Gobos and Scrims

[Les]

Hey guys,

So for The Wedding Singer, the director wants to avoid building an airplane set for one short scene, so he has tasked me with coming up with a lighting trick. His idea was to project a custom gobo on to a scrim. The gobo would essentially be an outline of an airplane fuselage - then top light behind the scrim which would hopefully make the talent visible. For the record, I love using scrims to make gobos "pop out"... But I can't say I've ever used one in this capacity before.

He says it's OK if we can see through the scrim, as long as the gobo accurately suggests that they're in a plane. I guess we are looking at a type of holographic effect. Here's a crude drawing I made of the potential gobo:



I guess I could also project moving clouds using a FilmFX to help set the scene.

My question is - seeing as it has been years since I have worked with a scrim - do you think this will work at all? I will only have about a week to play with things once we move in to the space, and I'd rather not spend most of that time on this one scene. So I thought I'd poll you guys.

 

[microstar]

I think one problem will be lining up the actors' faces in the window openings. If they are right up against the scrim, they will be perfectly positioned in the window frames, but hard to light from above (especially just their faces as you wouldn't want the rest of their bodies visible thru the fuselage?). Maybe have each actor have a handheld LED flashlight to uplight his face ?
If you move the actors further upstage, their faces won't line up because of varying audience sightlines.
Another problem is how to prevent the gobo light going thru the scrim from hitting the actors' bodies.
You may just need to use a big black flat with painted white outlines and holes for the windows.
I know, not very "magical".

 

[kicknargel]

I'm thinking if you made the windows solid white and project from a low angle you could use the spill through the scrim to light the actors behind.

 

[gafftaper]

I worked on a show long ago in college where the TD drew a giant logo on a scrim with colored chalk. It looked great. Seems like you could do the same thing. Draw the airplane on the front side to establish location, then reveal the actors sitting behind in rows. Making it feel as if you zoomed in through the window.

 

[StradivariusBone]

I worked on a show long ago in college where the TD drew a giant logo on a scrim with colored chalk. It looked great. Seems like you could do the same thing. Draw the airplane on the front side to establish location, then reveal the actors sitting behind in rows. Making it feel as if you zoomed in through the window.

Does that clean up afterwards?

That makes me think of this scene from "The Life Aquatic". I'd love to do a scene like this one day!

 

[gafftaper]

Does that clean up afterwards?

I don't remember... I hung lights and did carpentry work so I didn't really work directly with it.

 

[DELO72]

Hey guys,

So for The Wedding Singer, the director wants to avoid building an airplane set for one short scene, so he has tasked me with coming up with a lighting trick. His idea was to project a custom gobo on to a scrim. The gobo would essentially be an outline of an airplane fuselage - then top light behind the scrim which would hopefully make the talent visible. For the record, I love using scrims to make gobos "pop out"... But I can't say I've ever used one in this capacity before.

He says it's OK if we can see through the scrim, as long as the gobo accurately suggests that they're in a plane. I guess we are looking at a type of holographic effect. Here's a crude drawing I made of the potential gobo:



I guess I could also project moving clouds using a FilmFX to help set the scene.

My question is - seeing as it has been years since I have worked with a scrim - do you think this will work at all? I will only have about a week to play with things once we move in to the space, and I'd rather not spend most of that time on this one scene. So I thought I'd poll you guys.

This is going to be tough. To get a scrim to work as a projection surface, you need the steepest angle possible. So you'd want to project the Gobo (if that is how you go) from a steep high or low front position. This will cause keystoning.... so keep that in mind. Also consider the spill light as it passes through the scrim. A steep angle puts the image that passes through in the air or on the floor, so might not be noticable. If you shine it from straight on, it will cause a double image of the light on the scrim, and then on the subject or surface behind it. I had this problem once when we tried for a quick way of getting a moon effect, and we ended up with two moons... so that didn't work. What about painting a plane onto the scrim, and then lighting behind the scrim to turn it transparent so they are seen through the plane? That's the easiest way to get a scrim effect to work. High front wash light to make it opaque, and then fade that out and light up the area behind the scrim (not shinning onto it) to make it see-through.

 

[bdkdesigns]

I worked on a show long ago in college where the TD drew a giant logo on a scrim with colored chalk. It looked great. Seems like you could do the same thing. Draw the airplane on the front side to establish location, then reveal the actors sitting behind in rows. Making it feel as if you zoomed in through the window.

Perhaps another way to go with this method is putting some spike tape on the scrim instead.