# Compositing FIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!



## e.rose (Jul 4, 2013)

Does anyone have any good resources or tips for compositing... fire? 

The other day my husband texted me...




When I got home I kept protesting the idea of setting ANYTHING in our yard on fire.

He assured me that his days as a child, apparently being a pyro and setting plenty of sh*t on fire, has proved that he can do just that without burning down........ anything.

I, quite frankly, don't believe him.

HOWEVER...

I am kind of interesting in doing a fun shoot with him.  I just... don't... want to... you know... attract cops... or burn our house down... that kind of thing.  :lmao:

So does anyone have any good resources for compositing fire and what not?  The thing that immediately comes to mind is how the light from a fire would affect the way the light played off his face and what not, but photographing him without an actual fire present, would obviously not give that result... so that's something I'd have to think about while putting this together in PS........

Seems like it might be challenging, but I'm up for playing around with it.

Any tips/links/resources appreciated :sillysmi:


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## bratkinson (Jul 5, 2013)

I know nothing about compositing photos. I'd go for 'the real thing' and take the desired pictures with a real nightime fire someplace where it's legal to have nighttime fires...perhaps a large public beach or campground near by? Perhaps you or a friend has a cabin in the wild somewhere that the authorities wouldn't see/find/care about a campfire-sized cookout.

And regarding mailboxes, even though you bought and paid for the one at the end of your driveway, it's property of the US Postal Service. Lighting it on fire is probably some kind of offense. At least that's what I was told 50+ years ago when I'd blow 'em up with a couple of M-80s tied together. But then, how is it that the snow plow guys can freely demolish them without penalty, and =I= have to buy a new one? Here in Taxachusetts, mine gets knocked off every other year or so, 3 hits and it's beyond repair. The box has to be replaced. I may resort to a 12" cement filled tube with threaded rods out the top next time.


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## Josh66 (Jul 5, 2013)

Setting mailboxes on fire is perfectly safe.  Trust me.  I know.

Worst case, you have to buy a new mailbox.  That's what, like $20?



> And regarding mailboxes, even though you bought and paid for the one at  the end of your driveway, it's property of the US Postal Service.


BULL****.

If you bought and paid for it, it is in no way the property of the USPS.  And even if it was, that's just one more reason to burn it.


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## e.rose (Jul 5, 2013)

bratkinson said:


> a real nightime fire someplace where it's legal to have nighttime fires...perhaps a large public beach or campground near by? Perhaps you or a friend has a cabin in the wild somewhere that the authorities wouldn't see/find/care about a campfire-sized cookout.



It wouldn't be a nighttime fire.  It'd be a daytime fire.  

And we don't know anyone out here with a place where it's legal to burn anything.

Not to mention, we didn't buy the mailbox at the end of our driveway.  We don't even own our driveway.  We rent our driveway.  And our house.  :lmao:

That's the MAIN reason I'm hesitant to do this for REAL... because... I like our house, and I like our Landlord, and I'm not trying to get kicked out of here any time soon.  



O|||||||O said:


> > And regarding mailboxes, even though you bought and paid for the one at  the end of your driveway, it's property of the US Postal Service.
> 
> 
> BULL****.
> ...



Actually that's true.

You buy it... they own it. 

It's bull****, I know.


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## Josh66 (Jul 5, 2013)

e.rose said:


> O|||||||O said:
> 
> 
> > > And regarding mailboxes, even though you bought and paid for the one at  the end of your driveway, it's property of the US Postal Service.
> ...



I still don't believe that.  If they owned it, they would be responsible for it's maintenance.  So, burn it.

Say it got hit by lightning if the cops come asking questions about your mailbox.


Show me the US Code relevant to privately purchased property becoming the property of the government because it was used as a mail receptacle.


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## vintagesnaps (Jul 5, 2013)

Renting?? What happens if it burns out of control? and damages the landlord's property... is it worth the risk of having to pay for damages and/or possibly being evicted? 

I don't know where you live if a burn is legal; where I live people can burn leaves out of the village limits but not in town.


