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How to shoot this scene?

A

ATH

The waitress places a tray down the counter: a slice of cake drowned in STRAWBERRY SYRUP in a huge stemmed glass. He picks up the tray, balances it on one hand. We follow

THE DESSERT
Moving toward the girl... she looks up before everything FREEZES: a dessert up close, and a smile just as tantalizing.

THUG (O.S.)
Freeze!

A different freeze. The smile wilts. The dessert glides --

THUG (O.S.)
I said freeze!

BAM! The dessert shatters...
FREEZE FRAME again, in mid-explosion.

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this question. This shot is what I'm struggling with. Any suggestions how to achieve what I described would be greatly appreciated!
 
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ATH said:
It's a closeup of a stemmed glass being shot at while a girl watching it.
Click to expand...

So... the shot is supposed to be on the glass the whole time?

Seemed like a few other people were involved in the script fragment. Perhaps a more clear explanation of what you're visually thinking might help.

CraigL
 
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Are you trying to move the camera around an object (objects) frozen in time?

Like thusly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5niaBQEpVQ

Or are we just talking extreme slo-mo?
 
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CraigL said:
So... the shot is supposed to be on the glass the whole time?

Seemed like a few other people were involved in the script fragment. Perhaps a more clear explanation of what you're visually thinking might help.

CraigL
Click to expand...
Yes, a closeup of a hand balancing a tray with a stemmed glass on it and it moving. So the camera follows it until a girl face watching enter the frame, then the glass get shot. And I want a freeze frame of mid explosion and the girl's face reaction to it.

The camera movement could be done with steady cam, my problem is the glass being shot at. I think I could shoot the whole scene without the glass exploding then add it in in post. But how do I do that?
 
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ATH said:
The camera movement could be done with steady cam, my problem is the glass being shot at. I think I could shoot the whole scene without the glass exploding then add it in in post. But how do I do that?
Click to expand...

Shoot the whole scene without any glass there, and add the whole glass including the explosion in, in post.
 
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jax_rox said:
Shoot the whole scene without any glass there, and add the whole glass including the explosion in, in post.
Click to expand...
So do I shoot the glass and explosion with green screen then add it in, in post? Or Can I do it with specific software without shooting the glass and explosion?
 
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ATH said:
So do I shoot the glass and explosion with green screen then add it in, in post? Or Can I do it with specific software without shooting the glass and explosion?
Click to expand...

That would be the easier way to do it, yes.

I'd probably shoot the shot of the waiter putting down the glass, cut then either frame up the new shot, or continue the same shot without the glass.
Take your measurements, match on the green screen and do the explosion on the green screen.

Of course it depends on your frame - with a glass you potentially encounter issue of seeing the green screen itself through the translucent glass..
 
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ATH said:
Would love to be able to this, but I think my shot is much simpler. See my explanation in other post.
Click to expand...

Certainly much simpler, it just sometimes helps to have an example. Was not sure how much camera movement you wanted during the frozen moment. I also wanted to make sure we were talking frozen still rather than extreme slo-mo.

Remember that to sell the effect you'll have to manage your background as well as the actress and the exploding glass. Naturally everything back there should be motionless, but a bit of something that should be moving, but isn't, will help to sell the shot.

Chimp already beat me to the punch on examples, and there are some vids out there describing how that scene from The Other Guys was done.

Try to keep your move as smooth and repeatable as possible, even if you just land on a frame when everything stops you'll probably have to do some level of match-moving for the time leading up to the glass being shot.
 
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Thank you all for suggestions. I'm leaning toward shooting the scene without the glass and explosion, then shoot the glass with green screen and render the explosion in AE using particle effect.
 
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