Hitting someone with a car

O

OlSpazzy

I'm working on a very short film that involves a car hitting a person for the final shot. We filmed the car going at about 5mph with the person standing in front of it and then rolling up onto the hood and the car drives out of the shot with the person still on the hood (it's a comedy). To make the car look "fast" we used 600% speed in editing. BUT, it looks like crap because the person's movements shouldnt be 600% like the car and you can't really tell the car hit anything.

So, I need advice on how we can realistically make someone look like they're getting hit head on by a car without potentially killing our actor. Any ideas? We're shooting on Hi8 and don't have a bluescreen to work with.
 
You need a stunt coordinator, and a stunt man. :idea:

Welcome to the forum!
 
its a no-budget production though :\

we dont have any way to do real stunts.

I still suggest a stint man, and coordiantor. This is possible with low budget.
 
You could try the reverse trick. Have the actor roll off the car and have the car back away. It works sometimes, but the tough part is getting the actor to land in a standing position. You could combine this method with other editing/coverage techniques.

Scott
 
suggest..........

Suggest you ditch this idea, as you will be unlikely to get it to look good even if you can get someone to roll up the bonnet in a nice way.

---------------------------

I have a stunts production company, here in UK, and normally advise that there are so many other ways to direct this shot.

Not givin any of my secrets away, but I wish you luck.


Just: Be realistic, and come up with a plan that works within what you are capable of doing.


Best Wishes
 
he doesnt have to roll up onto the hood of the car. im open to any number of suggestions that involve the car hitting him in some way.
 
You don't need to hit him with the car. You need to suggest that he was hit with the car. With the right camera angles, cuttaways & sound effects, the audience will see it happen, even it it's not seen on screen.
 
using cutaways and SFX was my assistant director's suggestion as well. we're going to play around with that idea and see which looks best. thanks for the advice.
 
1st Unit

If I were doing this, I would shoot as a strict first unit.

-------

Add narrative, master shots.


Then you can 'walk away' fromt the thing, knowing you didn't bread the rules.

Good luck.


Case Ash
 
Some ideas for you

First, i thought why not try this in slow motion? maybe at least the hit part and as the car goes off-screen its normal speed.
Since you already shot it you can try this first.

If you want to do it in fast speed you should re-shoot it and cheat-
the guy who gets hit has to walk super slow towards the car and the car should go at about 5-10mph.
then when you speed it up the speed of the person isnt not as fast as the car and it looks better.
you just need to know how to time it and shoot it maybe from the drivers POV so then you cant see that the actor is walking towards the car.

write back and let us know how it turned out and how you solved this.
 
The problem there would be the same as shooting it without slow motion, the speed would look wrong as the car wouldn't be going to fast enough to give the impact look.

I'd go with the other suggestion of suggesting to the viewer that the person was hit, where you would shoot the car coming at the camera, and the switching between the car to the character who is in shock, the sliding the camera away towards the car and adding a thump effect on edit-time time. This would allow the audience to believe the character was hit.

You could either do this, or actually hit somebody -- pretend it was an accident and shoot it. (This could cost you 10 years in prison ;)) I'd go with option (a).
 
i suggest that you just find a blind and deaf person, lead them out into the middle of the road, and hit him going as fast as you want, then...later just stash the body somewhere, trust me....it will work :twisted:
 
post an ad on some of the other sites for a stunt coordinator. Ask about their experience and mention it is low budget. See what kind of hits you get. I would not risk shooting this kind of stunt without a stunt coordinator. If you do not receive any quality responses, then go for the different camera angles.
 
