Get Creative, Low Budget Camera Moves on Location Anywhere
One of my motto’s is “If it moves, shoot it”. This is especially true in the world of “industrial” documentaries, where all too often it can take hours for something to happen. On the other hand, sometimes you prefer to move the camera itself, typically with a dolly, jib arm or crane.
Of course, not every budget can handle the expense of such equipment and the additional crew needed to operate it safely and efficiently. I’m guessing that most shooters learn early in their career about using a wheelchair for a quick and dirty dolly move; been there, done that. From there, it just takes a little imagination to pull off a wide variety of camera moves on the cheap, or in the most remote, cramped locations, e.g., an offshore oil platform or aboard a ship.
Just last week, I found myself improvising camera moves on three separate occasions. First, in a giant distribution warehouse where we utilized a man-lift to not only get a high angle shot of the facility, but also pulled off a nice camera boom down as the lift made its way back to the ground.
Hint: depending on the lift (and operator) it may be smoother in one direction than the other. Try both … and shoot wide to minimize vibrations. A slow pan and subtle zoom during the move can help give you that big crane, big budget look.
Later that same day, shooting in a new satellite center for advanced high school students, we grabbed a wheeled side table to get a low angle traveling shot through a sea of students moving down the hallway.
The Panasonic HPX500 flip-out LCD monitor made the shot easy to pull off without hunching through a viewfinder. Tip: use sandbags or a specialized product like The Pod to stabilize and level the camera.
Next … on to the corporate board room. I almost always have a Fisher 10 or 11 dolly at my disposal when it comes time to stage a meeting with a company’s top brass. But even if you have a dolly, it won’t help you pull off that killer move down the center of the table, pulling away from the Chairman to reveal the rest of the members.
Sounds like an elaborate, time-consuming setup? Nope. How about a $10 furniture blanket, aka furni pad. Fold the pad into a long rectangular shape so that you can place the camera on one end (again with the sandbags, etc.) and pull from the other.
In this case, you’ll need a video assist monitor to see the move as its happening. Use a wide-angle lens and an iris setting with a forgiving depth of field. It may require a couple takes to achieve an even speed, with no left-right wobbling … but you only need one good one!
I’ll save the story about being wheeled around by my AC on a hand-truck for another time. Do you have any other tips, tricks or techniques for getting killer moving camera shots? Let me know in your comments …
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