How to Film Realistic Looking Miniatures

Hello and welcome finally to the moment we've all been waiting for, the miniature filming video. Okay, I'll show you the whole process of filming the visual effect shots for the film Splashback, as well as a lot of befores and afters for many cool shots, and of course all the trials and tribulations we encountered, and believe me, there were a lot of them. So let's begin. The spirits are not very high. I've been making these miniatures for two months, and now finally the day came to film them, and like we have a very shitty equipment. We only have two lights, which is not enough, because two other lights are broken, and we don't have a smoke machine, because it's broken. We have Luka's old smoke machine, and two lights are still working, but it's broken. I mean it doesn't work perfectly, but it's good. We can work with that, and we can work with two lights. That's the trick, you gotta work outside of the box. So we're optimistic, definitely, because when you think it's just maybe a small step down from Slice of Life, which was very high. Slice of Life was filmed in a garage in extremely shitty conditions, and this time I thought like it's gonna be better. It's gonna be much more professional. It's worse than Slice of Life. Dino brought his TV from home, so we at least have like a preview from the camera. Luka's probably just depressed, because his TV isn't working, so I brought mine from home. Yes, I have a TV upstairs, and we couldn't take my TV, because it's broken. It's gonna be good, you just need to fix this TV, and that's it. Look, this is what fixes everything in the end. Yeah, so it's gonna be okay. Well, it definitely wasn't the best start for the miniature unit, but we just decided to use what we have and start filming. I arranged the miniature hangar, and placed the small shelves on the places where they needed to go. I also made these miniature crates from polystyrene, and I placed a napkin soaked with wood glue on top, and it looks like boxes are covered with some kind of a tarp. So it looks pretty realistic. And I arranged them all over the hangar, until it looked like it was full of boxes. Then I used some dirt, and I weathered the whole hangar a little bit, but these bigger pieces of stone looked enormous on camera, so I had to remove them and leave only the fine dust on the ground. Even though I was making miniatures for for two whole months, I'm still doing like final touch-ups right before we shoot, and because not everything is finished. So I have to paint this small hook painted silver, aged a bit, rusted a bit, and then of course it's not gonna be seen in the movie. I also borrowed my wife's necklace to use as a chain for the gantry. And by the way, even my old smoke machine decided to call it quits, so in the end our producer Suki stepped in, blowing vape smoke into the shot. We might be too disorganized to buy a new smoke machine, but we sure as hell are creative. Just as a reminder, this is the shot we storyboarded many many months ago, and this is what we wanted to get. We needed these huge gates to open in the shot, so I was pulling them manually with my hands, and we did a lot of takes. It's hard to pull them, it needs to be extremely precise, because all the miniature shaking on screen, it looks like everything is shaking a lot. And that's how it is with these shots, you just have to repeat it take after take after take until you get one that's perfect. We also shot some additional elements that will help in compositing, like a separate pass where we illuminated the ceiling, additional illumination of the crates, and a separate element of that hook gantry thingy. We wanted it to move in the shot, you know, like it was shaking from the gates. And it was filmed in slow motion, so the chain would feel heavy. And then all of these elements, plus a shot of the actor shot on green screen, gave us this result in the end. We filmed the shot, and it's actually funny, because for Slice of Life, I built 10 buildings for example, and then we filmed them over and over again, and in every shot of the movie you can see the same buildings, and I felt like they were really used in that production. But here, this whole set was built, and it's much more detailed than the Slice of Life buildings, and we just used it for one shot, and that's it. And now Luka feels used. And now I feel used, yeah. So we're filming the launch pad of the Saturn V. As usual, we have a TV as background, we're also having the Saturn V rocket, and in the foreground we have the warning sign. I noticed the warning sign while watching the Apollo 11 documentary, and I thought it would be a great foreground element in front of a rocket. So first I created the 3D model of it, which wasn't really too challenging, because it's primarily composed of basic shapes. After that, I 3D printed, assembled, and primed it. One interesting thing is how I crafted the traffic lights. I used my laser cutter to cut them out of plexiglass, and I also engraved these circular lines onto them to enhance their texture. Afterwards, I applied color to their backsides using sharpies, and affixed them in place with wood glue. It's important not to use super glue, as it can cause the plexiglass to become cloudy. Then I glued the actual sign that I designed in Photoshop. And when I connect it to the battery, it blinks. Even though we have a TV today, it's still not big enough, so as you see, we're still missing a part of the sky at the top of the frame, and I'm gonna have to extend it, which I'm not happy about. And next time when we make a movie, I want a huge TV, otherwise I'm not gonna do the movie. We then quickly went outside to film the exterior of the hangar. We took advantage of the natural daylight to ensure even lighting over the miniature, and then we used a couple of additional lights to simulate the sun. In the movie, a lightning strike hits that