Question about moving Car shots

N

Namcoking

Member
I need a suggestion on the best way to shoot a moving car scene. Basically the characters are driving around while conversing. I was thinking either:

1) using a sticky pod and attaching the camera to the car as it's driven around.

or

2)keeping the car stationary and putting a blue screen behind the vehicle, then later keying in the appropriate motion footage for the background.

or

3) if there is a better way.

Thanks
 
I think they are both great ideas but 2 different stylistic approaches. Keying it can be really cool; Sin City, Once Upon A Time in Mexico, Tarantino film's use it to nice effect.

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Stick Pod is at least real.

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Is this at night ? or Day?
 
If your going to green screen it I have some sage advice- TEST IT FIRST!!!!!

It can weild great results, but as John said, it's very stylized.

I'm shooting some car stuff in a few months and I'll be using a Mathews car mount- for this project in particular, it's the only way to go.
 
john's list should actually be longer...a lot longer...i'd say 99% of car scenes are done either by chromakeying or using a projector screen. mostly chromakeying though. reason...control of the audio and it's quite expensive setting up shots on a street. besides permits...you need to shut down the street. hire police to control the area, barricades, and so on. it's kinda rare that they actually shot live while driving down a street. probably scenes you thought were "live" are actually screened. :)
 
the other way is with a camera car...like how they did the driving scenes in seven or training day. the picture car is on a trailer that is pulled around by a truck.

there are safty issues if you are going to have talent actually driving the car your shooting in.
 
It's a day shoot.

I guess a greenscreen would be best. The car in question is blue, and so is the interior..so a greenscreen instead of bluescreen would be best?

Thanks for the info!
 
novelt said:
john's list should actually be longer...a lot longer...i'd say 99% of car scenes are done either by chromakeying or using a projector screen. mostly chromakeying though. reason...control of the audio and it's quite expensive setting up shots on a street. besides permits...you need to shut down the street. hire police to control the area, barricades, and so on. it's kinda rare that they actually shot live while driving down a street. probably scenes you thought were "live" are actually screened. :)
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What are you thinking? I work on a ton of those shots, none are chroma keyed. I have been doing this for over 23 years and 99% of the shots done on televsion shows and movies are done on the streets. If you are going to state something, at least do it with some knowledge.
 
and the streets aren't shut down. If it is a street shot the police are always there and either it is a total shutdown (not often) or ITC. (intermittent traffic control) Usually if a street needs to be shut down, it is a street than can be shut down.,Or it is late at night when not in use, or a street that is not heavily travelled.
 
novelt said:
john's list should actually be longer...a lot longer...i'd say 99% of car scenes are done either by chromakeying or using a projector screen. mostly chromakeying though. reason...control of the audio and it's quite expensive setting up shots on a street. besides permits...you need to shut down the street. hire police to control the area, barricades, and so on. it's kinda rare that they actually shot live while driving down a street. probably scenes you thought were "live" are actually screened. :)
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Whoa whoa whoa

99% are done by keying or using projection ? I don't know the ratio but I'd be most positive that the majority are camera cars or mounts.
 
I am sure. and rich's comment is the main reason why...

there are safty issues if you are going to have talent actually driving the car your shooting in.
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sure the opening of rush hour 2, but scenes from the matrix, knight rider, rapid fire, airplane, true lies, i could go on where all done either with a projector or chroma-keyed. however as rich noted a lot are done with a truck pulling the vehicle, but i'll still stand with when they do interior shots...not exterior shots looking in, but interior dialogue shots those are most often done in a studio. so when reading my percentage i still stick with interiors are 99%, but you're absolutely right if they are shooting the front of the vehicle showing the actors inside then yes the majority of those are done out on a street...speaking of interiors the cab scene in godzilla was done in a studio. the exteriors shots were of an RC/model. oh and i believe on "the dukes of hazard" 1979 it says on the DVD or shows that they used a projector. anybody watch "the bulletproof monk"??? you can hear the director say during the commentary about shooting in-car scenes in a studio.

it may be different in LA, but here in my quaint little town if you do any type of "commercial" motion picture shooting and you need to use a street. then you need to shut it down, hire police, etc...says so in the city ordinance...el paso, tx. so my bad for presuming it was that way for everybody else. granted i do know better because in new mexico the street uses aren't as extreme. don't know how it is for you, but if you need a street for any type of stunt work. then add the fire department to the list of "hires"...speaking of you should've seen the amount of work that went into the one bridge scene in "day after tomorrow" because it was a "border" scene they had to add the border patrol to the list of hires. they had planned on using the actual border crossing, but you need permission from the pentagon "at least that was the press release" and they weren't going to get it in time.

well i know that's not the point of this thread...just wanted to say been there.
 
