Trying to make an actor look smaller through special effects.

I have an idea for a short comedy film, I wanna do soon. but it will require to actors that are little people. Probably no more than 3 feet tall each, to make the scene work. The problem is is that it's hard finding little people actors of course, especially the ones that will need certain to have certain physical characteristics to work for the plot.

If I can't find actors that short, should I use special effects? I mean in the 70s King Kong, it was a guy in the Kong suit, but they were able to make him look a lot bigger compared to the woman. The little people characters will be fighting an average sized adult. So is anything like that, a doable back plan?
 
You could build sets and props that are double the size of thear regular counterparts, then when you put your actors next to them, they'd look half their actual size!

I guess then, you'd need to find somebody 12 feet tall to portray the normal sized person... :(
 
Force perspective is what you do. It's a practical effect, all in camera, and looks great when done right.

Elf and LOTR uses this.

Google some articles on it. Like they said, it'll involve building two identical sets, one twice the size of Normal and need a camera with deep DOF so you can stage the actors at different distances from the camera.
 
Force perspective is what you do. It's a practical effect, all in camera, and looks great when done right.

Elf and LOTR uses this.

Google some articles on it. Like they said, it'll involve building two identical sets, one twice the size of Normal and need a camera with deep DOF so you can stage the actors at different distances from the camera.

Okay thanks. The camera I'll be using is the T2i with an 18-55 lenses if that works. I might be shooting at an open field outdoor location, instead of building a set, but if I need to build one, then I can switch the location.

It comes to mind though that this may make the actor look to far away, rather than short. The two actors portraying little people will also have to fight a tall guy. Is this going to work, with actually making them look small, rather than taller people far away?
 
Last edited:
That's why it's called forced perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZYh_HRY70g

As for having your big and small characters interact, it's more difficult and will take a lot of choreography, but it's not impossible.
 
Well my two little people actors are actually actresses. I just used the term actors since it's more applied to women as well now. So since they are little women and not little girls, I will still have make them look more womanly developed, with adult faces and such.
 
Last edited:
Forced perspective gets great results, but you can always use green-screen and scale your characters. It takes more work to get right than forced perspective, but is also more versatile.
 
Thanks. What do you mean scale? Is it possible to shrink the actresses down in post if I need to, or does it all have to be done on set? I'm going to have to hire a DP that can do all this, so what do I look for in DP when it comes to making two women look 3 feet tall and fighting a 6 foot tall man? I can ask to see previous works, but so far no DPs I met have done something like that, since they are starting out in the business too.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top