Leopards POV

Greetings.

I'm preparing for a feature film that involves a leopard's POV when moving (climbing a tree, jumping down etc). Can anyone point out some film references where this has been done in a believable way, no CGI? General advise about "Do's" and probably more important "Don'ts" when shooting with (trained) leopards would be appreciated.

Thanks very much.

Markus Huersch -
Director of Photography -
European based,
Berne

Although the movie 2 Brothers by J.J.Annaud is about tigers, not leopards, there are a few shots like the one you describe. I worked on this movie.

The animals were supplied by a French animal handler who has all kinds of these animals "in stock". He and his team were amazing with the animals, very convincing, the animals are and look wild, not tamed or drugged like some others do.

Rob van Gelder,
Steadicam, Motioncontrol, Lighting
Bangkok, Thailand

>Can anyone point out some film references where this has been done >in a believable way, no CGI?

Markus :

A great reference for that type of photography would be "Wolfen" circa 1981. Really ground breaking steadicam work by Garrett Brown and Ted Churchill and a terrific photographic visualization by Gerry Fischer.

Sincerely,

John Sheeren
Camera Operator
1st AC
Houston, Texas

>Can anyone point out some film references where this has been done >in a believable way, no CGI?

Markus :

Also, don't overlook "Cat People," circa 1982. Some good POV's and stylised shots of the big cats.

Sincerely,

John "putting out fire with gasoline" Sheeren
Camera Operator
1st AC
Houston, Texas

Markus writes :

>Can anyone point out some film references where this has been done >in a believable way, no CGI?

"The Ghost and the Darkness" worked for me.

Brian "Just keep Siegfried and Roy in mind" Heller
IA 600 DP

Markus Huersch wrote :

>I'm preparing for a feature film that involves a leopard's POV when >moving

Maybe I'm not really helpful for your purposes, but you ask about something that I wonder for the last years.

The leopard is an really quick animal. My point is ....it needs to have better reflexes or more information in his brain about what is going to be its next movement.

Maybe I'm wrong and all the animals in the nature can see a film at 24 FPS but I always think that this kind of quick animals they see in "slow motion" comparing with a human being.

Rodolfo Coloma
Camera Operator. LFA.
London

I saw a news item (hey listen I'm not a biologist etc) showing experiments that strongly suggested cats (presumably leopards included) can in fact pretty much see - get this - the trace motion of scan lines on a TV - this being why they appear to "watch" TV.

Apparently, it seemed some cats can detect this better than others.

(So maybe if your cat reacts differently to shows shot progressive as opposed to interlaced now you know why...

Cats are so much more than good light meters it seems...

Sam Wells

I wasn't sure whether to comment or not but my need to share got the better of me.

I saw some great animal footage, POV of course, on TV news a couple of days ago.

It was a feature covering the annual pig racing competition somewhere in the south of the US.

They had mounted cameras behind the pigs head so that you got the pigs eye view, well it had it's head in as well, as it raced.

Kinda like the POV shots you get in motor racing.

Cheers

Geoff Boyle FBKS
Director of Photography
EU Based
www.cinematography.net

Geoff Boyle wrote :

>They had mounted cameras behind the pigs head so that you got the >pigs eye view, well it had it's head in as well, as it raced.

Are you sure you weren't watching a certain political convention?

Jeff "ducking and running" Kreines

Geoff Boyle wrote :

>They had mounted cameras behind the pigs head so that you got the >pigs eye view, well it had it's head in as well, as it raced

It may be worth adding here that POV tends to be a cinematographic / directorial / scriptwriting term and is broadly equivalent to the (film studies term) "subjective" shot (cf. most cinema shots which are objective), and as cinema developed "it was found" that subjectivity was implied, even made firmer, with the "over the shoulder" shot, which helped the audience identify the POV and hence empathise with that character's view.

So the over the pig's head shot falls into this category.

David "praxis" Woods

Dr. David Woods
Holcus Ltd.
16 John Street
Kingston Square
Hull HU2 8DH
East Yorkshire
UK

>you ask about something that I wonder for the last years. The leopard is >an really quick animal.

A thought experiment I've pictured is shrinking an futuristic-ultra-high performance fighter plane to the size of a fly. No matter what, I can't picture a human being able to navigate that plane as quickly as a fly buzzes about a room.

The fly has a very dedicated visual system for the job, and more interestingly, a tiny brain, with proportionately less propagation delay for signals travelling around. So it will always perceive time in a different manner to us.

The best guess I have at what determines the rate at which we perceive time is simply the rate at which we can string ideas and reactions together.

>experiments that strongly suggested cats (presumably leopards >included) can in fact pretty much see - get this - the trace motion of scan >lines on a TV

Try this...I promise I won't think you are crazy. Put a white image on a TV screen, note any perceptible flicker, and then turn your head upside-down (you can opt to put it between your knees or just lean sideways like - depending on how important your self-image is...). Certainly with 50Hz scanning (PAL), everyone I've had try it can see a noticeable increase in the flicker.

I thought turning my head upside-down might alter blood-pressure and therefore vision, so I turned a monitor upside-down instead...

monitor upside-down & head upright (image upside-down) = increased flicker monitor upside-down & head upside-down (image upright) = normal image!

Go figure, somehow we get used to top-to-bottom scanning flicker and learn to filter it out!!!!!!

I've asked heaps of experts and nobody seems to have an explanation about how it might be accomplished within our visual system. It is easy to say "we adapt". But HOW DO WE ADAPT. The information has to be processed somehow!

I've got a hypothesis, but it is kind of verbose, so I won't attempt it unless someone is interested.

FYI, I first noticed the increase flicker when I looked at a coffee table with an inverted reflection of a TV on it.

One question to leave you with... does this desensitisation to downward vertical movement make falling objects slightly less noticeable?

Tim Baier