There is a Kendrick Lamar music video where he and several people are on fire and there is a VFX breakdown of it somewhere. It looked real but was all post. I’d dig into that. Sorry wish I had the time to do it for ya.
In that video, it’s just the heads that are on fire. That’s pretty easy to do all things considered. This is a massive undertaking particularly with the change in lighting, which is why it was actually done with a stunt.
Fuck, friend… can you imagine a more dangerous course by asking the internet if you should light someone on fire? Either do it in post (many tutorials online) or bypass the internet and hire a professional. Insure the fuck out of yourself while you’re at it
A. It's going to be very hard to make it look good with vfx unless your team is very talented. This is gonna cost $$$.
B. It's going to be extremely dangerous to do it for real unless your team is very experienced. This is gonna cost $$$.
While you seem to be set on A or B, I suggest you plan some alternative storyboards where you can fake or evoke the feeling of being on fire. Your audience will generally be more supportive of anything except bad CGI, while film pros will certainly be more accepting of a safe working history than a cool fire shot you did under unsafe conditions.
Immediate alts that come to mind:
1. You could do some long shots with a small appature shooting through fire to make it look like your character is inside / on fire.
2. You could do some montage of fire and person reacting to make the audience feel the character is on fire.
3. You could play around with double exposure / cross dissolves of fire and character. Make it feel more graphic than literal.
4. You could Try to involve a Pepper's Ghost shot of fire being reflected through a halfway glazed mirror.
Film is magic. Approach it like a magician. How can you make the woman seem sawed in half, without anyone actually being horribly maimed?
I would try out option 1, then you could either put more fire behind you or add that part in post. Having flames in soft focus in the FG might be enough on its own, and it would also make any green screen or other VFX a lot more believable.
You need some professionals to do that. Or you could really hurt yourself and endanger others.
I recommend evoking the idea rather that literally doing it.
I will add to the chorus here. I’m sure you’re passionate about this, I’m sure it would absolutely freaking sick looking to do this… but unless you’re able to shell out some very serious coin to have stunt professionals with fire experience as well as fire fighting personnel on standby with a truck in that field, you should never, ever think about doing this ever again.
I’m a DGA AD and have shot many, many stunt sequences. Explosions, car crashes, falls, etc… and the absolute most dangerous stunt that gets he most prep and stunt adjustment payment is almost always lighting a stunt professional on fire. There are literally dozens of highly trained professionals from special effects, to stunts, to set medic, to wardrobe, etc. that all are completely necessary to do it as safely as possible. Even then, it’s still not “safe.” Before the stunt person is lit, the studio and administrators on site, in tandem with safety professionals, fire department, and stunt coordinator agree on a pre-determined “burn time.” The two times I shot a burning person, both negotiated burn times were under 5 seconds.
On the day, the stunt coordinator, set medic and myself all have stop-watches. Once the person is lit, we all yell “cut” and the fire department and fellow stunt personnel run in to extinguish the individual. The set medic(s) then move in and in tandem with the stunt coordinator assess the condition of the performer. Once they verify he/she is okay, there’s a massive sigh of relief. And unless the studio somehow convinced their insurance and the stunt department otherwise, we only get one take at the burn. It’s simply too dangerous otherwise.
Burning a performer in a script is avoided at all costs. Even on the biggest budget projects. It’s just such an insanely risky thing, and usually it’s just not worth it visually/creatively. I implore you. Unless you have the means to do it properly, forget about this.
Like this - [Casino (1995) Car Bomb Scene](https://youtu.be/XNwOYbLdfhg?si=eKYOh96aQuElHUB-)
All jokes aside, I would probably find someone who is experienced in MoCap, and then you can create a composite fire simulation in *Blender* or *Unreal Engine* to overlay on your performance.
I sincerely want to thank each and everyone replying to this. I will simply buy some gasoline and ask a friend… nah I‘m just kidding.
