Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Scanner Effect

[tfabris]

Who remembers the ring of moving white lights around the hatch of the mothership in CE3K? Ever since I was a kid, I had wondered how the effect was done. Recently, I researched it, and in the process, ended up talking to some of the people involved in filming the effect, and I was even blessed with some behind the scenes photos, sent to me by Dennis Muren himself. I was over-the-moon happy about this, and I compiled all the information and photos in this document:

LINK: Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Scanner Effect

I thought perhaps the denizens of the RPF might find this super interesting. Let me know if you have any thoughts about this!

 

[tfabris]

A short description of the way the effect was done: The white ring lights are long-exposure streaks from a light source which rotated around the mothership hatch area. The light would turn on and off based on patterns of lines and triangles moving slowly on an animation stand. The whole thing was motion controlled so that they could control every aspect of the long-exposure streaks. More details at the link above.

 

[batguy]

Wow, that's some good research.

This seems like the beginning of a multi-year project where you build a detailed model of the mothership with accurate lights.

 

[tfabris]

Thanks so much!

It's interesting that the full model (the Greg Jein greebled one that's at the Smithsonian) doesn't even have those lights on it. But since I've written Arudino code that imitates the lights, I could indeed make a model with tiny LEDs there.

Though now that I think about it, a spinny-fan LED type thing around the opening of a model would be even cooler and more screen-accurate.

 

[joberg]

Wow...excellent research and having The Dennis Muren sent you the behind-the-scene photos is always a +

 

[enterprise0216]

Right on!! Thanks for sharing much appreciated.

 

[tfabris]

Thanks! Feel free to share the link around the web. I want the VFX community in general to know about it but don't know where to post about it. (I tried reddit but my posts were rejected, don't know why.)