Blacklight - Yes or no?

[TOBIB]

I'm wrapping my head around using blacklight and a makeup artist to film so minimalistic footage in the dark. Now my question is if anyone of you have any experiences with blacklight?

I figured it would be an easy tool to create some strong outlines and contrasts and key out the rest in post production. Good idea? or bad idea?

Also I'm looking for examples where blacklight was used in other films. Do you guys know of any?

Here is an interesting video I found: http://www.dazeddigital.com/Fashion/article/1687/1/DKNY_Turns_20 (scroll down for the video).
Along with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9-n9gpFVpk (at around 1:29)

Found an photo that comes pretty close to what I want to achieve: http://www.flickr.com/photos/keithsonic/2356759821/in/pool-27404415@N00

 

[Samiammi]

You're going to get a silhouette if you're only using backlight. Is that what you're going for? Plus, it's not going to be a perfect silhouette - you're going to have light spill onto your subject creating a soft edge. Use hard direct light, don't diffuse. You can use after effect's luma key to key it out - butttt, that'll only work if you perfectly light the background so the subject it clearly separated from the other dark hues such as shadows and darker colors.

From your images, it looks like all you need is a flagged front blacklight with some neon paint ahha. Those images are really flat. Just keep your subject really far away from any back wall, over light their face and dim the iris on your lens. That should kill any spill.

The only way you're going to get the results you want, is to do it though. Find an inanimate subject and light it the way you want. You can read tutorials all day - you're not going to have the same circumstances and environmental conditions that effect your image. Who knows, you may find something you like better.

 

[TOBIB]

Ya, I'll organize one tomorrow along with some blacklight makeup.

I figured I would shot the actors with full face makup and have them wear black cloths. Then I would shot every scene twice and remove their body using a mask. The aim is to create two ghostly looking faces floating in the air in the night. (kind of like floating masks). I'll light the surrounding areas accordingly so I only the the blacklight on the actors.

Would you say thats theoretically possible?

I worry a bit about how much of the actors emotion and acting will come trough with the full face makeup. And if I can achieve a natural looking scenery.