How to make somebody anonymous? Like on the news?

Question

In the news, when they are interviewing someone that doesn't want their identity revealed to the audience, they do something to make the person and their face dark, and look like a shadow. Could anyone help me out with trying to achieve that effect myself? I was thinking it had something to do with the lighting, but I couldn't figure out how to achieve that same effect.

Answer 1

One way to do this is when you are capturing the video... In a dark room, have the light shining towards the wall, have the person sitting away from the wall and facing the camera and using the camera's manual exposure setting, make everything darker... or speed up the shutter on the camcorder manually.

This way, the background is bright and there is no light on the person's face. Some video editors can use plug-ins that let you add effects... you can use an "anonymous" effect that lets you blur or darken a specific part of the video window like they do to license plates on some shows...

Answer 2

The easiest way to do this is to use the 'bright window' error that all camcorders have.

Sit the person in a dark room with their back to a window or an open door with their face towards the camera.  The camera does not need to be pointing directly at the window or door, but it should be visible in the frame.  You want the back of the person to be approximately 5-15 feet from the window.  The room does need to be pitch black.

The light coming in through the door or window is the key.  It should be the most dominant light in the frame, but do not use bright direct sunlight.  It should be diffused.  A north facing window is usually the easiest in most cases.  The perfect setting would be a room that is dark enough that no shadows are cast but light enough that everyone can still see what they are doing.

Most cameras in automatic mode will adjust its exposure so the person looks like a black silhouette.  You may need to manually adjust the focus to a point in mid air between the person and the window.  You don't want the viewers ignoring the interview to watch the action outside.  Covering the window with sheer white curtains will help.  Most hotel rooms and private homes have these on large windows.

You may also want to distort the audio.  The easiest way to do this is to raise or lower the relative frequency and attenuation.  This allows the words to be clearly heard, but the person sounds like a much older or much younger individual.  You will probably need an advanced audio editing program for this.  If you have a good video editing suite, it probably came with and audio editing program capable of making these adjustments.