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Making a stationary vehicle 'move'


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Hello

 

My grad film, to be shot later this year, takes place entirely on a moving bus, at night. for budgetary reasons, as well as issues with sound, and operating hand-held, i think we're likely to shoot on a stationary bus.

 

Can anyone give me some advice, or links to articles, about how to use moving lights outside the vehicle to give the effect that it is moving? please?

 

Again, because of those same budget restrictions, i expect the bus will be located outside, and i really need ideas to keep cost to a bare minimum.

 

at the moment, i'm thinking to use the upstairs of a double decker, where less would be seen through the windows, as well as dirtying the windows from outside, or steaming them up inside, so that any details seen through them are little more than abstract shapes.

 

and while i'm here, i'm planning to rig lighting on the bus so that we can shoot 360 degrees. how easy is it to build my own fluorescent fixtures to fit along the ceiling of the bus? i'm aware of the colour issue with standard fluorescents, but if they are the only source, then timing out the green shouldn't be a problem, right? or i even think that a slightly sickly green tint would work well with the story we're telling.

 

i will be shooting tests before the shoot, but want to have as many ideas to play with as possible before i do.

 

that's all for now, i look forward to your helpful replies.

 

Mark

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I can't say I was on the camera team for the film, but I recently worked on a graduation film where they tried to replicate a car chase from stationary using green screen, a dolly, lights and fans.

 

You won't have to simulate the movement or wind so much but the lighting is important to get right. From what I can remember we did a standard lighting setup on the car for an exterior night scene and had the gaffer swinging a 1K Fresnel in circular motions, so the light moved from the front of the car across the length of the car, and over the car, out of shot, and round the front again. We then repeated the motion timed to simulate passing street lights, variable of the speed the vehicle was travelling at, we were filming a car chase on an open road at night, so it was fairly frequent, but if you're filming a bus traveling through an urban enviroment, you probably won't need to make the swinging as frequent, though you may want more than one light on the go at once.

 

Hope that helps

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Interesting. I know there are motorized spinning light type rigs, but can't remember what they're called.

 

I've seen some impressive faked shots with green screens outside the windows of vehicles at night.

 

As for "sickly green," that doesn't appeal to me. Some green I can handle, but not "sickly."

 

Good luck.

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