Not knowing exactly if the miniatures are to be individually displayed or if
this is a model of a city I can only give general info.

An "O" shaped ring light can help light as you will get shadows where you don't
want them.

A small jib is handy for simply moving the camera.

A snorkel lens or if you are handy, make a mirror holder.
The mirror allows you to travel down a "city" street.

Try lighting with small, up-close light sources -- e.g., LED flashlights, small desk lights, Tensor lights, etc. This provides optimum lighting control on small objects. Use "soft" backgrounds; that is, background materials and light patterns that don't have distinctive patterning. Shadows are as important as highlights in this kind of lighting.

I saw a very effective demonstration of this kind of lighting a couple of years ago with flashlights and other light sources, none much bigger than a Mag light. A great deal of attention was paid to reflective surfaces, color and shadow.

Jack

Thanks for the excellent suggestions guys.
I spoke to the student last night and got more details.
He's using a model car (1/18 scale) and is trying to shoot the car as it crashes and flips over.
He plans to build a small roadway and then greenscreen the rest of the background.
Preliminary tests have not been good so far so he's going to do a lot more experimenting to get it right..
I've offered to do the greenscreen in DIgital Fusion as it offers a LOT more options than Vegas does.

Mike

Make sure you are using a wide-angle lens (or zoom setting). Use lots of light to get a small aperture which will give you lots of depth of field. Also shoot close to the "ground" rather than from above.

The real problem is going to be related to scale: making motion appear realistic. When the effects of gravity are involved (car crashes, smoke, water, falling objects) the model has to be shot so that motion under gravity is scaled appropriately. Framing rate is increased as the inverse square root of the model scale. For example, a 1/18 scale model needs to be shot at 4.24x normal speed if motion influenced by gravity is to look real (127p for normal 30p). At the same time the model car must have a velocity computed from scale and camera frame rate. As an example if the 1/18 model car is to look like it's travelling at 60 mph, then the model speed must be 14mph (scale x apparent car speed x frame rate/normal frame rate). I presumed this would be in Wikipedia, but can't turn up a useful reference.

EDIT: it might be possible to do this by stop motion if you can apply an artificial motion blur. Have to compute each motion increment carefully to scale both car speed and gravity effects. Computing the crash dynamics will be tricky since real cars in crashes do not behave as rigid bodies. Don't know how you would then model dust, smoke and flame.

EDIT2: American Cinematographer Manual advises:
a) difficulties increase with higher resolution;
b) perspective must match that of shots the effect is cut with;
c) DoF must match the real scene;
d) use of a D-1 filter (diffusing) on the camera can give artificial atmosphere which enhances the sense of reality;
e) lighting must match that of preceding and following shots.

That you don't have to include other aspects of the scene (buildings etc) reduces the problems associated with making miniature streetscapes look real.

Serena, I think I'll go back to woodworking.
Mortise & tenon joints are MUCH easier to understand :-)

Seriously, thanks a lot for the information.
I'll pass it along to the student.
I know he's been checking out various sites about how to shoot miniatures and has mentioned coming across info similar to this so hopefully your explanation will make sense to him.

Mike

isn't there information somewhere how starwars was shot? I seem to remember it was all miniature work. :) But a black background makes things a lot easier.

The techniques for shooting miniatures is well established and until recently that was how all such effects were done. 2001, Star Wars, westerns, war films, etc. Remembering our school science physics. s=0.5 x g x t x t (s = distance fallen, g = 32.2 ft/sec/sec or 9.8m/s/s, t = time from release); s=v x t (for dist travelled at constant velocity); independence of motions (projected objects fall h=0.5gt2 while travelling s=vt). Some things cause many problems because their behaviour cannot be scaled, such as the surface tension of water (as we've all noticed in the use of model ships).

It might be worth having a look at http://exposureroom.com/contests/assetdisplay.aspx?contestId=1&id=38bfefa25bcd48d28d45bfb638fdcc7a&mode=vnimodel insertion[/link]
Much easier scenario, but worked well.

My physics teacher would be proud of me if I remembered half of that. : ))

Lynn