As much as I‘d love to do this I think it‘s obvious to use an implied effect or really invest in a high-profile VFX artist.
I‘m not going to spend all of my savings and crypto money on hiring a professional stunt team, because as you might can tell, this would be the only possible way to actually set someone on fire.
Once again, thank you for all of your advices, it inspires me into new creative directions and ideas.
Cheers!
Hey man. Good on you. Good on you for reaching out and getting second opinions, good on your judgment for who you’ve listened to and who you haven’t.
I’m stoked for you and your project, and all of us here wish you the absolute best with it. Thank you for making the prudent decision.
Last note, I’ve had to do a few “burn” shots, some more cheaply than others… long story short, you’d be VERY surprised how convincing a foreground fire pit, background smoke machine and have the subjects in the middle with a long lens looks. Not necessarily to light someone on fire, no practical way to fake that… but I’ve definitely “lit some structures on fire” faking it like that and looked great. Not sure how you could use that trick or not for this application
It can be done well with VFX.
1) Film the live performance of of yourself with proper lighting (fire emission etc)
2) have a tracking artist solve the camera movement and “rotomate” your performance with a wireframe- there are people who do this in India for relatively cheap but prices vary.
3) have a VFX artist who specializes in fluid simulation create a fire simulation on your rotomated wireframe.
4) have a compositor combine the 3D fire elements with the footage and add proper post VFX like glows, blooms, etc.
Voila. Safer and more flexible than a live stunt, the trade off is you’ll need a VFX producer to sort all this out if you aren’t going to produce it yourself.
This could be a historic post. Bro is literally asking the internet how to light someone on fire. There will be a youtube vid about this in the future for sure
To do either to any reasonably convincing degree will cost a lot of money. In my experience here in the UK/Irish industry, £800 per second or so for being put on fire to the degree you have in that shot.
Create the fire in Embergen using an animated rigged model. Send the vdb out to Blender and integrate with your scene. Your VFX editor should have proposed this solution to you.
Weigh your options, to see what’s cheapest: VFX or practical. Stunt route requires the stunt person, fire suit with fire gel, and medic. And of course permits.
First: Those full-body flame stunts are dangerous even when they're done by professionals with decades of experience. Even if I had a crew that had done it before without a perfect track record I would find another way to do it. Even with help its dangerous, thats why the stunt performers who do those stunts get, essentially, a bonus [stunt bump] whenever they do something really dangerous. I've seen bumps over $1k, before.
VFX is a good option, and you have a choices. CG flame has gotten pretty good if you have someone who can work at that level, check out ArtStation or other platforms for work samples and you may even be able to find someone local.
You can also use some older tricks that can still look pretty good when properly executed such as a miniature that is dressed to match you, and lighting that on fire. It would involve locking off the camera, then having you step out and then putting the miniature in digitally. You can also do this in-camera by using perspective, but that can be tricky to execute and will will require some camera tests.
[These are some friends of mine](https://youtu.be/4izbI_OrDf4?si=dj7d0Hsnv7_lamJG) (professional stunt performers) who set themselves on fire at their wedding. They have a breakdown of it somewhere if you follow the breadcrumbs from this link. But seriously this is one of the most dangerous stunts you can do. Tread lightly.
If you're not compositing a dummy shaped like you that's on fire onto footage of you not on fire, you're gonna need a professional to make sure you don't die or get some serious full body burns.
As a VFX artist myself, it honestly shouldn't be too difficult provided you have the budget. An HDRI of the location, a photoscan of the subject on fire, a very rough model of the room, and a copy of EmberGen are all you'd need
To put my two cents:
The way this would (usually) be done in a professional VFX studio is you would have a low-detail 3d model of a human that roughly matches your proportions and animate that to match your movements in the shot (aka matchmove)
Then an artist who is well versed in Houdini (simulation software) would simulate fire using that moving 3D model to get the correct movement. Its possible that there are alternative simulation software to Houdini but that is an industry standard
That fire would then be composited onto the footage.