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## e.rose (Jul 5, 2013)

vintagesnaps said:


> Renting?? What happens if it burns out of control? and damages the landlord's property... is it worth the risk of having to pay for damages and/or possibly being evicted?
> 
> I don't know where you live if a burn is legal; where I live people can burn leaves out of the village limits but not in town.



Hence why I'm asking about COMPOSITING. :greenpbl:


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## Josh66 (Jul 5, 2013)

vintagesnaps said:


> Renting?? What happens if it burns out of control? and damages the landlord's property... is it worth the risk of having to pay for damages and/or possibly being evicted?
> 
> I don't know where you live if a burn is legal; where I live people can burn leaves out of the village limits but not in town.



Have you ever seen a mailbox?

They are typically kinda small, and pretty far away from the house.


OK, worst case, grass fire, which could potentially spread to the house.  Water the lawn, heavily, prior to torching the mailbox.  Also, take the mail out first.


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## e.rose (Jul 5, 2013)

Hey guys... I'm not setting our mailbox on fire.

So.

IT'S OKAY.


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## Josh66 (Jul 5, 2013)

I am so disappointed in you, Emily.




...you know you want to...


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## Gavjenks (Jul 5, 2013)

> And regarding mailboxes, even though you bought and paid for the one at  the end of your driveway, it's property of the US Postal Service.


This is not true (Any such law of silent ownership transfer by default would probably be unconstitutional in fact due to the 5th amendment, since they never gave you a check for compensation).

However there are some regulations.  Like you're not supposed to have any other couriers or people make deliveries to your mailbox (I don't know if you'd get in trouble or they would, but regardless, you can't give them permission to do so and make it okay, unless you mark the entire box as not a USPS box). And also, you do have to have some sort of means available by which the USPS can deliver mail to your residence, and I think you could theoretically be fined or whatever if you destroyed your mailbox and did not have any other mail slot or whatnot to replace it with. Theoretically...

*Much more importantly,* it is almost certainly very illegal to set random objects on fire that are doused in lighter fluid with no protective pit or anything right next to a public street...

Anyway, how much do frikkin mailboxes cost?  Just buy a mailbox to burn.


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## vintagesnaps (Jul 5, 2013)

OK I read this wrong... so what are you burning to photograph?


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## e.rose (Jul 5, 2013)

vintagesnaps said:


> OK I read this wrong... so what are you burning to photograph?



Nothing.

I want to photograph my husband WITH the mailbox, and then composite fire into it.  Probably from a stock site or something.


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## unpopular (Jul 5, 2013)




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## Josh66 (Jul 5, 2013)

vintagesnaps said:


> OK I read this wrong... so what are you burning to photograph?



I think you read it right the first time.

Sorry if my reply to your post was offensive or anything (I didn't mean for it to be) - but you have to consider that a mailbox is very small, and very far away from the house (usually).  The "risks" are very minimal, IMO.

Not sure what the grass is like in Nashville, but down here in Texas, grass fires are a real concern (everything is very dry here), so I would definitely water the hell out of the lawn prior to any kind of fire.  (And of course be prepared to put out a small fire should one arise.)

But really, the worst thing I can see happening is that the mailbox would have to be replaced.  Things would have to get very bad very fast for something worse than that to happen.


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## vintagesnaps (Jul 5, 2013)

I think it depends on where you live - even controlled burns are not legal inside city limits where I live so you couldn't set your mailbox or anything else on fire in your front yard. 

But since she's just setting a virtual fire by planning to photoshop one into her picture then the question seems to be more about compositing images than whether a mailbox flambe' is a good idea.


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## SCraig (Jul 5, 2013)

I don't know about fire, but I do know from personal experience that if you pack a mailbox full of snow, let it freeze solid overnight, chip a small hole out, and put an M-80 in the hole it will, ummm, shall we say, render the mailbox unusable


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## PropilotBW (Jul 5, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> e.rose said:
> 
> 
> > O|||||||O said:
> ...




Hey, Jeep, here ya go:  https://www.uspis.gov/radDocs/tipvandl.htm.   I didn't know the fine was so high, but the pic may not be worth getting caught.


