education

GLADIATOR

Demonstration & Workshop
11am, Tuesday 14th @ The Nerve Centre

Gladiator is an old-fashioned epic that uses the most up-to-date computer effects to recreate the grandeur of ancient Rome and the Coliseum.

Tim Burke, of Mill Film, will be demonstrating some of the effects he and his team employed in the film that made it one of the smashes of last summer. But we're going to demonstrate with a simple exercise how you, too, can make a special effects video using equipment you might have at home or in school.

All you need is a computer with a PhotoShop package, a standard video camera, and a patient friend.

1. Film your friend in a headshot (head and shoulders only) doing something very simple, like staring into a mirror, rubbing his/her eyes, then staring at the mirror again.
2. Take the VHS and transfer it onto your computer.
3. Export each frame into PhotoShop, and distort each one by repainting your friend's eyes, rubbing them out and leaving a blank flesh tone instead. (It is painstaking work, but worth it).
4. Once you join your scenes together and play them as real-time on your computer, your friend will look like he/she has just rubbed out his/her eyes. You have just made your first special effects film, proving you don't have to have the resources of a professional studio to produce a special effects video (although it always helps!).

Tips

• Always back up your work Ð painting each frame is laborious, and you wouldn't want to have to do it over again!
• Sound can add enormously to the most simple of visual effects: record your sound separately and, if possible, exaggerate the noise of your friend's hands against his/her eyes. You'll be surprised at the difference it makes to the finished effect.
• To make your video look like it was recorded on film, simply take out half the field of your video image. And to turn your video into widescreen, just cut off the top and bottom, and replace with black bands. Can you think of any other interesting and funny (but simple!) scenarios that you can video and manipulate?

Oliver Reed, one of the actors in the film, sadly passed away during the making of Gladiator, and his remaining scenes were famously created by combining digital effects and existing footage of Reed from previous scenes. The effect is seamless. If recreating an actor using computer effects works so well in this film, do you think there is anything to stop filmmakers from using digital actors in the future, instead of real people?

[Gladiator is released on video on 13 November 2000].

[See the worksheet on The Perfect Storm for information on how a special effects film is made].