Posted by Juego on 07-18-2008 - 06:30 PM
I've done a lot of looking at that helmet. Krauss is, quite literally, a smoke and mirrors trick, and once you know what to look for, the effect jumps out at you all over the place.
There's a good picture here that shows you a bit what is going on -- the inner white bubble is the actor's head; it looks like the inside vent apparatus is pasted on either side and mirrors complete the trick of making it look like there is more space. The very front of the helmet seems to have some distortion going on, too, to help with the effect.
When I've paged through some of my video clips frame by frame, I can see weird perspective things happening inside the helmet. If you click through the clip where Johann is introduced to the team -- when we first see his head (0:46), go frame by frame -- the front part of the inner vent is missing when we see him from the side, but when he goes to 3/4 view, suddenly it snaps into place.
I want to say that the mirror/distortion is actually just a special lense fitted inside the front part of the helmet. It feels to me similar to the distortion created by a Fresnel.
Fresnels come in soft PVC and flexible acrylic sheet versions -- I'm just not sure *how* flexible. But they are inexpensive and I've seen them all over the place, so it's time to hunt around and find some possible candidates.
There's a good picture here that shows you a bit what is going on -- the inner white bubble is the actor's head; it looks like the inside vent apparatus is pasted on either side and mirrors complete the trick of making it look like there is more space. The very front of the helmet seems to have some distortion going on, too, to help with the effect.
When I've paged through some of my video clips frame by frame, I can see weird perspective things happening inside the helmet. If you click through the clip where Johann is introduced to the team -- when we first see his head (0:46), go frame by frame -- the front part of the inner vent is missing when we see him from the side, but when he goes to 3/4 view, suddenly it snaps into place.
I want to say that the mirror/distortion is actually just a special lense fitted inside the front part of the helmet. It feels to me similar to the distortion created by a Fresnel.
Fresnels come in soft PVC and flexible acrylic sheet versions -- I'm just not sure *how* flexible. But they are inexpensive and I've seen them all over the place, so it's time to hunt around and find some possible candidates.
United States