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## cgipson1 (Jul 5, 2013)

Hey Emily,

Back to your ORIGINAL topic.. Compositing fire. This is the only fire composite I have ever done.... ceramic dragon, and some fire, lol!  ( a for a little girl who loves dragons!)




Not sure exactly what you are going for... but will help if I can.


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## sm4him (Jul 5, 2013)

cgipson1 said:


> Hey Emily,
> 
> Back to your ORIGINAL topic.. Compositing fire. This is the only fire composite I have ever done.... ceramic dragon, and some fire, lol!  ( a for a little girl who loves dragons!)
> 
> ...



^THAT rocks. 

Yes...to your original question. I can understand your hesitancy to set your mailbox on fire, since you are renting. I, too, have plenty of experiences from childhood (though to be fair, they are mostly experiences of having WATCHED my brothers) find new and creative ways to cause mailboxes to explode but I could see how your landlord might just frown on that activity.

Anyway, the composite idea:

As someone mentioned, mailboxes are reasonably cheap. Why not BUY a cheap mailbox, stick it on a post and then take it somewhere and do the shoot? Make sure it's somewhere that you can have a water source nearby to put the flames out if necessary. It won't matter if you destroy the mailbox, because it's not going to need to serve AS a mailbox.  And if it's important that the background be your own home, that would be where the composite would come in--just arrange it so that later you can take a picture of the background scene then put the flaming mailbox into it.

If it were me, I'd just stick the purchased mailbox in my backyard and have the hose ready to go in case of a mishap, but I live in a place where, although it's not *technically* legal, fires and gunshots in your own yard rarely garner much attention. :lmao:


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## runnah (Jul 5, 2013)

cgipson1 said:


> for a little girl who loves dragons!



Mish?


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## cgipson1 (Jul 5, 2013)

runnah said:


> cgipson1 said:
> 
> 
> > for a little girl who loves dragons!
> ...



DUDE... MISH is a Dragon (just wearing a Hot, Sexy human form this lifetime!) Get it right!    lol!


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## D-B-J (Jul 5, 2013)

Spray it with bug spray or something like that--i've seen many a video of people lighting themselves on fire, and all that burns is the bug spray.  Now, I'm definitely not suggesting you light yourself on fire, but this may be a way to get fire that won't destroy your mailbox.


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## squirrels (Jul 5, 2013)

If I were you I might just pick up a mailbox from home dept for $18 and find a safe location to try and burn it. If it survives you can always freecycle it, and if it doesn't, you still aren't in trouble with the landlord (provided you don't burn the place down in your attempt).

I can't believe I'm advocating this. :lmao:

And then you share the results with us!


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## runnah (Jul 5, 2013)

I love living in the country. I could do nothing but burn mailboxes for days on end and not have to worry about the law.


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## tirediron (Jul 5, 2013)

PropilotBW said:


> O|||||||O said:
> 
> 
> > e.rose said:
> ...


Without meaning to derail this (Heck, it's one of Emily's threads... those are derailed as soon as she hits the "Post" button...  ), what the statute actually says is, "_Mailboxes are *considered *federal property_" it does not say they are Federal property.  This minor but important distinction means that for the purposes of protection, the US Post Office will treat them as if they were government owned (and also I assueme, enforce certain standards for size, type of mounting, etc), but in fact they are not owned by the anyone but the property owner.


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## tirediron (Jul 5, 2013)

Honestly Em, I wouldn't worry about tyring to composit this, I suspect it would be way more work than it's worth.  Buy a cheap, steel mail-box, mix up a gallon of regular unleaded and two quarts of the cheapest liquid dish soap, allow to sit 24hrs, paint the mixture on the mail box, light (using a LONG torch) and photograph.  Just spraying gasoline or lighter fluid will probably not work very well as it will evaporate quickly, and once alight, burn away VERY quickly.


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## The_Traveler (Jul 5, 2013)

Once you designate something as a mailbox, the government owns the space inside - and the right to manage it.

