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See through doors (Kill Bill 1 style)

Hey everyone,

Yesterday, I had an idea an a camera so I found two friends and we shot it. Now has come the time to edit it and do some VFX.

It's one scene, at the bathroom, with two guys, each in a "booth" doing his business, separated by a wall and with the door closed and talking to each other.

The shot is full frontal, facing the doors and I want to see through the doors. A little like in Kill Bill here (go to 1:26 or click here http://youtu.be/pfJx04mWMMY?t=1m26s) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfJx04mWMMY?t

I don't know how they shot it but the way I'm going to do it is by adding the doors (I shot with the doors open). But I want to achieve a nice transparence effect and I wonder how should I do this. Adding a layer with a n% transparency obviously works but doesn't look really good. I will have a test footage to upload as soon as possible.

Thanks.
 
Don't know if this will help you at all, but the Kill Bill transparency effect in that clip was achieved live on the set, not in post, using a technique called a "theatrical scrim". I have used it a couple of times on stage plays for which I've designed the lighting. Francis Ford Coppola also used it in his film One From the Heart.

Unlike a "scrim" used for film lighting - which is a sheer, white material designed to diffuse light - a theatrical scrim is a sheet of black fabric with a very loose weave. When light shines on it from the front and no light is behind it, it appears opaque. Special paints can be applied to it in order to create a pattern, such as was done in the Kill Bill scene.

Then, when all of the front light is removed and an object behind the scrim - Uma Thurmon, in this case - is lit, the scrim becomes transparent. In that scene, a lighting operator crossfaded from front to back light, which gave the illusion of seeing through the wall.

It's an old-school effect, which QT likes to do.
 
Yup, I had the feeling it was done on camera. It looks very organic and cool.

Thank you for the input. I will upload a VFX first try asap and will be looking forward to get as close as possible to this.
 
Okay, here goes the first test :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN7dPho8ac8

The edges of the masks are a little sharp sometimes but apart from that, I still feel something is off..
 
I tried finding the youtube bit from the styx video where they do the same thing, but couldn't find it... can't remember which video that was from... it's much more obvious how it's done there.
 
Thank you for the input. I made the handle less transparent to give the door more "presence" since it's white and the wall behind is white. I will look into the head thing though.

Knightly, I have no idea what this styx video is. If you ever lay hand on it again, feel free to send me a link.
 
I believe it was in their movie type of thing "Caught In The Act" that fundamentally killed the band from Tommy wanting to just be a rock band and Dennis wanting to be a huge stage produciton type of band.
 
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