OK, here's how we did one back in our early days that turned out pretty well. Shoot a few shots of the car approaching from over the actors shoulder from far enough away that you can safely stop, but for the payoff shoot a wide profile of the actor and thwe car long lense, so you compress the distance between them, have the car speed (not too fast, but fast enough to look dangerous) speed by the actor, missing him by a safe distance, and right before the car goes past him, cut to a shot inside the car looking out of the windshield with the car sitting still, and have the actor (ok, he's now a stunt guy) get a running start and roll up onto the hood. If the cut is quick, and there are no trees or buildings out the window to give it away, you'll never know the car isn't moving. Have the actor wear some pads so he doesn't get banged up to bad, and you can pretty much count on some dents in your car hood, and maybe a cracked windshield depending on the atheletic ability of your actor. (you don't have to use the same car. We used an old junker for the interior.) If you make the cut right before the impact on both shots, it works pretty well. We then cut to a shot low on the ground and as the car went by, the actor falls into the foreground as if he was just hit by the car. Good luck, and don't kill anybody.
 
comedy right?

Well, you said it was a comedy... how realistic do you want it to look? Maybe this would be a great place for a crash test dummy! In fact, making it look as fake as possible could have some very amusing results.
 
I Have The Answer You Have Been Looking For

Ive made an infomercial about crossing the road and have done this. It looks so real that when people have seen it they have gasped becuase of it's realism. What to do.........................................................

Shoot your man walking into the road on a tripod and keep the shot EXACTLY in the same place - do not move the tripod in ANY way. Then, shoot the car going past with this same angle. So you should have 2 shots, one of the person walking across the road, and another of the car going past. Do this for how ever many different angles you want. Then capture onto your computer.

Now, what you need is, Adobe After effects, and you need to be fairly experienced with it. :



1.
Create a new composition in After Effects and pull in both clips of man crossing the street, and the other of the car going past.

2.
Put the man crossing the street file above the car going past file in the composition.

3.
Now, get to the point of the clip where you want the man to get struck by the car, and crate a detailed mask around his body. Also, make this the out point.

4.
Now, click on the "eye" symbol so that the video of the car going past is made -invisible.

5.
You should see just the man of which you made the mask around, and the rest of the shot should be black. Now render this out as a .tga file and import it into your composition.

6.
Now, place this image where you made the out point and click on the "eye" image in the video of the car driving past.

7.
You should now be able to see the footage of the car going past with the image of the man on top, asthough it is in the same shot.

8.
Now line up the shot of the car going past with the man walking so that the car makes first contact with where you placed the image (.tga file)

9.
Now, key frame the image file and make it rotate as the car goes of screen. I tend to make bodies go up the bonet and rotate into the windscreen.

10.
It will look really bad at the moment, because it is obvious it is just a still image which is moving off screen with the car.

11.
But now, Add motion blur and voila! It blurs the image and so it does not look like a still anymore, but a body realistically being smacked by a car at full speed. Now render it out and edit it in with your masterpiece. It will look so real youll hate watching it.

12.
BUT REMEMBER - sound effects make up 80% of the atomoshpere, so make it sound good.

Any problems, contact me or add me to msn msnger - little_fil@hotmail.com Hope This Helps
 
work

If you're doing a side shot... shoot the actor on greenscreen. Then shoot the car. Then composit them together. If you need to show the character on the car while it's being driven just cut to that footage. It could work but it will be work to make it work. :weird:
 
I did an accident like this in my first film... it involved a van hitting a guy, and (imo) it turned out pretty well. Though it will always look a ltittle forced without a stunt cooridinator, and all that. However, what we did was something like this (trying to remember properly):

1) Shot from roadway, vehicle approaching fairily slowly (speed this up in post).
2) Cut to inside of vehicle, the actor has to throw themselves onto the car, more than anything.
3) Cut to outside, actor falls back from hood onto pavement.

With a scene like this, it's all in the cuts. If it's fast enough, you can have it look as if the actor gets hit at speed. It's a tad dangerous, since to work the vehicle actually has to move (for steps 2 & 3), and brake... if at all possible, I would suggest doing it with two cameras and shooting 2&3 at the same time. We did it with one camera, but thinking back two would have been nice.

Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top