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rigging inside of a car


Michael Jasen

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We're getting ready to shoot a script that has a couple of driving shots. THey are of the actor driving only, no dialog. We do need to flip the camera around and shoot out the passenger side window and get shots of the city as he's driving.

 

How is the safest way to accomplish this? I really don't think we have it in the budget to rent a trailor car to pull the car around.

 

The initial idea was to just has the operator in the passenger seat and doing it handheld over the shoulder. The shots flipped around out the window would be mounted on top of sandbags or something as that shot is completely static.

 

I'm worried about safety and what not. Can anybody shed some light on how to accomplish this with a very very tiny budget?

 

It's a s16mm shooting on the SR2.

 

 

Thanks!

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It seems like every student film and low budget indie film has lots of action in a car. I know every time I work on a shoot there is a bunch of stuff in a car. Very difficult to do on the cheap.

 

My suggestion:

 

Get someone short to drive, pull the driver's seat up as far as it can go. Remove the headrest of the driver's side seat. Sit in the back seat and use your shoulder and the driver's seat to support the camera to get the driver's POV shots.

 

Also, drive in places with there is not a lot of people.

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  • 2 months later...

Check out your rental house for a suction-cup car mount. A 3-cup suction-cup mount shouldn't run you more than $50-100 and it will definitely make it easier. If you can, a hostess tray would be nice with sandbags if you can't afford the full mount. Just make sure you have enough safety straps on it to make it safe (kinda hard with the SR2).

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I wouldn't do a suction cup rig for an SR2, maybe an HVX, but an SR2 might be too heavy, and even if its not itll be risky. Id get an actual car rig from a rental house. It might not be the cheapest, but its the safest. I've heard stories where people tried to do handheld in a car with a Millennium XL 2. They hit a bump and snapped an 11:1 off the mount, breaking the lens. If you do decide to do handheld, be very careful!

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I wouldn't do a suction cup rig for an SR2, maybe an HVX, but an SR2 might be too heavy, and even if its not itll be risky. Id get an actual car rig from a rental house. It might not be the cheapest, but its the safest. I've heard stories where people tried to do handheld in a car with a Millennium XL 2. They hit a bump and snapped an 11:1 off the mount, breaking the lens. If you do decide to do handheld, be very careful!

 

A suction cup rig, the type that uses Glazier(s) suction cups, not the kind from Harbor Freight, is a "real rig". Individual 4-1/2" cups can hold 40lbs each. The problem is not camera weight, but moment of inertia. When the vehicle hits a bump or pothole, the weakest link will fail, despite the rigidity of the vehicle mount. This company Woods: http://www.powrgrip.com/cgi-bin/powrgrip/glass.html manufactures the suction cups that firms like Matthews, use to build their camera supports.

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