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DIY 360 dolly shot - geurilla style


Matthew B Clark

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Ok...really need to pick a brain on this one.

 

-No permit

-360 shot (4 full rotations in a continuous take)

-At a graveyard (shot circles a headstone, so rough terrain, grass, mud etc. Not level.)

 

What the heck can I get to quickly accomplish this without getting thrown out?

 

 

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Steadicam, though a sufficiently skilled operator with sufficiently good equipment may balk at the no-permit situation.

 

Suspend the camera from a rope from an overhead point, and let it swing (yes, winceworthy, but it's been done)

 

P

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I may try the rope. I actually had thought of taking some kind of bungee cord and making it tense against a fixed point, then keeping the camera in a certain feel...tense...just hold onto it! I feel like that elastic tension against it would eliminate a ton of little wiggling.

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Yes, that's why I threw out the idea almost as soon as I had it. Although....there are alme graves there that have huge statues on top of them, and I don't need the top of the grave shown. So I could just get Mary or Jesus to help me out by holding the rope. Where I'm at now is:

 

A) grab a ton of bean bag chairs, old couch cushions, stuff that's easy to move with some "give" to it, and lay wood planks over it...then....push a wheelchair over it.

 

B) make a little race track looking mini track with adjustable legs and just hold the camera against the back wall of this track while sliding it mounted to a little baby tripod rig.

 

All of these sound like much more effort than renting a circular track and just shimming it up and being quick. Probably where I'm headed.

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Hey Matthew, do the film makers, artists, designers, engineers, not talk together much in Chicago? The creativity you need to solve such problems in a rootsey kind of way is probably dispersed, separated by short distances, walls, bricks and motar.

 

Is the camera pointed toward the center?

 

You could suspend a beam from a string (rope) in the center and have a camera rigged to that at one end with a counterbalance at the other. Or something similar that suits the requirements.

 

Thought that comes to mind. Meet face to face with the other artist film makers in Chicago, find a way to share resources and ideas. It's much more powerful face to face. There are inumerable layers of redundant (meaning in reserve) layers of idea and resource that you will discover in person, face to face.

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If you're really not supposed to be there, you have no permit, no insurance and you want to get in and out, I'd rent an Epic dragon, shoot 6K handheld with a wide angle lens and then punch in on it, finish it w warp stabilizer in 4K

 

If you're finishing in 1080 it's much easier and cheaper. Shoot 4K with any camera for this scene and use warp stabilizer on it. No steadicam or dolly. You can try to use a glidecam or ez-rig cause it's cheaper but those may be more high profile than just a cam in your hand.

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Rent a high quality 200 degree fisheye lens. Mount it on a still camera with high resolution sensor. Aim it at the sky and take one picture. From this you can extract the 360 degree pan over and over. The extraction requires undistorting sectors of the image.

 

Mount a (front surface) mirror at a 45 degree tilt onto your video camera's lens. The mount must include a ball-race so the direction of the 90 degree bounce can go any way. Aim the camera at the sky and spin the mirror device. This is exactly the 360 degree pan.

 

If your video camera is small, just mount it on a phonograph turntable. Bring both to the cemetary. Either spin the turntable or, if you can use a 360 degree pan taking 1.8 seconds, turn the turntable on (using batteries and an inverter).

Edited by Dennis Couzin
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1 Get a permit, if it is a student film most permit offices have free support. I would hate that in trying to be "guerrilla" you would anger and close a location for ALL film shoots. If you can't get a free permit, Pay for it. they don't cost much. If you still insist on shooting without a permit at least get permission from the cemetery to use their property. It doesn't take much to ask. If they say no, try again. sometimes persistence pays off. Again please don't Close a location for others because you have a dream of being a cowboy.

 

2 the best way to get this shot in a expedient fashion is to use a stedicam or steadicam like device. Be it the old school 2x4 with 2 grips carrying the camera between them. The Movi or any number of knock offs. or just a steadicam operator and assistance.

 

3 IF you can't pay for the permit you probably can't pay for a qualified grip to rig a camera safely overhead. Think Liability. Ambulance chasers are everywhere.

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