cinematography Tips on shooting a motorcycle film race

C

Crownom

Hello,

I'll been soon shooting a film which includes a lot of motorcycle activity (racing, driving etc.)
I wanted to ask you some tips on how to shoot these fast moving objects?
Keep in mind that I can have as many takes as I want and all I have is a tripod and probably a car to follow.
So how should I depict/shoot the race? Should I follow the motorcycles with a car or should I place a tripod on the ground let them ride and when they pass it, move forward and repeat?

I imagine it will be extremely hard and inconvenient shooting. I need ALL your help and experience here! :D Thanks in advance, fellow filmmakers! ;)
 
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1. film the group of motorcycles from behind while following in a car. Then pass the group of motorcycles while keeping them in the shot - I did this with a convertible. You can just hang out the window or whatever. A you pass zoom into the lead bike. This will give you the weird "contra zoom" effect making the background warp and swell into the lead riders visor or face or whatever.

2. Then take a couple of bikes individually. Do 3 or 4 takes of each bike: passing you, riding in the car: in front, behind, close up of the front wheel, low to the road next to the muffler. The lower you can get the camera to the road the more convincing your shots will be. The height will add speed to your shot, and perspective.


3. Also you are going to want to provide the perspective of the rider by fixing some sort of cam to his/her helmet, so you can catch the throttle movements.

4. Bike have shifters, get a super close up shot of the shifter to patch in

5. If you can get some b roll of an establishing shot of the track with any bikes on it. From a distance no one is going to be able to pick out the difference.

6. If you can get a Go cam and affix it to one of the fronts of the bikes.

The more shots you have to pick from the better the scene is going to come out. Start very early in the morning and film all day.

Watch the Bourne chases. From the beginning of the chase start counting how many shots make up those scenes. If you want to see an example of great bike shooting watch the evil character in Raising Arizona.

But keep in mind that you are not just shooting the bike. You have to frame the shots correctly. Think out the scene. Story board it with stick figures in pencil if you have to. The more you have the scenes worked out the more effective your time is going to be used.

Shooting from a moving car is dangerous. You are focused on balancing the camera and not yourself. Also, shooting from a moving car... it's extremely difficult to keep the shots steady unless you have a really amazing optical stabilizer on your camera. If you fuck up while shooting from a moving car you will probably be hospitalized. Be careful. Make sure the driver does not gun the gas too hard while you are shooting. Have a signal with the driver to let them know you are rooted in and ready to shoot. Again, don't... fall... out... of... the... car. However, if you do by chance fall out of the car sure there is someone there to film it. Forget your movie. You probably have a video that Break will buy from you which will help pay for you to relearn how to hold a ball.

Alternating between stand shots and handheld while editing seems to work well.


Also, consider that you will be filming outdoors. You will want a UV filter for sure. You'll also want to time each side of the racetrack- if you are shooting from the center - so that you have the whole shot lit up by the sun. Though you could probably get some good silhouette shots and flares shooting from the wrong direction. The bad guy racer would probably look good as an ink black figure with light radiating around him/her/it.

You'll want shots of the after effects of a motorcycle passing on the road, the dust. Also, if you can completely replace the audio. Have someone with a condenser mic record the individual sound elements you will need while you are shooting: throttles, shifting: engine sound, and mechanical shifter, wheels on the road, motorcycle passing.

Once you have all the shots editing can be a bit tricky because you are piecing together something didn't didn't all happen at the same. You're pretty much going to patch the establishing shot in at the beginning, then the contra zoom shot, wheels, guy shifts then hits the throttle, this is where you would put the close up of the whole bike, then another establishing shot of the track maybe a bit closer from another angle, repeat but be creative.

You are looking at fast shots, and fast edits. If you plan it out just a bit before you walk in you can also save on drive space because none of your shots will be longer than 10 seconds.


Those are my suggestions. Plan. Plan. Plan. Shoot.
 
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Bike choreography & communication will be extremely difficult. So plan everything out, draw story boards, or shoot a video-matic, and distribute/discuss the reference to your entire team well in advance of the shoot.

Use as many cameras as you can get your hands on, and shoot multiple angles with each take.

GoPro cameras mounted on the riders & bikes would likely provide some pretty cool shots.

In terms of how to shoot a 'race', you should have a look at the angles they use for MotoGP TV broadcasts (as a start) as well as a movie called FASTER.

For more cinematic/narrative race coverage, you should do what George Lucas did for the Pod Race in the Phantom Menace ... rip-off someone else who knows what they are doing: Study a movie called GRAND PRIX, and you'll see where to Pod Race came from (also check out a movie called LE MANS).

And if you can't get an angle you 'need', there's always green screen (Yuk) & CGI (Double-Yuk).

Without closed roads and professional stuntmen, you'd be wise to do as many stunts in clever angles & editing, as opposed to getting an amateur rider to attempt it. Remember: a lousy CGI stunt is always better than a dead friend.

Do you homework, have fun, and be safe.

