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July 15, 2007
lsgl: smack-downs for all
by sven at 11:59 pm
This is the last shot of Carl before he gets smacked down.
Lighting was a big problem. With Carl dead-center in the shot, it seemed that wherever I put the lights, they were going to cast awkward Elder shadows across him. Solution: I fell back on my "sometimes the explorers emit light" rationale. Given that Carl's about to bite it, it sorta seemed emotionally right for him to have one last moment of brilliance.
While working on Carl's shot, I realized that I'd never tried putting the lavamen back in the livingroom where they were born. I thought it looked interesting, and wanted to share. [In the final shot, I flipped the clip horizontally and did some cleanup on the lavaman fx.]
Here's Andrew getting smacked down.
I'm conflicted about whether or not I'm actually going to use this shot as-is. If I do, then I'm committing to killing off Andrew. My original plan was to have him be the sole survivor. I feel like there needs to be a witness to the carnage at the end of the film -- a quiet epilogue. Trouble is, I'm running out of time.
One good thing about killing Andrew off at this point in the film is that it lets me get the pay-off for the lavaman effect out of the way: at some point, we've got to see the hot body cool off, and the red bleed out.
I might do two versions of Andrew's smack-down: this one, where he dies -- and one where he's merely knocked out. ...Given that I only need an "Andrew lives" version if there's going to be time for an epilogue, though, I'll probably put that job off for a while.
One thing that drives me nuts about this shot is that there aren't Elder Thing legs in frame. Having an open patch of floor makes for a good composition -- but it doesn't feel right given the chaos we've been seeing in previous shots. Trouble is, it's just about impossible to get an Elder in the shot without it stepping on Andrew. Or, if I try to put it in the foreground, the camera winds up being actually inside the Elder. Hopefully the shot's fast enough that people just won't even think about it.
Guh... Gotta just keep moving. Next on the to-do list: shots that involve the Shoggoth's pseudopods.
posted by sven | July 15, 2007 11:59 PM | categories: let sleeping gods lie