LED sabers for fan film? Or old fashioned rotoscopting fx?

[Owk1]

Me and a few buddies are in pre production for afan film series. We are on I tight budget for props from a so we are trying to use the money where it counts. This fan film will be very lightsaber heavy I have never rotoscoped saber glows before but we have decided to use either old fashioned poles with colored reflective tape with light on camera as a guide or go the LED route. But we are stuck on the decision due to low prop budget but we have a decent computer FX guy. My question is would it be/ look better to do it in all In post with a reflective tape dowel or use an LEDprop? I have no idea which would look Better in screen we have a very nice camera and I want to get it right and remain faithful to the. OT saber look. Any thoughts or ideas for our choices ?

 

[ARKM]

Rotoscoping via a computer FX program will always look a lot better than a blade lit up by LEDs. However you might want lit blades if filming at night or in dark interiors. I still recommend rotoscoping the lit blades though.

 

[JaxAndTheMoon]

If you have ever watched the lightsaber fights called "Ryan VS Dorkman" there is a behind the scenes video where they show the raw footage vs final version at the same time, and a couple other videos show how they make their effects. It's definitely worth seeing if you're interested in making a fan film

 

[Owk1]

Is it easier to jys

 

[Celtic007]

Go download HitFilm 3 Express. Its free and has some really nice lightsaber effects.

When you go to the link, click the one on the left that says "The Force".


https://hitfilm.com/express

 

[mvanwalks421]

http://youtu.be/yYkKEmc_d_U

think of this as a "proof of concept" pre-TFA. I feel, at least, the light sabers look much more authentic when there is real light hitting the lens; a computer can't completely replicate that everyday occurance. LED blades would provide more fighting mobility as opposed to using rotating poles with reflective film.

I always wanted to see a light saber fight that used real blades of light in addition to VFX. Glad JJ is doing this, though I'm slightly irritated I wasn't able to further this concept myself due to a lack of resources in the years preceding TFA.

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I suggest going with something no brighter than an FX light saber, e.g. a parks saber or something custom engineered. Too much light will crush the blacks in the background

 

[niennumb1]

Fx sabers do look great on camera with the glow and surprisingly very close to the real deal if you use the right camera settings to make sure your Saber looks its best.... BUT they aren't consistent with how the strobing and imperfect look they should have when they're on. If you look at the movies you'll see the blade never maintains a perfect glow and that it has a slight varying throbby glow to it.

So if you're going for an authentic replication of the movie, probably go roto fx, but if it's not a deal breaker for you, I say get away with whatever you can in-camera, because rotoscoping is a pain in the butt and takes forever, hahaha! I've had to do quite a bit of it and it's definitely not fun if it's a lengthy scene.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Duncanator]

Having the blades light up will give you all the interactive lighting for free, and then you can augment with effects after the fact. It'll look more real if there is light shining on, and reflecting off of objects as the blades move around during filming.

 

[Owk1]

Well we have decided to use mostly static rods covered in different colors retrorelfective tape for most of our scenes since they will be in daylight. Then use FX sabers for our few night scenes .My question is is there anyway you can just enhance the onset glow and color in the computer without having to completely rotoscoped it? Just bring out the glow we get on location ?