Forced Perspective

Forced perspective, is using camera angles, different lenses, and distance between objects, to make objects appear larger or smaller than each other. The best thing about forced perspective, is that it is a very cheap and inexpensive form of CGI. In this instructable, I am going to show you a few different techniques for forced perspective.

• Good Camera
• Subjects or Objects

The tilt shift technique, uses low camera angles to make a small object appear larger. Place your camera low to the ground and angle it upward, toward your subject. Make sure to have good lighting, or your miniatures will cast undesirable shadows, making them appear much smaller. If you are using plastic miniatures on bases, remove the bases, to make the actual figure fill up the screen better.

The size difference technique, uses the difference and height between objects to make it look like a subject is doing a variety of different things, that would be impossible to do in the real world.

One of the most well known uses of Character Size Changing, is in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Peter Jackson used differences between human beings, to create characters of different sizes, including Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs. He also used forced perspective, by placing Gandalf on a small sized Bag End set (to make him appear gigantic), and he placed the Hobbits and Dwarves on a large Bag End set, (to make them appear smaller than Gandalf). Have fun with forced perspective, experimenting with different things to change the size and shape of varying objects.