{"id":453,"date":"2009-10-24T16:08:18","date_gmt":"2009-10-24T23:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=453"},"modified":"2020-05-05T14:19:58","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T21:19:58","slug":"phil-kellison-makes-forced-perspective-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/?p=453","title":{"rendered":"Phil Kellison makes forced perspective easier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phil Kellison was one of the unsung greats in the visual effects business. He was a visual effects supervisor and designer long before that position was acknowledged in movie credits. He had an almost 40-year career that ranged from the George Pal Puppetoons to industrial films, commercials, and feature films. He had that unusual aptitude of being both the right-brained artist and the left-brained engineer.<\/p>\n

Phil was the supervisor and boss at Cascade Picture of California when I began working there in 1969-70. I learned a lot by watching and listening to him. Phil loved the challenge of doing visual effects in-camera and his specialty was forced perspective (more correctly known now as “mixed scale”.) To market the technique to the T.V. commercial business, he dubbed it “Magnascope”.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Jolly Rancher as seen through the camera.<\/p><\/div>\n

Forced perspective (mixed scale) usually involves creating a scale model and placing it in front of a live-action scene and lining it up so it appears to be a natural part of the shot. One challenge was to get the model at the correct distance from the camera so it was not too large or too small to fit correctly into the background.<\/p>\n

\"How

How it was set up. The Jolly Rancher actor is closer to the camera with a miniature table, chair, and bench. The tall pole was used as an eyeline guide for regular-sized actors.<\/p><\/div>\n

The correct model distance placement can be solved with math and a tape measure or you can use the cool trick Phil had to make this easier. Phil used what I have affectionately called “The Kellison Sticks<\/strong>“<\/p>\n

The key is to build your miniature to a scale; for example, 1 inch = 1 foot or 1\/12th scale. So, if you needed a model car in the foreground and a real car is ten feet long then a 1\/12th scale model of that car would be ten inches long.<\/p>\n

Do be aware that there will come a point where\u00a0a tiny foreground miniature is impractical due to limited detail and lens focus issues. Larger is usually better than smaller.<\/p>\n

To make Kellison Sticks, get a length of board like a 1″x 4″ or a 1″x 6″ by say, 8 ft long. Paint the board with alternating one-foot segments of white and black. Now make a scaled-down version of this board with alternating black and white segments. For example, if you are working 1″=1′ then your scaled board would be eight inches long with one-inch segments. At a scale of \u00bd” = 1′ your stick would be four inched long with segments of \u00bd inch each. Now you have your “Kellison Sticks.”<\/p>\n

To line up your miniature, have a person hold the full-sized black and white painted Kellison Stick at the edge of the live set where the foreground miniature will line up with the background. Place your scaled-down Kellison Stick at the back edge of the foreground model.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With someone looking through the lens<\/em><\/strong>, move the miniature toward or away from the camera until your scaled-down Kellison Stick matches the full-sized Kellison Stick through the camera. There, you have the correct distance!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/address>\n
(Jolly Rancher photo examples courtesy of Cinemagic Magazine.\u00a0\u00a0 All material is for educational use only. All copyrights are retained by their owners. No copyright infringement is implied or intended.)<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Phil Kellison was one of the unsung greats in the visual effects business. He was a visual effects supervisor and designer long before that position was acknowledged in movie credits. He had an almost 40-year career that ranged from the George Pal Puppetoons to industrial films, commercials, and feature films. He had that unusual aptitude […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,76,34],"tags":[10,13,29,80,53,74,52,82,78],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-film-vfx-history","category-forced-perspective-foreground-miniatures","category-visual-effects-techniques","tag-cascade","tag-commercials","tag-david-stipes","tag-education","tag-forced-perspective","tag-kellison-sticks","tag-phil-kellison","tag-tutorials","tag-visual-effects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1050,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidstipes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}