If you burn or destroy your own mailbox with the intent to remove it's designation as a place to put your mail - no problem, just replace it.
If someone else intentionally vandalizes or destroys your mailbox, it's a federal crime.


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## unpopular (Jul 5, 2013)

Here's what you do. In blender, you make a non-rendering mockup up the scene using the image of the mailbox as the background layer. Set the non-rendering geometry of the mailbox to interact with a smoke simulation to render the fire accurately o_o


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## unpopular (Jul 5, 2013)

The_Traveler said:


> If you burn or destroy your own mailbox with the intent to remove it's designation as a place to put your mail - no problem, just replace it.



I think local fire codes would be more problematic than federal mailbox laws. I am sure it is illegal to have an uncontrolled fire within a few feet of a public right of way. Even if you were charged with some sort of federal mailbox crime, it would be in response to your neighbors complaining about you burning stuff in the front yard.

Doing it in your backyard under controlled circumstances makes more sense, a stereotypical mailbox will cost about $10-15 at lowes, and an appropriate post another $10-20 at most. Pretty inexpensive prop, and you'll have a backup mailbox in case Josh does something crazy.


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## e.rose (Jul 5, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> vintagesnaps said:
> 
> 
> > OK I read this wrong... so what are you burning to photograph?
> ...



Except the mailbox lives DIRECTLY under a tree.  And when I say directly, I mean I can stand at the mailbox, reach up, and grab some leaves.  And I'm short.

ALSO... Keith wants to be able to put his hand IN the mailbox.  I'm not trying to give my husband third degree burns, despite his thought that it won't be that bad. :er:



vintagesnaps said:


> I think it depends on where you live - even controlled burns are not legal inside city limits where I live so you couldn't set your mailbox or anything else on fire in your front yard.



I live IN. Nashville.  Pretty sure someone, somewhere, is going to be upset by this.



vintagesnaps said:


> *But since she's just setting a virtual fire by planning to photoshop one into her picture then the question seems to be more about compositing images than whether a mailbox flambe' is a good idea.*



*YES. *



cgipson1 said:


> Hey Emily,
> 
> Back to your ORIGINAL topic.. Compositing fire. This is the only fire composite I have ever done.... ceramic dragon, and some fire, lol!  ( a for a little girl who loves dragons!)
> 
> ...



Thanks.  My concern is, since there is going to be someone (Keith) in the image next to the fire... that I know had it been a REAL fire, it would be casting light onto him, and therefore affect the overall "look" of the lighting of the photograph.  Since it would be photographed with *no* fire at first... after putting the fire IN... I want to make sure it looks realistic to the point where I'd have to "change the light" in PS after inserting the fire to make it look like it was actually there.


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## cgipson1 (Jul 5, 2013)

examples to look at for firelit faces ( best I could find)

Firelit Face | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Best of Campfire photography - The Photography Blog


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## squirrels (Jul 5, 2013)

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/332616-how-far-will-you-go.html
:lmao:

I love it when activity stream plays tricks on me:




molested_cow said:


> On the same note, if he wants that shot this bad, I can't imagine not trying to put on the fireman's heat resistant suit and boots.


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## Derrel (Jul 5, 2013)

Light hubby's face from a low position, using a flash that has orange gel taped to it. The small visual cue of orange light, seen paired with flames will convince the brain.

I think maybe you could try using a smallish f/stop and having him reach into the mailbox, and circle a sparkler around the box and create "flames". An OCF placed low, and gelled orange, might actually allow you to do an in-camera shot,at night, with second curtain flash firing right at the end of say a 10- to 15-second exposure.

If a sparkler didn't work, maybe make a torch, with a lighter fluid soaked rag segment wrapped with wire onto a stick. Burlap sack, soaked with diesel fuel is the old-time way to burn soot out of stovepipes; I saw my grandfather do it, and was amazed at how LONG and consistently diesel on burlap will burn. It's amazing! If a person has a dark sleeve and glove on the hand that holds a torch (or flashlight, or flash,or whatever), the arm and hand do not show up, due to the difference in brightness between a light source and black. This is the way light painting crew members dress--in dark colors.


