How to control Chaotic Shots

[Guest FilmmakerJack]

Hey, I was wondering, how does one go about controling chaotic shots in a sense of lighting, or making sure the boom pole or something like that get into the shot for scenes where either a camera or the subject isn't stationary and is moving a lot, something like 24.

[Alex Borowicz]

Chaos is the lack of control. When you decide to do a "chaotic" shot, you need to reduce the chaos as much as possible. This doesn't mean make what your audience will see any less realistic, but instead, plan out exactly what your cameras and subjects will be doing. How do you keep the boom pole out of your shot? Make sure you plan your shot so that, when your camera begins its "chaotic" movement, it is following a path that will not let the boom into the frame. If the boom needs to move (as it probably will) factor that in as well.

 

It's rather ironic that, the more chaos is in your shot, the more orderly and planned out everything needs to be. It all must work like clockwork.

[oscar jimenez]

[Mr Alex is certainly right. what I do is that no matter if it is hand held work, dolly, jib etc. You should always have to study how your cam movement is gonna be, thats for tech purposes and issues like props, electrical wire for lamp feeding lying on the floor, a sharpie pen o a table left!!! or flares getting into camera lens. I do always rehearse a lot, actors to develop their plan, and for me to mark actors actions and camera movement. for audio issues, pole operator must have a brieff on whats going to happen, same happens with your gaffer and key grip, so they should know that you are working lets say with a 14mm and they should know that you may be seing a lot of things on the set, floor and maybe some ceiling. That goes for you too as a DP where are you going to place your lamps as well.

Good luck, hope this is helpful.

Oscar

[DavidSloan]

There is no such thing as a chaotic shot if you rehearse and block, thoroughly. You just have to make sure that all those involved with the shot have marks and know what they're doing.

 

I recently shot a short that was extremely demanding. The director wanted to shoot many long takes involving lots of moving camera. We were getting about 3 shots daily because of how demanding these shots were in terms of lighting, blocking and execution. We also did many takes because the actors would flub a line 3 minutes into the take, so we'd have to start over. Certain shots were extremely frustrating, because I had no where to hide lights. A very rewarding experience, if I might say so.