Eyes in the dark

[Xerus]

In those Sesame Streets skits when Muppets are in the dark and all you see are their eyes floating around, (Like when the power went off in Ernie and Bert's apartment and all you see are their eyes in the dark.) I wonder how the Muppeteers did that. Did they stick some glowing eyes on some black cloth and stand them in front of a dark screen?

 

[Teenager's]

Brian Henson tells how they did this effect in the Muppet Treasure Island DVD Commentary. I don't remember what he said...but he says it when Kermit is on the Miss Piggy's Island

 

[TopperFraggle]

What B. Henson said was that the eyes were painted with special paint that contained thousands of little glass beads, which makes it highly reflective. There was just a tiny light on the camera- bright enough that the eyes reflected it, but not enough to illuminate anything else. What he's basically describing is the same as the reflective material you find on jogging outfits or some shoes. you know how peoples shoes seem to glow in your headlights as they run at night? Same idea.

 

[shtick]

I heard the just put a very powerful light bulb inside the eyes.

 

[Jinx]

I think Topper's right on the money. A lightbulb would have shone too bright and left a "halo" around the eyes, particularly with the pre-digital video camera technology of the early 70s.

The "reflective glass beads" is far more likely, although I have personally never seen that in a paint form. I have used a self-adhesive vinyl film commercially known as "Scotchlite" which is commonly used to make reflective signs, such as street marker signs. It is a thin sheet of vinyl impregnated with glass beads, and then laid over with another sheet of vinyl, either clear or colored. This is also how they mark school buses, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles for safety.

In the Richard Donner Superman movie the citizens of Krypton had glowing costumes that were made with a glass bead-impregnated fabric. They used directional lighting from the front of the camera which gave them the effect of glowing. If you were to see them with the light turned off they would appear as black. But with the light on they were a radiant blue-white. You can see this demonstrated on the Superman DVD.

If you were to want to experiment with Scotchlite you might ask a local sign shop for assistance, but be warned, it is not cheap! it also would not work very well for a live production, as the reflection is very directional and would not work from all angles in an audience. For camera use, however, it would work very well.

 

[TopperFraggle]

I was just paraphrasing what Brian Henson says on the Commentary of MTI.

 

[Melonpool]

I wasn't aware that there was a commentary on MTI. Is it the original release or the 50th anniversary one or both?

 

[JoeyMuppet]

It's on the original release.I'm not sure if it's on the new copy.

 

[rumtar_10165]

what I heard was that at the time of the Clip where Ernie and Bert are stumbling around in the dark they had used muppet eyes on a black muppet head so that it looked like Ernie and Bert's eyes are stumbling.