I'm always the guy who goes for the simple way to do things so I'm not going to be the right person to answer. But I do have a question:

Why don't you want to angle the mirror?

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Trying to picture the shot....

you want the back of the persons head and their reflection???

I'm sure there is some technical jiggery pokery but think about an angle. It could look more interesting. Try from above if you can get the camera steady or below if thats not so easy if you want something different than from the side.

Just did a test shot with my poor sister on the above angle and it looked pretty good.

One way to do it. Sort of. Basically create a matte painting out of one of the movie frames.

(1) Set up the shot with the actor on the left, and the mirror showing the reflection of the camera and the actress on the right. Create a fictional line between the actress reflection and make sure nothing crosses that line or it will disappear.

(2) Partially hide the camera and turn it on to get a frame or two of footage without crew so that it will be easier to hide/mask out this portion.

(3) Shoot the scene making sure the crew doesn't cross over the fictional line created above.

(4) Take that second of footage and export it into a jpg and manipulate it in Photoshop to remove the camera entirely. Either put something in front of it or carefully erase it.

(5) Reimport the jpg and matte it together with the actress footage. The jpg should replace everything to the right of the fictional line, and everything to the left is movie and moves.

It's not that difficult and depending upon how you visualize the scene it could work.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

You can probably find an angle so that the camera is just outside the visible area on the mirror, but you can still see the actor. If all else fails, you could shoot the actor from the front and then composite that in on the mirror, but that would be a fair amount of work.

Thanks guys for your input. There is something about mirrors that add tension and an 'unknown' quality to suspense/thriller/horror movies that I find quite compelling. I'm looking at turning a short story into a film where mirrors are a dominant object in the plot.

I watched Poltergeist 3 the other day and loved what they did with the mirrors and trying to replicate it for my own sake. To think that was made in 1988.

Anyway I have a few ideas from you guys to go forth. But keep them coming if you think up of a new way. Awesome site by the way, wish I found it sooner...

Wherever you go, there you are

Watch Being John Malkovich. There's a scene where we are John's POV and at one point he looks directly in a mirror at himself. No special effect. It appears Spike Jonze used an oddly shaped mirror that (I'm assuming) is tilted slightly so that we only see John, who would be standing right beside the camera, and we (the camera) are just barely out of view in the mirror. Try a small mirror if you can. I know you're not looking for a POV shot, but I thought that might help.

Use the zoom. zoom in on your actor's reflextion. that keeps your camera out of the shot. Or (depending on the type of mirror) have your actor play the reflextion into the camera.

"Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try."

Another way to do the John Malcovitch trick is to use a window instead of a mirror. Time it so the actor walks passed the window (made to look like a mirror) at the same time as the camera does. Reverse the shot in post, and it should look like a mirror reflection of the Camera's PoV.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Here is the answer for you question:

http://www.filmmaking.net/faq/answers/faq190.asp?catid=2

www.imengi.com