Revolving/Spiral Shot

[J. Anthony Gonzales]

I'm looking at a shot where the camera spirals in from a wide to a MCU from above. The camera revolves around the center of lens axis. Does anybody have any experience shooting this type of shot? If so, was a special rig/jib built or is there something that already exists at a rental shop in L.A.? I've looked around and have had no luck. I assume you'd have to close the lens down pretty good because following focus would be a pain. Any ideas?

 

 

John G.

[Mitch Gross]

A Weaver-Stedman head on a jib arm will do this shot just fine, and then you can rent a simple remote focus for the day. Or you could do it with a motorized zoom and leave the camera height and the focus stationary. I've jerry-rigged this type of shot plenty of times, once going quickly to the local hardware store and getting a ring bearing from a Lazy Susan tray and mounting it to a piece of wood. Pretty easy deal. Just make sure you have a competent grip on set to be sure that everything is safe and solid before you go hanging a camera rig over someone's head. The music video for Britney Spears' "Oops I Did it Again" features a shot just as you describe and someone didn't rig it properly so the camera slipped off the mount and nearly killed her. A generation of 14-year old boys would have never forgiven that AC & Key Grip!

[Chad Benjamin]

Actually, I am looking to do the same overhead spiraling shot but adding a push-pull. I'm wondering if because the ground will be the background and won't have much depth to change in the push-pull, if it would be better to have the actor either suspended, or on top of a bridge or building to allow a greater range of perspective?

 

Anybody ever tried such a thing?

[Bob Hayes]

I just did a shot where we hung the camera from a pulley hooked to the ceiling. One rope straight down three at the camera to stabilize it. I pre-twisted the rope like you do a childs swing and pulled the camera up and down. I used a wide lens and pumped the stop up. We set focus where I go the maximum range of movement. Turned out great.

[David Mun]

Its funny that you mention that, i'm cutting my reel now and I have footage from a shoot years ago where we did the same thing. I used a Jimmy Jib with a remote head. THe camera was pointed straight down and as the actor steps into frame, we spiral counter clockwise and jib up wards, revealing him slightly hanging over the rail of a 4 story parking structure. It looked good and infact it seemed that the lens was pretty centered (on axis) and worked out fine.

 

2 years ago i worked on a shoot where we tried the same thing but this time the shot didn't work because the lens was off axis and it didn't work out. I'm thinking that when i balanced the camera before, it was raised up higher and that's what made it work.

 

Another thing you can do is use a fraizer lens and just have the lens point own while you rotate the image thgouh the lens and just jib upwards that way. then you'll know that the lens is going straight up that way. I used that in a shot when shooting the opening sequence of a movie called poolhall junkies and that looked great too. We first had the lens inside the pocket of a pool table close to the 9ball and boomed up on the dolly while i rotated the image. We also did tracking shots with the lens over the table and lined up a few racks on the table, making it look like floating racks spinning around and around. also theres a shot where the rack of balls (in a diamond shape) was broken by the cue ball and instead of the balls just shooting outward the spinning of the imagethrough the lens made the balls appear to curve all over the place. That was a trippy shot.

 

Dave