How would you get these shots, frugally?

PaulW

PaulW

So we're filming something where we want to get some shots but every time we ask for quotes for this, we're looking at £3,000 or more which is a serious chunk of change. So I thought I'd put this to the collective mind of the IndieTalkers and see what they come up with.

The first shot is to go alongside a bicycle. We're filming closeups of the spokes, the feet pumping the pedals, the rider's face etc...

The second shot is filming a car from in front (i.e. we're filming the front of a moving car).

Third shot is a side shot of the car.

Anyone have ideas how to do this safely with a lot of stability that doesn't involve gaffer taping a DoP to a windscreen or similar? Which, incidentally, I think would be a great idea...
 
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I will answer #1. On my street there is a bicycle lane on a one way street and the bike lane is on the left. This would allow for a driver (to only concentrate on driving), a cameraman, and a bicyclist without any oncoming traffic to get in the way of the shots. I would suggest you look for the same situation. One way street, bike lane on left. The other solution is a one way street with no bike lane, but it should be a country road with no traffic. In a city, bike lane for safety.
 
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PaulW said:
The first shot is to go alongside a bicycle. We're filming closeups of the spokes, the feet pumping the pedals, the rider's face etc...
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Sounds like a shot for a classic gimbal-on-a-pole arrangement. The shots of the spokes and feet should be easy and safe enough, as the gimbal and camera will give the bike a lower-than-usual centre of gravity. Might be handy to have a counterweight on the other side, all the same. I have an old-school gimbal and "Magic Arm" (?Manfrotto brand, I think) that I bought ages ago for this kind of shot, but never got around to using it.

PaulW said:
The second shot is filming a car from in front
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I recently saw a suction-cup tripod promoted for this exact situation. Was it following a link or discussion on this site? :hmm: Not sure ... Alternatively, use a drone with active tracking? I know my Mavic Pro is capable of keeping itself just out of reach of an oncoming vehicle, but may not have the optical competence that you need.

PaulW said:
Third shot is a side shot of the car.
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Either of the solutions above - gimbal on a pole for a relatively restricted view of the side, or drone flying a couple of metres off to the side for a more complete view.

The drone solution is obviously subject to (a) having access to a drone! and (b) having the necessary permissions/physical space to fly it in the area concerned.
 
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indietalk said:
I will answer #1. On my street there is a bicycle lane on a one way street and the bike lane is on the left. This would allow for a driver (to only concentrate on driving), a cameraman, and a bicyclist without any oncoming traffic to get in the way of the shots. I would suggest you look for the same situation. One way street, bike lane on left. The other solution is a one way street with no bike lane, but it should be a country road with no traffic. In a city, bike lane for safety.
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We have a 2-mile long, closed public road in a loop, a couple of professional drivers etc.... So what we're looking for is how to get the shots. So all ideas more than welcome!

We're thinking frugal because we either hire the road or hire the tracking car. Don't have budget for both. It has to be the road because safety and all that...
 
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I filmed a scene where a runner gets hit by a car, and then there is a huge commotion, dialogue and 2nd murder right there in the street.
Two bodies and cars blocking the road. I didn't pay for any of it lol.

How?? I studied google maps for hours until I found a road to nowhere :)
At one point the police did show up bc apparently ppl go back on that road to do drugs or something.

The cops did not care that I was filming.
 
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mlesemann said:
Can you use the parking lot of a shopping center at a time when it's closed in lieu of a road?
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Unfortunately not. For safety, we have a whole heap of stuff going on. There are animals, a paying customer so it's a full-on, professional shoot. We need a couple of miles of road etc... Hell, just the catering truck will take up a ton of space.
 
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sfoster said:
I filmed a scene where a runner gets hit by a car, and then there is a huge commotion, dialogue and 2nd murder right there in the street.
Two bodies and cars blocking the road. I didn't pay for any of it lol.

How?? I studied google maps for hours until I found a road to nowhere :)
At one point the police did show up bc apparently ppl go back on that road to do drugs or something.

The cops did not care that I was filming.
Click to expand...

We're transporting animals, actor, people, equipment. All kinds of stuff including a catering truck plus we have a paying customer. There is no way we can get a 2-mile stretch of road in the UK for this type of shoot for 12 hours and just hope for the best.

This is not a 'let's have a bit of a shoot and hope for the best,' situation.

When you have actual paying customers, then you have to do s*&t like that. However, the techniques of shooting are identical. So I employ all the amateur tricks I learned which worked really well and then take them to the next level. E.g. I once strapped a DoP to the back of a bike and filmed action sequences like that. We used a convertible in the place of camera cars. One guy I know hired a panel van, bungied the DoP to bits of it and now we're thinking a 6k camera, draw it down to 4k.
 