I've shot a lot of stuff in cars during the day and never used a stickypod (although I'd like to) or any mount. I have shot handheld and done OTS from the back seat or sat in the passenger and shot. Hell, I've even put the camera on my lap while driving on a little beanbag and driven...

You don't need to shoot through the windshield or use a hostess tray... Just be creative, work with what you've got and see what you can come up with.

Also, the greenscreen can work really well, just make sure you can't see the loop in your footage. The problem with green screen is the wind issue, but a good key makes the difference. A good example is actually on Hudson's website under the greenscreen test (outlandpictures.com) [sorry for pimping your site, John]

-Jeremy
 
This is only one show, but 24 shoots all their car shots with projection:

"Rodney Charters: We already use a considerable amount of video on 24, but very few people realise it. Of course all of our television monitor playback on set is shot with our 3-chip DVCAM PD150s, but then all of our driving interiors cars, SUVs, helicopters, trucks – you name it – are shot on the stage using digital back projection from a 10,000 lumen Eiki projector. These are positioned so that they can be seen outside the windows of the vehicles, and we light the interiors to match."

That is from one of the Showreel articles. After I read it I started watching the scenes more carefully and I think you can definately tell sometimes, but it is executed very well. I think the biggest problem with this method is finding a powerful enough projector.
 
just wanted to clarify something...in the matrix...i'm talking about the limo scenes when they're riding along and talking that's stage. not "reloaded" on the freeway when there are cameras all over the place. "bullitt" used on the road shots for their in-car scenes so what i'm getting at is the majority of action or stunt scenes are done real-world so you can catch events as they happen, but non-action dialogue scenes are from what i've seen done on a stage, studio, backlot...etc but with a screen or projection. again goes to safety your actor is concentrating on delivering a solid performance not the nut who just changed lanes without signaling. :)
 
I think it depends on the look and feel of what you are trying to do. Some shots may work better than others depending on what you are having happen in the car. Have the street to yourself is best, but there should be pleny of abandoned roads or access roads around that aren't very populated. You can also try experimenting with possible handheld shots from the backseat of shooting the driver and passenger from the look in the rear view mirror or something.

Hope this helps!
 
Not to disagree with maverick or john, but to add my 2 cents:

A close friend of mine is the 2nd AC, A-cam on 24 so I'll tell you how they do it for 24 (or at least seasons 1-4 of 24. I wasnt on set at all season 5)

What they did was drive around the city with 2-4 cams mounted on a truck and took footage of the streets as they drove around. Sometimes just driver/passenger sides, sometimes all four. They then had the non-gimbaled (just a couple guys rocking it) vehicle (usually a CTU SUV) in studio (warehouse) and they set up large screen on all sides of the vehicle and projected the synced footage slightly out of focus and ran it during the scene.

It looked good on TV. Even though I watched it tons of time in person, when watching the show I never thought "Ah, that's so fake."

So, while it is not 99% of all driving scenes in cinema, it is my one example.

BTW, if I were to do a driving scene, I would either use car mounts and actually have them drive - but it would have to be done many numerous times for camera angles and the surrounding footage would never match up. But if Bullet can get away with it's non-matching city streets, I think you can too.

My 2 cents.

-GageFX


Guess I should've read the entire thread. ---- YEah... what tigeba said!
 
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John_Hudson said:
Scratch that

Read Mavericks posts. I agree; please don't start making statement's that you are not sure about
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Yeah, I was going to comment that it seems like more and more car type shots are beginning to involve the environment a little more. The cameras are just seeming to become more mobile, ya know?
 
Thanks for all the replies!

I'm starting to think Projection is the way to go. I did some tests with projection, and it looks promising. The other two methods described involve being outside in the Georgia summer heat. That's not fun at all.

Thanks again!
 
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