, I was impressed the the visual effects.
Comment by Vigafre — September 28, 2010 @ 1:10 am
Special Effects don’t need to be high tech. They’re special.
Comment by Keith K — September 28, 2010 @ 8:25 am
The fire-effect actually really worked very well (at least for me).
But I think they were overshadowed by Graham’s performance of a man-bedbug-beast.
I kinda would like to see a LRR-take on “The Fly” now…
Maybe “Cardboardman vs. Mad-Bedbug-Man” ? 😉
Comment by Cassandra — September 28, 2010 @ 9:45 am
I did not think that special effects were that low tech.
also it is called movie magic for a reason.
Comment by dex-dex — September 28, 2010 @ 12:57 pm
They never need to be like “OMGAMAZINGHIGHTECHCUTTINGEDGEZ”. Just like with games and movies, it matters about the core of it. And you guys had a solid core. 😀
Comment by ZehGeek — September 28, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
When Graham crawled under the mattress I was actually waiting for there to be a time lapse and watch him pied piper little bedbugs out of the room.
Comment by Matthew — September 28, 2010 @ 5:06 pm
My favourite part had to be the shot of Matt holding up the cd to the camera. Also, I totally could not tell that Matt was sick. So good acting…?
Was the stinger making fun of the viewers, yourselves, or sketch comedy troupes in general? I couldn’t really tell…
Comment by Makahi — September 28, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
I really wish i could have seen that scene being shot. It would have made my day
Comment by MrWhales — September 28, 2010 @ 6:10 pm
That lighting technique is not low tech. That is cutting edge Hollywood technique.
They used two florescent tubes in the filming of the scene in Serenity where the Agent jumps into an escape pod to flee his exploding ship. During the closeup of his face while he is in the pod, the lights move about rapidly, making it look like his ship just blew up behind him, but really it is just Joss Whedon waving some light bulbs about.
Comment by Lentamentalisk — September 29, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
Wow, I’m suprised that Matt’s role was originally written for Paul. It just seemed to be such a perfect fit.
Comment by Rosenfeldt — September 30, 2010 @ 7:57 am
I must know where Matt got that shirt.
Comment by Big McLargehuge — September 30, 2010 @ 3:34 pm