EYE TRAINING: PAINT-OVER PART 2

Part 1 of Paint-over eye training was focused more on art direction to enhance a shot. Part 2 is focusing on using reference to get realism. I mainly wanted to focus on the surprises in the references - aspects of lighting/color that seem counter to my first instincts that actually make the shot real. The point of this exercise was to: strengthen my eye in knowing what type of background should be used in a composite, and to know what the fg/bg light ratios should be in order to make the shot look believable. This had a strong focus on using resources around myself - using photo reference as a bible, and asking for feedback from my talented friends. Shoutout to my amazing friends with great eyes on the crit rounds for this study!

EXAMPLE #1

I wanted to pick a challenging shot for this round of studying and knew it had to be the jetpack shot from Thunderball. There’s not much in the shot suggesting that he is off the ground and in the air, and I wanted to breakdown why.
Challenges affecting current shot:
- Flat stage lighting, no strong sun shadows
- Clouds don’t match surrounding shots
- Helmet doesn’t look like it’s being affected by strong sunlight specular highlight

REFERENCE:
For reference, I used a surrounding shot for what the wideshot could feel like, and I used a shot from Dr. No that had the lighting direction and skin values I wanted to match. What surprised me on this shot was how dark Sean’s skin values were compared to his bright shirt compared to the dark, distant clouds.

PAINTOVER:
Relighting Sean’s face got tricky because it’s easy for his face lost his distinct likeness when reshaping it with light/shadow. I had to look at the original photo and the Dr. No Sean ref to see what distinctive features of Sean were always there. The features I made sure to keep were his sharp cheekbone structure and how shiny his nose remains in different light.

exampLE #2

The second example is from The Spy Who Loved Me. I wanted to try a scene where I would have to balance both a sky and an environment.
Challenges affecting the current shot:
- Stage lighting (rim light too strong for daylight opposite keylight)
- No strong sunlight direction
- Sky isn’t close to surrounding shots
- Overall too dark and vignetted

REFERENCE:
For my reference, I used another shot in the sequence that had the light direction I was looking for (sun coming from camera right). One thing about this shot that surprised me was the darkness of the clouds compared to the key/fill ratio of the actor.

PAINTOVER:
The paintover took a few iterations to get right. Getting the face keylight darker and making the backpack more frontally-lit and curved helped sell the composite more as well as darkening the nose shadow. Making the snow slope shadows darker to match the reference was the final step.

EXAMPLE #3

I knew I wanted to do a sunset shot was glad to come across this shot from The Spy Who Loved me.
Challenges affecting this shot:
- Cross rim lighting is cinematic, but looks fake against a shot of an actual sunset
- Exposure of the background is too dim
- There should be flaring over the fg to tie the two plates together and suggest the sun is in the shot

REFERENCE:
For reference, I focused on shots that had a strong, over-exposed sunset with a foreground that was dark and diffuse, ambiently lit. What surprised me when looking through reference was just how bright the subjects were in ambient skylight, still showing details in some cases.

PAINTOVER:
This shot was pretty fun to work on. Learning the ratio of rimlight to ambient light all while trying to keep the clarity of what’s happening in frame and romantic overtone. However, the cross-rimlighting was still giving the shot a stagey look. My friend had the great idea of making the SR lantern a light source to justify the cross lighting on the woman’s shoulder.