Seeing Double — Camera Tricks
Sgt. Angle Reporting for Duty!
Today we’re going to double down and talk a bit about a particular type camera trickery that was excelled by the savvy David Fincher in this weekend’s box office topper The Social Network. What I’d like to point out here are filmmakers who go on to claim that they do not think of trying to master a certain visual effect, but they start with what works best for the storytelling — how a scene or character is motivated, what’s the driving force of the scene and arc of the film itself, rather than trying to wow an audience.
(**Beware!! Ahead there be spoilers!!**)
I’m talking, of course, about the special effects wizardry that enables two Lindsay Lohans in The Parent Trap, or two Nicolas Cage’s in Adaptation, the Winklevoss brothers in The Social Network, and two Sam Rockwells in Moon. Below are a few processes to make this happen, which will also show you how technology has been able to advance techniques and add more freedom in storytelling.
First is the Matte Process, or Matting. This was used in films from the silent era through the 70s (and still today, though much less so thanks to digital compositing). Matting at its’ most basic level involves filming a scene from a static camera position twice and combining both takes onto another, separate, undeveloped roll of film while blocking (matting) out the other half of the frame shot.
Hayley Mills (the original girl in The Parent Trap) would act out a scene standing at camera left, pretending she was talking to her twin sister. Then, she would act out the very same scene at camera right, interacting with the help of a recording of her first round of dialogue. Then, each role would be projected onto a new role of film, which was rewound between projections, with half of the frame covered up. The new role would become the master matted role. This is an oversimplification, obviously, but a helpful breakdown of an early creative process.
Of course, if you moved the camera or tried a tracking shot, your level of success with creating a flawless shot of the same actor twice would rarely be successful, so most often you would be stuck with a static shot.
In 2001, Spike Jonze directed Nicolas Cage in an Oscar nominated performance playing twin brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman in Adaptation. It was meta. Using the skills of Gray Marshall, the director was able to avoid green screen technology for 80% of the “twins” shots in the film, thanks to the dedication of a talented actor and the creation of motion control cameras and rotoscoping.
Motion Control allows a camera movement to be recorded and run again and again, precisely and exactly the same over and over again. This leaves no room for user error if a particular movement needs the exact same timing each take, and especially if you’re using trick photography. Rotoscoping, or tracing over live action footage, was used to cover up any errors or overlapping of footage. The result is a seamless world in which Nicolas Cage has doubled, and Big Daddy is even more of a presence than he probably needs to be.
Having Charlie and Donald interact verbally is key to the story being told, highlighting the differences of each character which is also visualized in what they wear, how they stand, etc.
Advancing the techniques of split-screen and CG work in order to double the fun of your favorite actor, Sam Rockwell, Moon director certainly takes the cake for taking initiative on the set and bringing two Rockwell’s to life using split screen and body doubles. Perhaps most exciting are the scenes involving a game of ping pong and one where Sam 2 zips the pants of Sam 1, from a moving shot profiling both Sams. It’s really quite amazing to watch, and Rockwell was up to the challenge of memorizing not only dialogue but the camera’s movements and his own movements from previous takes and days in order to match shots.
This dedication shows up on screen, you can feel the presence of the work involved, but you can also see why the film needed to be made this way. As an audience, we really needed the point hammered home that there was more than one Sam in existence, and the shock that two Sams have become, essentially, self-aware is a key point in the story.
The Real Winklevi Twins.
In The Social Network, Army Hammer plays both the Winklevoss brothers, Tyler and Cameron, however, as you’ll note in the credits, Josh Pence is credited as one of the brothers. That’s because, much like Fincher’s process of overlapping Brad Pitt’s face on an old man and young baby in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hammer’s face and voice were overlapped onto Pence’s performance after the fact.
Armie Hammer and Josh Pence, with Hammer’s face painted on.
This allowed for more seamless interaction and actual presence in scenes featuring the brothers, and shots that required the back of the head to be shown only were easier with the stand-in (as they would’ve been even 50 years ago). But moving cameras, shifting angles, etc., required the necessity to reveal both brothers simultaneously. As one of the Winklevie says during the film, “I’m 6’5″ 220 and there are two of me.” There’s no better way to show that than actually show it, and it’s worth the technological difficulties as long as you can hire the proper actor for the role.
You are dismissed!
Sgt. Angle
She demands it because she loves ya. She yells at you because she’d rather do that then eat you up. And if you can be a wild thing once in a while, from now on, no matter how old you are or what you look like or how grumpy you are if you wake up early because of a dog barking outside your window at six A.M., then go ahead. Be a wild thing.