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CelticRambler said:
Sounds like a shot for a classic gimbal-on-a-pole arrangement. The shots of the spokes and feet should be easy and safe enough, as the gimbal and camera will give the bike a lower-than-usual centre of gravity. Might be handy to have a counterweight on the other side, all the same. I have an old-school gimbal and "Magic Arm" (?Manfrotto brand, I think) that I bought ages ago for this kind of shot, but never got around to using it.


I recently saw a suction-cup tripod promoted for this exact situation. Was it following a link or discussion on this site? :hmm: Not sure ... Alternatively, use a drone with active tracking? I know my Mavic Pro is capable of keeping itself just out of reach of an oncoming vehicle, but may not have the optical competence that you need.


Either of the solutions above - gimbal on a pole for a relatively restricted view of the side, or drone flying a couple of metres off to the side for a more complete view.

The drone solution is obviously subject to (a) having access to a drone! and (b) having the necessary permissions/physical space to fly it in the area concerned.
Click to expand...

This is interesting. Active tracking drones are really interesting. Because we can get those shots.

Also, like the ides around gimbal-on-a-pole, camera and height. Really clever. I saw something just like that where even without the gimbal, it gave the shot a really 'floaty' feel. Apparently, the longer the pole, the 'floatier' the shot if it can be controlled. We could maybe even do this kind of thing from a quad bike.

So hire a quad bike for the day with a rider and DoP passenger.

You're giving me some strong ideas.

Incidentally, we have complete control of the road.
 
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PaulW said:
We're transporting animals, actor, people, equipment. All kinds of stuff including a catering truck plus we have a paying customer. There is no way we can get a 2-mile stretch of road in the UK for this type of shoot for 12 hours and just hope for the best.

This is not a 'let's have a bit of a shoot and hope for the best,' situation.

When you have actual paying customers, then you have to do s*&t like that. However, the techniques of shooting are identical. So I employ all the amateur tricks I learned which worked really well and then take them to the next level. E.g. I once strapped a DoP to the back of a bike and filmed action sequences like that. We used a convertible in the place of camera cars. One guy I know hired a panel van, bungied the DoP to bits of it and now we're thinking a 6k camera, draw it down to 4k.
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Well it helps when i have more of this information.

I had no idea you need TWO MILES of road.
 
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indietalk said:
Sounds like a producer messed up the budget then. Why are YOU scrambling to figure this out when it was said you could do it to the client?
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Producer's pretty good. We have a couple of months to figure this stuff out so we have time and there are some elements where our DIY backgrounds mean we think we can do stuff that is incredibly good for next-to-nothing.

We think to ourselves 'how could we do this for zero?' How would we have done it when there was no money and all we had was our wits and a broom handle? Then we take the thing that would cost nothing, add a bit of budget to elevate the idea and we end up saving thousands. In this case, the DIY stuff we're doing will save tens of thousands.
 
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It sounds like an awesome project my friend. In concurrence to what was said earlier I definitely think using a drone or drone(s) would be the easiest way to film those side tracking shots and frontal shots. Would save lot of time in prep and on the day. As for the close up shots of the pedals, the spokes and the rider, there are some AMAZING tricks to get around the issues that can come with filming those shots. The bike doesn’t actually have to be travelling on the road for these kind of shots to be filmed. Basically (idea) for the close up of the wheel you could have your camera in a lower position, looking upwards so that only the sky can be seen behind It. So your leaving out the road. Then basically lift the bike up a bit and spin the front wheel lol. There you go you have your cinematic close up of the wheel “in action” complete. You won’t see the contact between the bottom of the wheel and the ground, but that doesn’t matter because the contact will be seen in the wide tracking shot. I would recommend having the sky be plain and blue so that the audience can’t tell it’s a static shot. But even if there are clouds they won’t notice it’s a static shot because realistically the background clouds wouldn't move hardly at all even when traveling. If your really picky about it though and you want the easiest Way just film the wheel turning in a green screen and edit in a blue sky or slightly moving clouds behind it depending.
Thats the easiest and fastest possible way to do that shot lol.

Then with the pedals shot, it’s roughly the same thing, lift the front of the bike up off the ground. (Make sure the bike is stable) with the back wheel on the ground still and and then get the person to get on and pedal. The bike will be on a slightly upwards angle but no problem, just put the camera on an angle as well, still in a kind of low shot position so the ground cannot be seen only the sky. No need for the bike to actually be travelling for the shot. And again if the sky on site is an issue you can just green screen it in later to be in motion behind the pedals.

And with the close up of the subjects face, you would want the actors hair to be moving in the wind, so if you really wanna do this the easiest way just green screen the subjects head and have a fan blow hair. You get the idea. Thats the easiest way XD.

So yeah I’m not sure if that will help or not, whatever you do I wish you luck. Excited to see the end result eventually.
 
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