HOW WE WILL DO IT
THE PLAN.
The glass is added in post. On the day, Kanel throws the elbow at an open window with no glass in it, and we build the shattering glass, the cracks and the flying fragments in CG and composite them onto his strike. Nobody hits real glass, the take can be repeated as many times as you like, and we control exactly how it breaks.
What makes the shot work is the plate you give us. Everything in this guide is about getting a clean, trackable take of the performance plus a few extra passes that take a couple of minutes once the camera is set.
SAFETY.
Do not break real car glass on an actor. Tempered side windows explode into sharp pebbles and can cut hands, arms and eyes. If production wants a practical break anyway, use a breakaway (sugar or resin) pane fitted by a props or stunt person, and still shoot the passes in Section 2.
- 1Roll the window all the way down. Check from camera that no edge of glass is visible in frame.
- 2Kanel strikes with the elbow and stops at the line where the glass would be, as if it hit something solid. A sharp stop sells the impact; the arm should not sail into the car.
- 3Sell it with the body: shoulder and head react, a quick recoil or a second push through. Same rhythm as the animatic.
- 4Start rolling well before the strike and keep rolling at least 2 seconds after. We need handles both sides.
- 5Shoot 3 to 5 takes. Note the circle take on the slate or in the camera report.
Hands, props or crew crossing the window line after the strike. Very fast whip pans. Changing the lens or camera height between the main take and the passes in Section 2.
Match the animatic framing. Shoot at your normal shutter and frame rate; do not change them for this shot.
EXTRA PASSES AND REFERENCE
WHY THESE MATTER.
The CG glass has to sit exactly in the window frame and pick up the same light and reflections as the real car. These passes give us that. Do them right after the circle take, without moving the camera, the car or the lights.
- 1Tracking marks: before the takes, put 4 to 6 small dots of tape (a contrasting colour, about 1 cm) on the door frame and pillars around the window opening. Not on the glass and not where the elbow lands. Leave them on for every take.
- 2Clean plate: the same shot with nobody in it, same camera move if there is one. 5 seconds.
- 3Glass-up plate: roll the window up and shoot 5 seconds with nobody in it. This gives us the real glass reflections and tint to match.
- 4If the camera moves: repeat the clean and glass-up plates with the same move, as close as you can.
- 1A few photos of the car door and window from the camera position and from the side, with the window up and down.
- 2Measure the window opening, width and height, and note the make, model and year of the car.
- 3A few photos of the set lighting from where the window is, looking out in all directions. A phone panorama from that spot is ideal.
- 4Camera report for the takes: lens, focal length, camera height, distance to the car, frame rate, shutter.
- 1A clean pass of the strike with a small handful of plastic crystals or breakaway pebbles tossed from out of frame at the moment of impact. Gives us real interaction on Kanel to blend with the CG.
- 2A short pass with the camera stopped down or a tighter lens, for detail on the elbow and window edge.
TURNOVER.
Send the circle take, the clean plate and the glass-up plate as camera originals with 24 frames of handles, plus the photos and camera report, to the upload link by Thursday, November 12, 11:59 p.m. Pacific. Label them with the shot (0:24 window smash) and take numbers.