How to create forced perspective!

Today, we’re looking at forced perspective.

Forced perspective is an in-camera effect that uses optical illusion to make things seem smaller or larger than they actually are based on their position relative to other objects.

If you’ve ever been a tourist who leaned against the Tower of Pisa or held the Eiffel Tower in your hand, that’s forced perspective.

Not sure how to create this illusion? No worries, we’re going to show you how.

Let’s take a look at Lord of the Rings. Considering a Hobbit is ¾ the size of a human, this means the human needs to be ¾ closer to the camera than the person playing the Hobbit. So if your Hobbit is 10 feet away from the camera, multiply by ¾ and you’ll get the distance the Human needs to be, 7.5 feet.

Be sure to keep in mind the placement of other objects in the scene and adjust accordingly. Check your lighting and focus, as these can sometimes highlight the discrepancy between your subjects.

If you want the size difference to be even greater, move your subjects even further apart.

And finally, make sure your subjects don’t look directly at each other or else they will give away the illusion! Get them to talk as if the other is actually directly in front of them and have the person who is further away to look up and the person closer to look slightly downwards.

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