Hello,

I would like some advice on a little college project im starting. I am planning on making a two minute 'surreal' video with the main bases being a play on reality. I would like my actor to be walking trough everyday life but with everything in the background in reverse.

I don't really want to do it on green screen, purely because i am not very compitant at keying yet and want it to look as real as possible. I was playing on getting the actor to perform everything backwards, and then in post reverse the footage to create the illusion of whats explain above.

Had anybody got any advise or ideas on what i could do that would be visually interest and leave the audience thinking 'How'de do that?'!!! :D baring in mind that the actor will have to do it backwards!

You can have someone in the background accidentally dropping a flower vase with water in it..

Or have someone undress for bed/shower and film it conveniently so that certain body parts are covered up by camera moves or the actor..

They key is basically gravity, as well as an apparent ability to think ahead.

Just think about both of those and you'll come up with something.

For example, combining both, it's a cool and fairly reasonable shot to have someone jump from a narrow/small space a good distance (perhaps jumping backward, so when reversed they are jumping forward, making it a bit more realistic), then reverse the shot to show amazing coordination and judgment.

Also remember that both of these things can totally give away the shot, so be careful with all elements, such as baggy clothes that might behave in a strange way.


EDIT: Here's something:
http://ci-pro.com/misc/jump.mov (1.8mb)
I set that to "play back and forth" when I saved in QT pro, so I hope that works for everyone.
Obviously with some better planning, you'll get interesting results. Of course the physics are a bit off, but you can consider a workaround of timeremapping, especially with a plugin. Filming at a higher framerate, or interlaced to simulate more frames [at the cost of resolution-- good time to use HD and downsize to SD, for that] wouldn't hurt.