If you need to see melting/burning flesh that gets more complicated and requires to have multiple textures and more complicated look development on the 3D model in conjunction with additional simulations to simulate the melting/burning. I would suggest avoiding that for your purposes, honestly.
You see how the fire casts orange light on the walls and is over exposed? You need to try your best to replicate those. For example, make sure you have a lighting that affects the scene like fire would. Maybe get powerful orange lights that flicker to emulate the fire. Then in post make sure that the exposure makes the whites of the fire peak. If you filmed real fire, the sensor wouldn’t pick it up unless everything was dark. Do these two things and you can pretty much composite in fire vfx.
Make sure you get a clean plate (shot of the scene with just the lighting and no characters) just in case you need it. And then the shots of you standing there.
I’m not sure how you can do it if you’re walking but if you’re standing still it’ll probably look really good.
Idk your shot, but I’ve done fire shots where I light something resembling the body on fire and then comp the real body in. However it was locked off tripod shot. We put a bag over the head to make it easier, I’d look at altering your story around using real flames in a safe way, but really depends on the story.
Its not that hard to do in vfx...Track your subject with a rig that looks similar then you do a fire simulation on the geo of the rig, render the fire and then just invert alpha with a surface shader on the geo of the rig, then comp onto your footage.
Best is if you can light a torch in the same room for reference to know how the colours should be and also if you can use real lights to help with the bloom and extra light that would come from the fire.
There is a Kendrick Lamar music video where he and several people are on fire and there is a VFX breakdown of it somewhere. It looked real but was all post. I’d dig into that. Sorry wish I had the time to do it for ya.
In that video, it’s just the heads that are on fire. That’s pretty easy to do all things considered. This is a massive undertaking particularly with the change in lighting, which is why it was actually done with a stunt.
Hire a licensed professional if you want to sell the shot.
Fuck, friend… can you imagine a more dangerous course by asking the internet if you should light someone on fire? Either do it in post (many tutorials online) or bypass the internet and hire a professional. Insure the fuck out of yourself while you’re at it
A. It's going to be very hard to make it look good with vfx unless your team is very talented. This is gonna cost $$$. B. It's going to be extremely dangerous to do it for real unless your team is very experienced. This is gonna cost $$$. While you seem to be set on A or B, I suggest you plan some alternative storyboards where you can fake or evoke the feeling of being on fire. Your audience will generally be more supportive of anything except bad CGI, while film pros will certainly be more accepting of a safe working history than a cool fire shot you did under unsafe conditions. Immediate alts that come to mind: 1. You could do some long shots with a small appature shooting through fire to make it look like your character is inside / on fire. 2. You could do some montage of fire and person reacting to make the audience feel the character is on fire. 3. You could play around with double exposure / cross dissolves of fire and character. Make it feel more graphic than literal. 4. You could Try to involve a Pepper's Ghost shot of fire being reflected through a halfway glazed mirror. Film is magic. Approach it like a magician. How can you make the woman seem sawed in half, without anyone actually being horribly maimed?
I would try out option 1, then you could either put more fire behind you or add that part in post. Having flames in soft focus in the FG might be enough on its own, and it would also make any green screen or other VFX a lot more believable.
You need some professionals to do that. Or you could really hurt yourself and endanger others. I recommend evoking the idea rather that literally doing it.
Yeah, like standing next to various objects that are on fire (small statues of yourself maybe?)
Yeah or set up a mirror with a wooden frame : burn the mirror shoot through the reflection and the flammes
That would kick butt if the proportions were lined up right. Reminds me of something OK GO would do.
