Car Scene / HandHeld camera / Need some advices

[Laurent N]

Hi,

I'm working on a short film. All the action takes place during the night. There's several car scene in this movie. The director want a "raw documentary style": natural lightning, no tripod, handheld camera etc...
In the car scene, 2 actors are sitting in the front seats, they are talking to each other. The director wants to be able to shoot handheld in front of them. For reference, he shows me a scene from Nicolas Winding Refn's film: "Pusher" (16mm)

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=hKw_KEGgano

I don't know exactly how to achieve this kind of shot. Do you have an idea?

I was thinking about "cheating" the actors position in the middle seats of bigger car (7 places) and shoot from the front place.
http://s.tf1.fr/mmdia/i/90/5/photo-7-touran-2003-2626905_1511.jpg
The actors would pretend to drive but the car would be driven by another car (camera car or something else)
What is your opinion?

Any advice is welcome

Thanks!

Laurent

 

[Revvd Media]

While I see how this will achieve your shot, and you could fool a lot of viewers, a car enthusiast such as myself may not be sold as I (or they) may recognize the interior or dimensional proportions and notice that they do not match the car you are actually portraying. If you do not use a SUV or minivan, I would think the interior looks incorrect. Basically what I am saying is if you're going to attempt this, make sure the vehicle you actually show from the exterior looks damn close to what you're showing the interior of. Might want to mock up a steering wheel or something as well to add to the effect.

I should also add, depending on the exterior scene, if you use something with 3 rows of seating, people may notice that the people are sitting in the front (from the exterior shot), but notice two rows of seating behind them, but the interior shots only show 1 row behind since they are in the middle. It's all about continuity.