ROK
 
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Thanks, man, a LOOOOT!
Honestly, I imagines it's gonna be loads of work but didn't think of that much! :(
There'll be problems with stability of the handheld camera and especially with sounds.
By the way, what do you mean by this thing?
If you can get some b roll of an establishing shot of the track with any bikes on it. From a distance no one is going to be able to pick out the difference.
Click to expand...
 
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Crownom said:
I imagine it will be extremely hard and inconvenient shooting.
Click to expand...

Uhhhh....

You forgot one thing -- INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS!

Filmmaking ain't worth somebody's life. Is your shooting location going to be completely shut down to all types of traffic? Are you going to have seasoned, professionally-trained stunt-coordinators and stuntsmen? Are you going to have a fully-equipped emergency medical team at your disposal?

Stick with bicycles. That's daring enough.
 
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Never use public roads for high speed driving.

I've always loved this SHORT, but I'd never attempt it ... way too risky and irresponsible by today's standards. HERE, the Director describes his technique. Since the sequence is completely literal, he needs to drive at illegal speeds.

But, THIS SEQUENCE uses cutting, slow-motion, and retiming to create a similar effect, but could be shot at legal driving speeds and sweetened in post. In short, abstracting the action allows you to work at safe speeds.
 
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Crownom said:
Thanks, man, a LOOOOT!
Honestly, I imagines it's gonna be loads of work but didn't think of that much! :(
There'll be problems with stability of the handheld camera and especially with sounds.
By the way, what do you mean by this thing?
Click to expand...


When you are filming any scene you need to establish where the characters are that are in the close ups. You are trying to give the viewer an understanding of the space your characters are living in. An establishing shot sets your location for the following scenes.

You can go to a racetrack and film a motorcycle race with permission from the venue. Then you can patch in your close ups with your "b roll" footage of the race.

In fast action shots the viewer is not really able to pick out details i.e. in Mission Impossible 3 the airplane fight takes place over Tokyo. Instead of doing dog fight scenes and trying to get Tokyo to allow this they shot the dogfight scenes over Las Vegas. If you look at the shots you can see The Stratosphere needle.

If you live in Cali or Nevada a good place to shoot a race is in Pahrump 50 miles outside of Vegas. There is a small racetrack that is rarely used but is kept up. It's also situated next to a mountain you can climb to get super nice mile high angles of the track.

Look for a local track that is near you an look for a place you can shoot an overhead of the whole track from essentially. Be a nice guy. Be excited about your project and they will get excited too.


And again, the driving shots are extremely dangerous. Please be careful.
 
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I've totally forgotten his IndieTalk nick, but he's @Hollandermedia on Twitter.

He spends a lot of time filming rally car races. I bet he's got a few ideas for ya'. :cool:

Edit:

If you live in Cali or Nevada a good place to shoot a race is in Pahrump 50 miles outside of Vegas. There is a small racetrack that is rarely used but is kept up.
Click to expand...

If it's where I think it is, my brother's raced there a few times. :)
 
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I am biased though. I like to climb mountains to get shots.

The coolest mountain shot I got was in Death Valley. I was filming a car racing through the desert on a Playa and a fucking Naval Jet flew into the shot. He was flying so low that I actually had a shot of the top of the plane. It was weird because the jet flew through the shot with no sound. I was like "what the fuck was that?" Then I looked up and the jet was gone but the sound was passing me.

I have noticed you seem to be concerned about the amount of work involved. I love the work. I love the work. I feed off of it. I love the adventure of almost falling off a cliff while trying to film something, or actually falling but not hurting the camera :)

I seem to be willing to risk my life to get a shot. This is great for great film but I have already come to the conclusion that i am going to die filming something. Some of the things I am suggesting are dangerous or require someone who has experience with wilderness.

You could also consider bringing on a more experienced director for that particular scene.
 
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We recently filmed a similar scene - however just with one ATV. I was the driver of the followcar.

Here's what we did with our stationwagon: we opened the trunk door and affixed it to roof-rails with a luggage strap. We affixed a GoPro with a suction-cup mount on the inside of the door (dangling down) and the camera-operator was seated in the back seat, where he simply filmed out of the open rear-end.

When we filmed forward, we simply affixed the GoPro on the windshield and the camera-operator poked his head out. Simple!

Here's a couple of pics showing it:
P1000792.jpg


P1000797.jpg


And a still from raw footage from the GoPro:
Image1.jpg
 
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I shoot Motorcycles... I have a Triumph Rocket III 2300 CC road bike. 3 cylinders - very stable and smooth... and very big.
We mount a steady cam arm on the Left or Right on the rear rack. The rider handles the bike and the passenger can sit forward or backward and since the steady cam is mounted to the frame of the bike we can shoot forward, backward, close to the road or up to about 2 feet above the motorcycle seat. We also mount various cameras facing the front, driver, side, or back if we need it.

This give us some really nice footage including "natural" lean in the shots, or we can counter the bike lean with the steady cam. I wouldn't recommend doing this with out practice and training. ( i've been riding for over 20 years ).... but you can do the same sort of thing from a 4 wheel vehicle by making a clamp that fits in various spots on your car, pickup, or van (window opening, back door, roof rack.. whatever and shooting with a glide cam arm out the window or back of the vehicle. Much safer than doing it on a bike.

cheers
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