very same hangar, so I prepared a damaged sign that could be quickly swapped with the original one. But for the exact moment of the lightning strike, we needed an explosion. Pyrotechnics time. I just extracted some gunpowder from the firecracker, and I wrapped a small amount into a tissue, just a normal tissue, and now I'm gonna put the fuse in, and when I light it, it will produce a miniature explosion. So everything is in safe hands. Fingers crossed. So we gotta say, this was one of the better explosions we had, actually. It was successful, my only fear is it was taking long, you know, it was going like this, but I can always take just the beginning and the end and make it, you know. So it looks pretty nice, yeah, cool. Our pyrotechnic shot will be superimposed over a beauty shot of the hangar, and then an element of the lightning will be added, but that's a subject for another video. All in all, this is the end result. For that same storm scene, we captured a shot of the parking lot, drenched in rain with lightnings illuminating the place. We set up a shot that looked good from the camera's perspective, and you can see we used various scales of cars to create the illusion of a large parking lot. It's basically a forced perspective trick, and I also connected the miniature streetlights to the battery. A shot like this also required capturing various elements, so once again we employed the technique of filming in passes. We shot separate takes of backlit rain, first on the left side, then the middle, and then on the right side. Then we did a few takes of the lightning flashes, and of course a pass of miniature streetlights. I knew I wanted to put a dark sky in the background, so we also filmed a green screen pass that will help with separating the miniature from the background, and since the palm trees are green, just like green screen, we also filmed a blue pass, just to be sure I'll be able to key it all out. All these passes will then be combined during the compositing phase to create the final image, and the reason why we employ this technique is because it gives you more control in post. Today is actually a very exciting happening, because we're shooting on the outside, on Luka's terrace, and we're not inside the garage. And of course it's late November, we waited until the end of the year to start filming outside. Nothing better than minus temperatures. We decided to film outside for a couple of reasons. Firstly, my terrace provided a flat concrete surface that in camera looked a lot like an asphalt road. This eliminated the need to create artificial roads from materials like cardboard or plywood, which would be a huge pain in the ass. Instead we could simply position the buildings and these grassy islands with palm trees on the concrete, and it would immediately look great. And the second thing was light. One good thing about shooting on Luka's terrace is we're using the sky as ambient light, so we're only having one additional light, an 800 watts spotlight. And we also bought many little cars, so we are very happy to see how they function. This thin gap that happens between the miniature and the floor, it leaves a dark shadow, and on camera it looks enormous and it looks very illogical. So now I have to fill it with earth and some dust, so it would look better. I'll do it like this, and then I can do this. To get the maximum realisms out of the shot, we're using three scales of different cars. We're having the bigger ones in the foreground, we're having the 1.64 scale in the middle, and very close to the stairs is even a smaller scale. And then everything was ready to film the first shot outside, and it was the shot of George looking at the NASA building from the distance. This is how the shot looks, but there are these trees in the background, and of course we don't want them there. In the final shot we need the sky, clear blue sky, so we need to film the green screen pass. And the green screen will obviously enable me to key out the trees, and put in a nice sky and some buildings. And I also like to separate each layer of cars and everything, because I can then put people in between or something. And this is how we do this. This is for one layer, second layer, and third layer. And because of the issue with the palm trees, we always did a blue screen pass as well. The next shot we are filming is the same angle, but much much closer, because we see only the four main people in the shot. So we have to get really really close to the miniature staircase, and we are wondering if it will hold the realism. But the problem is, we don't have a tripod that goes so low. So if we need to have the camera a we're using all these kinds of gadgets to higher the angle. Yes, currently we used one piece of broken tile, a brush, and a piece of sponge. And now it's exactly the correct height. Yeah, it couldn't be more perfect. So with the help of this fantastic invention, we managed to film this. And then I went to my computer to quickly edit it into the shot with the actors, and we felt that the stairs actually worked, but the entrance was too lame. There were no details on the doors or anything, right? Which meant that in the next couple of days, I had to come up with something better. Obviously this one is not as detailed as we would like, so I built a bigger version of the same entrance here. Here are the miniature flags I made, and the trash cans. I also laser cut some plants and glue them into small 3D printed planters to put inside the lobby. And here on the inside wall, I glued a tiny print of the Apollo launch, because why not? And now we're filming it as usual in front of the screen, where we put some interior of some building, and it looks really well. Much better than the old version, yeah. So yeah, it's cool. And that would be it for this video. In the next episode, we will film miniature cars, so stay tuned for that, and as the French say, Arrivederci!