What is Miniature Effect?

Miniature Effect

A miniature effect is a special effect for motion pictures and television shows using scale models. To make gravitational and effects appear convincing to the viewer the scale models are used to combine it with high-speed photography or matte shots.

Where a miniature look in the foreground of a shot, this is very close to the camera lens. Example: when matte painted backgrounds are used. Since the exposure is placed to the object being shot, so players look well lit, the miniature must be over-lit to balance the exposure and to eliminate any depth of field differences that would otherwise be visible. The miniature foreground usage is referred to as a forced scene. Another type of miniature effect uses stop motion animation.

Use of Scale Models in VFX

Use of scale models in the creation of VFX by the entertainment industry dates back to the earliest days of cinema. Miniatures and models are copies of people, building, animals, objects and settings. Models or Miniatures are used to represent objects that do not actually exist or live, or that are difficult or too expensive to shoot in reality in films, such as floods, explosions or fires.

Miniature Effect in VFX Filmmaking

In visual effects filmmaking, a miniature is a common process in which shoot the real-life object is duplicated to a smaller size. The concept of miniature effect has been used in many Bollywood and Hollywood films like Indiana Jones, Cliffhanger, Star Wars, Terminator, Ra-One, Batman Begins and many more.

Shooting miniatures is a very interesting and creative process. One needs to understand perspective, scale, size and proportion. There are a lot of VFX courses that help you understand the basic and core elements to help you enhance your visual effect skills. It’s not just a simple or small-size model, which is used in miniature shoots. In fact, the details have to be more careful in miniature models, so that it should not look like a small toy after the shoot.

Miniature supports for on set camera shooting, compared to camera projection and static matte painting of post-production pipeline. It can be integrated with CGI elements through 3D tracking and matchmoving to create outstanding visual effects sequence. Specially designed mini cameras used to shoot for go through sequences, which ascertain highly excellent cinematography.

If you are thinking of Shooting Miniature here are some Basic Tips:

1. Ratio

It’s important to maintain the exact ratio between the various objects in a miniature as they are in the live location. Suppose the ratio between original objects is 1:5, the same ratio should be maintained in the miniature models.

2. Camera

Miniature shoots are created with special lenses and camera. The aperture should be small for shooting a miniature to avoid depth of field in the footage.

3. Scale

A miniature is not always small. There could be a chance of having large size miniatures as well.

4. Lighting

As discussed earlier scale and ratio, the light should also be scaled down by using special lights with watts value and different illumination.

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