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## Buckster (Jul 5, 2013)

I made a video tutorial on how to composite a mailbox on fire:






(HD at full screen looks pretty good - trying out a new screen capture video software here.)

Acknowledgements for the two photos used per the Creative Commons license granted to use them:

Fire: Christopher (Mr. Thomas) on Flickr here: Fire | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Mailbox: Lars Hammar on Flickr here: Mailbox to nowhere | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

As for the light on his face, I'd go with a full cut of CTO warming gel on a flash, possibly snooted or barn-doored or flagged to contain it appropriately, depending on positioning of his face and where the fire will "be".

Here's the result of my video tutorial:


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## Tony S (Jul 6, 2013)

There may be a difference between lighting something on fire just for the hell of it and doing so as a prop for taking photographs.  Check with the local fire department to see what rules they may have.  Things like an area of non-combustibles, hose or fire extinguisher, a competent adult (sounds like you already know your husband doesn't fit that role  lol), might actually have to have the FD stand by and maybe a permit of some kind.

  ... if you gotta burn something though, do it in early morning or late evening light or you will have a difficult time trying to get the flames to show up.  Buy a cheap $10 mailbox, paint on some rubber cement where you want it to have flames and light it while the cement is still wet.  Won't drip all over the place so you can control where it's burning and it's easy to put out, it's a common tool for creating fire on things to photograph.


  And if you do it, do it big, lots of plastic and styrofoam !!!   lol


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## manaheim (Jul 6, 2013)

I would just like to say that I highly support this relationship and give it 3 thumbs up.


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## cgipson1 (Jul 6, 2013)

Tony S said:


> There may be a difference between lighting something on fire just for the hell of it and doing so as a prop for taking photographs.  Check with the local fire department to see what rules they may have.  Things like an area of non-combustibles, hose or fire extinguisher, a competent adult (sounds like you already know your husband doesn't fit that role  lol), might actually have to have the FD stand by and maybe a permit of some kind.
> 
> ... if you gotta burn something though, do it in early morning or late evening light or you will have a difficult time trying to get the flames to show up.  Buy a cheap $10 mailbox, paint on some rubber cement where you want it to have flames and light it while the cement is still wet.  Won't drip all over the place so you can control where it's burning and it's easy to put out, it's a common tool for creating fire on things to photograph.
> 
> ...



Good idea, and not quite as dangerous as John's homemade napalm! lol!


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## e.rose (Jul 6, 2013)

Buckster said:


> I made a video tutorial on how to composite a mailbox on fire:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



thanks for taking the time to do that Buckster :sillysmi:



manaheim said:


> I would just like to say that I highly support this relationship and give it 3 thumbs up.



  :lmao:


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## Josh66 (Jul 6, 2013)

Homemade napalm is only as dangerous as you let it be.

Seeing as how a mailbox that you purchased and put on the street somehow magically becomes government property (I still don't believe that, not that it's legal anyway - but I'm not going to argue it anymore), the obvious answer is to put it in your back yard, lol.  Then you can do whatever you want to it and nobody will ever know.  You would also have to buy/make a post for it though...  The whole thing might cost you $50.  Depending on how the image will be used, a $50 expense could totally be worth it.

Anyway, you should know that I really hate the post office, and I'm quite fond of setting stuff on fire, so ... yeah.  What were we talking about?

You might be able to pull it off with composite fire, but real fire will always look better, IMO.  I think I would get along with your husband pretty good.


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## Buckster (Jul 6, 2013)

e.rose said:


> thanks for taking the time to do that Buckster :sillysmi:


You're very welcome.  It was fun to do, and I like to try to help if I can.


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## Tony S (Jul 7, 2013)

I like people who make home made napalm and other things that burn or blow up..... they have kept my job secure for over 35 years.

They only let me operate the one with six tires.


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## unpopular (Jul 7, 2013)

O|||||||O said:


> Homemade napalm is only as dangerous as you let it be.



Didn't need to read the rest. Because seriously, I'm printing this sh*t, putting it on t-shirts and selling it at metal concerts.


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