Lightsaber Impalement

I've got some scenes wherein a character is stabbed through the chest or stomach with a lightsaber. The method I've thought of for shooting these scenes is to

1) Film the impaler with a full-length prop stabbing at nothing to reference the blade length
2) Film the impaler with a shortened prop stabbing at the impaled actor
3) Rotoscoping the full-length blade and compositing it onto the second shot.

If this is the easiest/best way to do this effect, let me know. It just feels like there's a more KISS method that I'm just not noticing.

 

well, the easiest way is to just stab the full length prop under the other guy's arm, and shoot it from the side





actually, i take that back. the easiest way is with a close-up on the face and a sound effect.




another would be a shortened prop from the front, eliminating the back from the equation altogether.

 

Your method sound like it is very specific, which is not bad, but just complicated. More complicated than it has to be.

I am assuming that this is a camera angle from the side, no? If so, then I suggest just have your impalee be stabbed with the shortened lightsaber blade. Then, in After Effects or whatever program you're using, start the mask at the handle then extend the mask to go further out the other side. Then mask out the part of the lighsaber that overlaps your impalee's torso. Or you can create a 2 masks for it: one for the side impaling him, and one for where the blade comes out the back, which you could most likely estimate position well enough. Estimating length is easy, position isn't. Either way, just rotoscope in the whole blade as if it were all there. If that doesn't make sense, watch Ryan vs. Dorkman. When Ryan gets stabbed at the end, this is how they did it (well maybe not exactly, but the same idea). Hope this makes sense.

 

Just shoot it without a saber prop at all, and rotoscope it in, just like an ignition sequence. It's a little harder to animate, but it is possible. Imagine for example this shot, but just letting the blade go right through as opposed to turning it off.

The beauty of this method is that you can have camera movement and all kinds of shake and other excitement. Then you leave it to the animator to struggle through it. If they say it's impossible, make them watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," tell them it was all done by hand, and that they are lazy buggers for not doing so.

Just to clarify, I have personally done a whole slew of shots with this kind of technique, including a sequence with 5 blades on screen, two of which didn't have any props at all, where all the collisions were handled by mime.

-Spiff

 

I would do it with half a blade... this way, it obviously shows it goes through the actor, it also helps the one stabing stabalize his arm, so it keeps it in place, and it will wrinkle up the shirt of the person getting stabed, that always looks cool.

 

Or, you could create a collapsing prop blade for that one specific shot. Make a quick cut, before changing props, to make it less obvious. And the collapsing prop can be as simple as having the back of the hilt hollow, with no securing on the blade, so it just slides out the back. No chance of jamming and injuring your actor that way. And then, the only things you need to do are, mask out the blade protruding from the back of the hilt, and assume-roto the blade coming out the other side.

That's how I'd do it.

 

Just do it this way. It's less complicated, and it is practical.

SB

 

But, a lightsaber blade would not wrinkle the shirt. It would burn it. And there is also the added complication of the aggressor having to pull his blow (to avoid injuring the victim actor).

So, all in all, that method would fail in terms of realism even if it did turn out to be easier.


If you have to swap props anyway, go with a collapsing blade.

 

Look when Ryan(1) gets stabbed in RvD1. The shirt wrinkles, and it added a nice effect. It looked cool.

 

Sure, but it would in fact burn the shirt, and no wrinkles would appear.

Since the blade is laser it wouldn't actually keep in place. The movement of the stabbers hand would burn a bigger hole unless he is very steady in his hands. I remember seeing Yoda throw his saber into a clone in Episode III. I was SO disapointed when the saber didn't slide downwards cutting the clone in half.

And for an effect-suggestion:
Stab the full-length prob behind the actor beeing stabbed and roto the saber onto the body. That way you can also see the prop on the other side of the stabbed one. This must of course be filmed from the side. (and once again we have my famous bad english explanation)

 

I'm speaking purely from opinion here, and nothing else. I don't think that's the way it would happen. Whether it happened in RvD that way or not, doesn't enter into it.

I think the shirt would not move as if a prop were shoved against it. I think it would burn completely out of the way.

Did I mention this is just what I think?

 

I used the method in one of my saber fights, and it didn't look too real, and it was limited to one camera position.

I guess it just comes down to personal taste, and what looks better for the situation.

SB

 

I really think you could've pulled it off there if you didn't stick the hilt so much behind him.

 

Yeah, it was a combo of the bad angle, and bad acting by me bro. Oh well, that was a first video.

 

Logically, yes, the shirt should burn through and there should just be a hole. It wouldn't wrinkle because it wouldn't be pressed against his chest, it would hang freely.

If I recall correctly, the "stub" we used in RvD was actually intended more to provide a consistent reference point -- if he didn't have something right against his body, the tip could potentially move all over the place and end up coring him out like an apple. We wanted to have a straightforward stab with as little motion as possible.

I think we even considered removing the wrinkles around it, but that proved to be too much of a pain and so we just left it. Strangely, that's actually something to which people respond positively almost 100% of the time.

Despite the fact that it doesn't make sense if you think about how lightsabers work, I think it might actually look strange, and too much like "an effect," without the interaction. It reads better as a "stab" that way.

M. Scott

 

I certainly am not trying to begin an argument as to the physics of lightsabers. Ever since my first post on this matter, I have said, this is purely a matter of opinion.

And as such, my opinion is as follows:
No matter what you've seen before, you have to plan your shot based purely and completely on what YOU as the director see as a realistic shot. My opinion on that matter is that there should be no shirt wrinkle. Granted, my solution will not provide for that any better than the others. I'm only pointing out that a shirt wrinkle will actually draw attention to the effect. And, if you want the effect to be, uh, effective... You don't want anything obvious showing where and how the effect took place.

It's just something to think about.
The devil is in the details. And little details like that, can sometimes ruin an effect if not accounted for in the planning stage.

And Mr. Scott himself has now pointed that out in the form of where he an Ryan considered the means of covering it.

Consider my opinion on this to be another helpful suggestion, no matter what method you should choose in the end.

 

BTW, any idea how they did that? I always wondered if they used some kind of special, fancy live-trick, or if they did that in post.

 

No, they just sharpened one of their props and shoved it through his chest. That Ryan's a little trooper.

 

That would've been my next guess, of course.

 

I did do a shot in one sequence where a guy gets a lightsaber thrown at him and it lands in his stomach. He catches it in time for it to not go all the way through him, but when he pulls it out I just used the hilt so there was nothing interacting with the shirt or what have you.

Yeah, it looked pretty bad. Either get a cheapish shirt and cut a hole or use some sort of prop in a position where you can mask over it while it's poking into someone and possibly mask it out for the retraction effect. That seems to be ideal.

All the multiple take stuff in the initial post is overkill. For certain effects you need this, like a decapitation, but not for a simple stab.

-Vaportrail

 

I'm not happy with the results...


[image=http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/8242/pic00620000000qt8.jpg] [image=http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/3143/pic0062qv1.jpg]

 

Cut the front or the back off where the shirt begins; you look like you're being stabbed from much closer to the camera than you really are. That should help.

Oh, and change the blending mode of the saber. Please.

 

Ok. Why change the blending mode? It's on screen.

 

...that it is. For some reason it looks odd against the shirt. Too dark.