Losing an arm

Just a thought on how to do this, for a possible technique for a fanfilm.

Heres how i THINK it would work...
(ps the environment is outside)

Use a blue glove up to where the arm is cut, and in the shot have a CG replacement arm, then have the CG arm fall off etc. (for the end of the arm: use a black/orange scorch mark, like the ones used in the jedi knight 2 computer game)

If anyone can make some sort of sense out of that and say whether it would work or not, i would gladly appreciate it.

 

Maybe wiyth masks; a still shot of the background, and a shot with you in there. Roto the still mask over your arm and somehow manipulate the arm as another mask. I think that's how it was done in Alternate Lightsaber Duel, right Ryan?

 

i think they did this in AOTC as seen in the picture at starwars.com

don't no if it helps more than the fact that its possible to do.

-bert

 

Well, Steve and myself (Adobe_Wan_Kenobi) were goofing around outside in front of the camera, and he hit my arm and I instantly swung it behind my back in a quick motion. It looked so real my mom screamed (as she normally does with my in-house explosion tests and slicing off my sisters head ((these are the real reasons we buy AE))) and ran from the room. I may be able to post it, but i'll need a server. Maybe I'll just post eight or so frames.


Your Figness

 

What Ryan did in ALD was I believe he first had the guy standing there, then he had him fall. He rotoed out the arm on the first video, then rotoed out the body on the second video and put them together. Or it was something along those lines.

 

Well, would i need to do it in a bluescreen environment with a blue glove on or is it possible with just the glove?


PS. thanks for the pic, thats something like what i had in mind.

 

Or, you could just put your arm in your shirt, and very loosely stitch (or maybe velcro) a sleeve filled with newspaper and some raw hamburger at the end to the shirt. Then you could get a pump, and fill it with fake blood. Use the hand inside the shirt to squeeze the pump.

Hey, it works for Monty Python!

 

1) Wrap the arm in blue.
2) Tape/velcro a fake arm to the real one, on the camera side. Make sure the clothing on the fake arm has a frayed/raggedy end.
3) Have someone off camera pull the fake arm off with a piece of fishing line.
4) Key out the blue Roto in the scorch marks.
-Lokmer

 

Well, you could follow the principles of this tutorial and with some creative masking in AE it shouldn't be too difficult.

 

First note a few things about the Star Wars movies. Looking at it from a cinematographer's stance, does anyone notice that when people lose a limb, it is never lost in a long shot? I've examined the fight scene between Anakin and Dooku enough and they duel in a three second shot or so, then the camera cuts to a split second shot that involves Anakin's arm being cleaved off. The same thing happens with Luke's hand. It's just an instant shot that it happens.

I would suggest that you do this in the same way, since it will add to the shock value of when it happens, plus, it will make things a bit easier.

First, look at the shot or two that involve the severing. There were two clear shots of Anakin's removed arm. There is the quick shot of the actual severing, then there is the shot where Dooku uses the force to push him backwards back towards Obi Wan. (Watch the scene again if you don't know what I'm talking about). First, film these two scenes (or scene, depends on what you want to do) with just the backgrounds that you want to use. No actors, no nothing. Just the scenes. Depending on your length, lets say one shot is supposed to last about six seconds. Shoot it for 10 seconds to give yourself some leeway. This is to be used for two purposes, depending on how you want to go about doing this.

Now, if you have a blue screen, you can just film your actors that way then, which would make this a lot easier. Blue screen the severing scene without any special thing save the blue screen. That's right, don't even worry about that arm that won't be there in a second. Let it be there for the moment. Just have your friend hit you in the arm with his dowel where he would originally sever off the arm. Let your whole arm move upwards or downwards with the blow. It will make it look more realistic in the end.

After you have the footage shot, use the usual method to transfer it so your actors are now against the normal background that you originally wanted. This is to be done in After Effects, and it would be preferred that you keep these two files in two different compositions, then put the acting one over the background in a third composition.

Now here's the fun part. Go back to the blue screened composition (before it's added to the background layer), and go to the frame right before where your actor's arm is going to get cut off. Somehow take a still picture of this portion (the Print Screen button could work), or if you're familiar with After Effects (more familiar then I am), capture a single frame in the video file and stretch it so it covers the entire six or so seconds of the clip. Now use the saber's location as a reference point to where the arm is shall be split in two. Now delete everything in that scene, save the portion of the arm that should be cut off. Perhaps use a few masks to cover up the areas that you deleted and continue with the blue screen effect. Now you should have this arm floating in the middle of a bluescreen background. Composite it into the third composition (the one with the actors and the background) and set it so it covers the original actor's arm in that spot. Just place it in the top composition evenly with the other clips and go through the frames until the extra arm composition is right over it's "copy frame", the frame that it should belong to in the clip had it not gone through the procedure of deleting it's owner.

What this is, is the dummy arm that will be animated, probably using key frames, and will be the arm portion that flies off after the arm is sliced. So animate it using key frames by moving it AFTER the arm is severed. A bit of advice though. If the cut of the lightsaber is being thrusted up, and the arm moves in that direction, then after the next few frame, move the arm a bit to the right or left of the arm and move it up a bit, or down if the blow is a downward sweep. You should probably have the arm completely out of the scene within a second or a half second after the time of the dismembering.

Now what needs to be done once you

 

Blue glove? You don't need a blue glove... DarthArjuna posted an easy way to do it without a blue glove or a green/blue screen.

But that's just me...

 

i think i have found out a way to do it, but the problem is unless you are looking at the arm straight on, its going to look like the armis hollow and invisible. Do you think i could add a buen mark using after effects?

 

if you make an image of a burn mark in photoshop you can import it into your project. Then it's just a matter of animating it so it matches up with the arm.

 

Has anyone actually done this in a film (besides Ryan) that could explain their process?


(I'd love for Ryan to explain it, but I think he's probably been bombarded enough with newbie banter...) )

 

I was wondering how someone would go with losing a head

 

I hear chickens can lives for months that way, so just get your actor....