Shooting POV of hands

[harvey Glen]

Hello I'm doing a 35mm shoot that involves a locked off shot of a child's hands holding a jam jar in each.

The shot is drawn as a POV, directly seeing both hands/ arms from where the head would be.

The child presents each jam jar to the camera as if to spot differences on each.

My problem lies with how to practically achieve this POV angle.

So far I thinking about shooting this shot from a static dolly using the jib arm, possibly with a riser, offset head and wedge plate..?

Using a longer lens to slightly compress the image, avoiding the child head. I would hope the compression would lead to no camera shadow and also less focus racking.

Does anyone have any better suggestions how to achieve this angle, also bearing in mind the talent is a child and needs to work comfortably.

All suggestions welcome

Thanks

Harvey

Edited March 1, 2009 by harvey Glen

[Jim Hyslop]

What about placing a mirror in front of the child's face, and shooting into that? You can flip the image to its correct orientation in post.

[Hunter Hampton]

Your idea with the jib looking down is probably the best but just to humor you;

 

1. Rig something up from one of those hiking backpacks with the external frames, point the camera down and use a lighter weight 35mm camera. (eyemo? 235 with 200' mag?)

 

2. Get a steadicam operator to follow close behind the child (have the kid move his head to the side) and boom the camera down over their shoulder or from in front.

[Hunter Hampton]

Sounds interesting anyways! Please share what you guys end up doing.

[Sanjay Sami]

If you do not want the childs head in shot, this is not going to be easy to achieve with a film camera. because of the length from the front element of the lens to the back of the camera, you would struggle to get the childs hands in frame.

I would suggest you think about using a camera like the SI2K mini. It will make it much easier to get the camera where you need it to be.

 

http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/products.html

 

Hope that helps

 

Sanjay Sami

Key Grip

www.thegripworks.com

[Michael Collier]

If your lucky enough to have casted twins for the child actors, you could have one act as left hand one as right with camera in the middle. It might take careful placing to ensure it looks proper, but it would work. You can do the same by casting a hand double for the actor.

 

Another thing I have done in the past, not with a film cam, but it should work the same; have the actor tilt their head to the side, rest the lens on their shoulder and have them cheat their hands to look natural and centered. That one is much harder to get to look right though since the actor has to point more to the side than feels normal. It might be further complicated by the shorter reach of a childs arms.

[DS Williams]

I would hope the compression would lead to no camera shadow and also less focus racking.

 

I believe a longer lens with more image compression would lead to a greater need to rack focus

[harvey Glen]

I believe a longer lens with more image compression would lead to a greater need to rack focus

 

Thanks for all your help guys.

I ended up using a Skater Scope http://www.pstechnik.de/en/skater-scope.php and asked the talent to learn her head slightly to the right. The use of a inflatable pillow (like people use on an aeroplane only blown up the right side, thanks to some gaffer tape) ensured the talent (7 year old child) was as comfortable as possible during takes.

It was a little tricky as expected, but generally worked well. We got the angle. It was only the reflections in the jam jars full of white cheese that was the fun to overcome. Thank goodness 35mm doesn't look like video assist and is so beautiful!

Look forward to more posts and help...

Thanks

Harvey