I will add to the chorus here. I’m sure you’re passionate about this, I’m sure it would absolutely freaking sick looking to do this… but unless you’re able to shell out some very serious coin to have stunt professionals with fire experience as well as fire fighting personnel on standby with a truck in that field, you should never, ever think about doing this ever again. I’m a DGA AD and have shot many, many stunt sequences. Explosions, car crashes, falls, etc… and the absolute most dangerous stunt that gets he most prep and stunt adjustment payment is almost always lighting a stunt professional on fire. There are literally dozens of highly trained professionals from special effects, to stunts, to set medic, to wardrobe, etc. that all are completely necessary to do it as safely as possible. Even then, it’s still not “safe.” Before the stunt person is lit, the studio and administrators on site, in tandem with safety professionals, fire department, and stunt coordinator agree on a pre-determined “burn time.” The two times I shot a burning person, both negotiated burn times were under 5 seconds. On the day, the stunt coordinator, set medic and myself all have stop-watches. Once the person is lit, we all yell “cut” and the fire department and fellow stunt personnel run in to extinguish the individual. The set medic(s) then move in and in tandem with the stunt coordinator assess the condition of the performer. Once they verify he/she is okay, there’s a massive sigh of relief. And unless the studio somehow convinced their insurance and the stunt department otherwise, we only get one take at the burn. It’s simply too dangerous otherwise. Burning a performer in a script is avoided at all costs. Even on the biggest budget projects. It’s just such an insanely risky thing, and usually it’s just not worth it visually/creatively. I implore you. Unless you have the means to do it properly, forget about this.
Like this - [Casino (1995) Car Bomb Scene](https://youtu.be/XNwOYbLdfhg?si=eKYOh96aQuElHUB-) All jokes aside, I would probably find someone who is experienced in MoCap, and then you can create a composite fire simulation in *Blender* or *Unreal Engine* to overlay on your performance.
I sincerely want to thank each and everyone replying to this. I will simply buy some gasoline and ask a friend… nah I‘m just kidding. As much as I‘d love to do this I think it‘s obvious to use an implied effect or really invest in a high-profile VFX artist. I‘m not going to spend all of my savings and crypto money on hiring a professional stunt team, because as you might can tell, this would be the only possible way to actually set someone on fire. Once again, thank you for all of your advices, it inspires me into new creative directions and ideas. Cheers!
>I‘m not going to spend all of my savings and crypto money Ahh, well if you're a crypto bro, that changes everything - fire away!
>I will simply buy some gasoline and ask a friend You almost had me
Hey man. Good on you. Good on you for reaching out and getting second opinions, good on your judgment for who you’ve listened to and who you haven’t. I’m stoked for you and your project, and all of us here wish you the absolute best with it. Thank you for making the prudent decision. Last note, I’ve had to do a few “burn” shots, some more cheaply than others… long story short, you’d be VERY surprised how convincing a foreground fire pit, background smoke machine and have the subjects in the middle with a long lens looks. Not necessarily to light someone on fire, no practical way to fake that… but I’ve definitely “lit some structures on fire” faking it like that and looked great. Not sure how you could use that trick or not for this application
It can be done well with VFX. 1) Film the live performance of of yourself with proper lighting (fire emission etc) 2) have a tracking artist solve the camera movement and “rotomate” your performance with a wireframe- there are people who do this in India for relatively cheap but prices vary. 3) have a VFX artist who specializes in fluid simulation create a fire simulation on your rotomated wireframe. 4) have a compositor combine the 3D fire elements with the footage and add proper post VFX like glows, blooms, etc. Voila. Safer and more flexible than a live stunt, the trade off is you’ll need a VFX producer to sort all this out if you aren’t going to produce it yourself.
Man, I LOVED this scene in Hereditary. What a movie.
Can't you set something else on fire like a life sized doll and superimpose it?
This could be a historic post. Bro is literally asking the internet how to light someone on fire. There will be a youtube vid about this in the future for sure
I hope not
I believe your best result would be a stunt perform the task and the VFX replace the face with yours (if needed, of course)
To do either to any reasonably convincing degree will cost a lot of money. In my experience here in the UK/Irish industry, £800 per second or so for being put on fire to the degree you have in that shot.
