Need a police chase....

G

googalizer

Member
So I'm going to be shooting a music video soon and a scene calls for a rapper in his car being chased by a line of cops........

the lyric is .......line of cops on my tail, I am going to jail..........

So How could I get a shot of a line of cops, without a line of cops.......???

I'm planning on the shot being from inside the car looking back, from the car window or rear view mirror or both. nothing from a thrid perspective since I don't really have the means to stage a police chase. Or the bail money.....

I have a green screen in my garage. So i could pull in the car and key out the background. But without stock footage of the cops what should I do????

Anyone know of some stock footage I could get a hold of. Or should I go to the cop shop and film a head on shot of a cop car with the lights on, if they let me, then mask out the background and layer a few cop cars in the shot with some b-roll of the highway shot by filming out the back of my truck or something...........???

If that would work any tips, since I've never done a shot like that before.
Or any other suggestions?

I use FCP, Motion, DVX100B.....I have shake but.......Not really getting it...yet.
 
The smaller the town you live in, the more possible the police would actually just help you out. Where I live in Ohio, might be the safest place on earth. Our police are usually very friendly and bored. If you approach them professionally I bet you could get about 4 cruisers that are off duty to show up for an hour or two for minimum or no pay.

If you live in a city, like I do in college, police are more in numbers and they still enjoy helping, but getting more than one is hard due to how they are more busy due to higher crime rates.

NOTE: No police officer will agree to a fake high speed chase.

Your best bet is going to a small towns and asking if they would line up behind your actors parked vehicle with thier lights on. You could then just use a shaky handheld shot of the rear-view. That should look convincing. If you are very lucky they might agree to follow you slowly with thier lights on, but probably only on a closed/private/backroad as to not cause panic on a main street.

Ask around, I've had many police officers on sets and in films. Sometimes when guerilla filmmaking the cops stop us on the street to see what we are doing. More times than not, we convince them to be in our film or turn thier cop lights on. As long as your film is not inappropriate and you are friendly, the police are usually very cooperative.
 
Use DOF to your advantage as well as angle of view to cheat the amount of the cars you see. Use a few of those halloween siren lights with party gels (basic red, basic blue) to simulate the sirens. It doesn't take much to get the point across that they are police vehicles.
 
InvisionProductions said:
Use DOF to your advantage as well as angle of view to cheat the amount of the cars you see. Use a few of those halloween siren lights with party gels (basic red, basic blue) to simulate the sirens. It doesn't take much to get the point across that they are police vehicles.
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Wow! I have a similar shoot and this tip is great. :beer:
 
If you live in NYC, 2pm every day on 42nd st and 5th ave there is a line of about 20 cop cars that shoot down 42nd with the lights going. Have no idea why they do that but its like clock work.
 
Get some red and blue lights and put them in the back seat of a car (at night). Turn them on and shoot the driver from the back seat. Have him drive around in a parking lot or a large area weaving back and fourth or whatever. Direct him to keep looking back like he's being chased. Do some shakey handheld shots at a real high shutter speed to give it that Saving Private Ryan look.

Then get some stock footage from COPS or something of a chase and cut the two together.

If you have a scanner you could record some police chatter and throw that in also.
 
Gopher_Greene said:
Just drive really fast, the cops will quickly join in.
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Problem is, your footage and vehicle will be impounded, and you will go to jail for a good stretch... which is why I didn't suggest this approach. I'm all about trying to stay out of jail. Been there, done that, it sucks.
 
Well, obviously he just forgot to mention the "don't get caught" aspect of the police chase. Just look at what video games have taught us. Have the police chase you, then hide in a building for 20 minutes, and then the police have forgotten who they were chasing.

I don't see any problem with it.
 
Well, obviously he just forgot to mention the "don't get caught" aspect of the police chase. Just look at what video games have taught us. Have the police chase you, then hide in a building for 20 minutes, and then the police have forgotten who they were chasing.

I don't see any problem with it.
 
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