17th Century Painting Brought to Life for Museum Video

Last weekend we had a very interesting shooting day.  Based on a 17th Century Dutch genre painting by Jan Steen that depicts a fight, we shot actors in costume re-enacting the scene according to a transcript of a court proceeding.  The actors were shot against a green screen, so that we can use an effect to move them in and out of the painting.  

 It was a challenge to find a local actor with a Dutch accent, who also looked like one of the characters in the painting!  Some of the props had to be constructed, including a table with rough-hewn legs, on which they played.  I also built a backgammon set to match the one in the painting--it had to be much larger than usual.  

It's very difficult when doing something like this to get the proportions and perspective right.  We had it set up so that we could match the position of the characters on a monitor.  For one scene, the actors started in their pose, then moved in reverse.  In the final video, they will appear to move into the exact position.

The video will start as a frozen picture in a picture frame for the newly renovated Crailo State Historic Site, a museum of Colonial New Netherland history in the Upper Hudson Valley.   http://nysparks.state.ny.us/info.asp?siteID=7