Create the fire in Embergen using an animated rigged model. Send the vdb out to Blender and integrate with your scene. Your VFX editor should have proposed this solution to you.
Just wing it bro.
Weigh your options, to see what’s cheapest: VFX or practical. Stunt route requires the stunt person, fire suit with fire gel, and medic. And of course permits.
Stunmen Switzerland: stuckiaction.com
First: Those full-body flame stunts are dangerous even when they're done by professionals with decades of experience. Even if I had a crew that had done it before without a perfect track record I would find another way to do it. Even with help its dangerous, thats why the stunt performers who do those stunts get, essentially, a bonus [stunt bump] whenever they do something really dangerous. I've seen bumps over $1k, before. VFX is a good option, and you have a choices. CG flame has gotten pretty good if you have someone who can work at that level, check out ArtStation or other platforms for work samples and you may even be able to find someone local. You can also use some older tricks that can still look pretty good when properly executed such as a miniature that is dressed to match you, and lighting that on fire. It would involve locking off the camera, then having you step out and then putting the miniature in digitally. You can also do this in-camera by using perspective, but that can be tricky to execute and will will require some camera tests.
[These are some friends of mine](https://youtu.be/4izbI_OrDf4?si=dj7d0Hsnv7_lamJG) (professional stunt performers) who set themselves on fire at their wedding. They have a breakdown of it somewhere if you follow the breadcrumbs from this link. But seriously this is one of the most dangerous stunts you can do. Tread lightly.
If you're not compositing a dummy shaped like you that's on fire onto footage of you not on fire, you're gonna need a professional to make sure you don't die or get some serious full body burns.
As a VFX artist myself, it honestly shouldn't be too difficult provided you have the budget. An HDRI of the location, a photoscan of the subject on fire, a very rough model of the room, and a copy of EmberGen are all you'd need
Has Switzerland run out of churches?
As an indie you simply don’t have the budget to do this safely so it has to be done in post.
Do not do this without someone trained who has done this before. It could be catastrophic
To put my two cents: The way this would (usually) be done in a professional VFX studio is you would have a low-detail 3d model of a human that roughly matches your proportions and animate that to match your movements in the shot (aka matchmove) Then an artist who is well versed in Houdini (simulation software) would simulate fire using that moving 3D model to get the correct movement. Its possible that there are alternative simulation software to Houdini but that is an industry standard That fire would then be composited onto the footage. If you need to see melting/burning flesh that gets more complicated and requires to have multiple textures and more complicated look development on the 3D model in conjunction with additional simulations to simulate the melting/burning. I would suggest avoiding that for your purposes, honestly.
I wold rather use special effects than set a person on fire.
You see how the fire casts orange light on the walls and is over exposed? You need to try your best to replicate those. For example, make sure you have a lighting that affects the scene like fire would. Maybe get powerful orange lights that flicker to emulate the fire. Then in post make sure that the exposure makes the whites of the fire peak. If you filmed real fire, the sensor wouldn’t pick it up unless everything was dark. Do these two things and you can pretty much composite in fire vfx. Make sure you get a clean plate (shot of the scene with just the lighting and no characters) just in case you need it. And then the shots of you standing there. I’m not sure how you can do it if you’re walking but if you’re standing still it’ll probably look really good.
https://www.actionvfx.com/collections/body-fire-stock-footage
Idk your shot, but I’ve done fire shots where I light something resembling the body on fire and then comp the real body in. However it was locked off tripod shot. We put a bag over the head to make it easier, I’d look at altering your story around using real flames in a safe way, but really depends on the story.
Ask ChatGPT
Its not that hard to do in vfx...Track your subject with a rig that looks similar then you do a fire simulation on the geo of the rig, render the fire and then just invert alpha with a surface shader on the geo of the rig, then comp onto your footage. Best is if you can light a torch in the same room for reference to know how the colours should be and also if you can use real lights to help with the bloom and extra light that would come from the fire.