Mirrors

[sams0n]

Hey all.

I have a little problem. basically I want to be filming from over the shoulder of/behind a person looking into a mirror, but see someone else moving in the mirror. The scene should be exactly the same as in the actual room, just the person in the mirror should be different.

how exactly would I go about doing this? I was told that superimposing the video of who I want to see in the mirror on the film, or something like that. 1) does that make sense, 2) is it possible and 3) if the answer to 2 was yes, how do I go about doing that? the software I have at the moment is Adobe Premiere.

cheers for any help,
sam.

ps what's with the 2 day waiting period before I could post? why is that employed? never seen that before

[celtic_druid]

You could use a tripod. Film person A in front of mirror. Film person B. Cut the screen so that you get person B in the mirror, but person A sitting there. Because you used a tripod, you shouldn't be able to tell that each part of the screen was shot seperatly.

[sams0n]

You could use a tripod. Film person A in front of mirror. Film person B. Cut the screen so that you get person B in the mirror, but person A sitting there. Because you used a tripod, you shouldn't be able to tell that each part of the screen was shot seperatly.

thanks for the quick reply. nice idea with the tripod. excuse my lack of knowledge of the lingo/practice, but what do you mean by "cut the screen"?

[guns1inger]

Film person A overshoulder from right, making sure tha there is at least a small gap between them and where the reflection will be sitting. Now shift the tripod to film the 'reflection' actor overshoulder from the left (you have to reverse the tripod position to get the actors facing correctly.

You should now be able to load both clips into your editor, and by masking half of one, get both actors in shot. Assuming you have correctly and carefully framed everything, it should appear to be one mirror, two people.

[Snakebyte1]

You can set up your shot something like this:

Set up the camera on a tripod (a must).

Set up your shot so that the mirror is to the left and your actors will be to the right. Set up the mirror so that you can see the actor in it.

Now, bring in Actor A and film that.

Then without touching the camera/tripod or mirror, bring in actor B and film that.

You now have two scenes, one with ActorA and their reflection and one with ActorB and their reflection..

In Premiere, add your Actor A footage to Video 1 track, and your Actor B footage to the Video 2 track.

Then simply make a Mask on your ActorB footage and key out the right side (ie the mirror part). Since the camera position and mirror position between the two scenes is identical, the end results will be Actor A looking into the mirror and ActorBs reflection showing.

D.

[jimmalenko]

ps what's with the 2 day waiting period before I could post? why is that employed?

It's so that you don't storm in here with a head full of steam and ask a question that's been answered 10s of 1,000's of times before. The idea is that you might take a look around, through the forum and guides section, and hopefully this might answer those really "elementary" questions you might have, as well as help you to familiarize yourself with the site.

[celtic_druid]

Maybe Snakebyte1 explained it better? Cut as in cut/divide the frame up.