Driving shots - the no-budget-at-all-way...

[MinionZombie]

First off...unless my brain just melted, I think this is my first "fresh post", as in created by me...or maybe not, anyway... I was out filming this afternoon, getting some shots together for a short film I'm making with the Rural Media Company to get shown on the BBC Local TV 'Pilot Scheme' (available on Sky TV and online). Anyway, as I was out I wanted to try something out - I might use the odd snippet or perhaps not, but I thought why not. I wanted to see if I could pull off decent driving shots, so I simply pushed the passenger seat back as far as it would go and erected my tripod in the passenger footwell, then raised the vertical 'pipe' (or whatever you wanna call it) column of the tripod so the camera poked up above the dashboard. I put two of the three legs so they rested against the passenger seat (to provide better stability) and then proceeded to drive as smoothly as possible - on my part (crap roads are crap roads afterall). This is where single handed driving comes in handy, I kept gear changes swift and smooth and then kept my left hand holding the tripod itself - for extra stability. Along the roads I was doing no more than 40/45mph, and it wasn't busy - so it's probably better to get someone else to do the driving or shooting, but it can be done alone. Anyway, I uploaded the footage before dinner and it worked quite well, in fact for once "auto focus" beat manual, occasionally you can pick up some window streaks - so make sure you give the glass a really, really good polish before shooting through the windshield, if shooting out the side window then just roll it down. There are occasional moments of 'shoogle' (brief shake), but nothing to write home about and generally it's quite smooth - it all depends on the road and how fast you're going, if you had a second person adding full stability to the tripod (rather than one hand on tripod/one hand on wheel Mad Max danger driving, lol) then you should get something pretty decent - essentially the image stays 'in synch' with the cars movements. Obviously you can't get that car-mount vibe where you can see the side of the car or the front wheel, but if you want to get just what's up ahead coming at you - then I'd suggest doing it that way for no extra cost whatsoever, bosh!

[Danny]

well it beats lots and lots of gaffa tape. wait is the bbc letting you do something with zombies?, on that note i didnt know on the other forum you were british, amazing ive met one of the other people in the two dozen birtish people who like HIM,lol.

[MinionZombie]

How do, Ha! I wish the BBC was letting me do something with zombies, nah, I'm working kinda freelance with the Rural Media Company (in Hereford) at the moment, and Hereford & Worcester is the only region in the Midlands that has been allowed to produce films BY the community as well as ABOUT the community ("about" means some dudes from the BBC come and film it, "by" means WE get to make them). Check my site - www.deadshed.com - for info about it. The BBC Local TV Pilot is also available to view online, google it (I can't remember the URL right now). So yeh, I'm making some short films for that service - done one which was purely by me and was a more artistic piece - currently working on a factual piece about an elderly woman who's into protecting the planet, I'll be filming more for that next week. Tomorrow I'm going to film and then edit another factual piece at an after school group thing for 'caring kids' (kids you look after ill parents or siblings) - it's a chance for them to just be kids and run around like nutters etc. Also done some camerawork on another project (and hopefully more) and finally, with one of the guys there I'm helping him shoot a music video sorta thing for a DVD for a local band in a pub on Friday - while the guy who's in charge will be getting the wide shot and any slow zooms from a static point, I'm in charge of running around getting a bunch of close ups hand held - should be good fun, pub = Budweiser after all. As for HIM - aye, grand stuff. I'm wearing a HIM hoody right at this moment as a matter of fact. I saw them live in October 2004 when they came to Norwich (where I went to Uni), all the teeny-bopping Bam fans were annoying, so I hung around with the older 'true fans' - so we all took the mick out of the kiddywinks getting all hot & bothered about a sound tech coming out to rig up a microphone, lol - he's just a damn sound tech! lol. They're my favourite band, my favourite track would have to be "Right Here In My Arms" - which is from my favourite album of theirs, Razorblade Romance, wicked stuff. Also - nice avatar, the Clerks cartoon was pretty cool. I think ITV4 or something is going to start showing it soon - why I don't know, but I thought it was strange, you rarely see anything from the Askewniverse on British TV.