How Do You Film a car hitting a pedestrian?

E

epiktim

Member
I am filming a comedy skit for youth group. (Approximately 1 minute in length).

Here's the story, a kid with a broken leg is trying to get to youth group on time, and no one can give him a ride, so he wheels to youth group, across highways, etc. When at last he is nearing the building, a huge pickup takes him out. I want this to be one of those close up shots of the kid, then a truck comes out of nowhere and annihilates him. I don't know what angle/technique etc to use without hurting anybody, and I want it to look as realistic as possible.

Any suggestions?
 
Most people can get very good results with compositing.

I.e. Film the car first, then film the person second (without the car). With some hard work in post you should be able to make it work. Keep the angle the same on both shots. Use a tripod. In post you might consider using a hand 'held filter' on the final composited layer making it look very real and less staged.

Some hints... stay rather tight. (Tight lens) This will reveal less and leave more to the imagination. My second hint, use sound effects. Sound will add to the shot. Third cut to black right when the car hits. There is nothing more fake about getting hit by a car when the person doesn't react right.

My last hint is to look into building a stunt vest. Only do this when well planned out and with safety precautions. What you do with this is make the hit more believable. Set the person in the road and have them wear some kind of small vest under the real clothes in which you can attach a cord or rope. Place some mats on the ground for safety.

When the 'car' (which is still being shot in another scene without the actor!) is supposed to hit the actor have somebody give a big big tug. This should 'yank' the actor backwards with a force that cannot be replicated by someone pretending to fall over. But it is important the stunt rip cord should be attached to a vest around the stunt persons main body. If not done properly, this can cause whiplash, or other safety hazards. Rid of the rope in post.

Good luck
 
Any way to build a dummy? Who's seen the pedestrian get taken out in the Dumb and Dumberer (the sequel)? That's the type of shot i'm looking for.
 
ahahaha

lol i dunno man, unless you have access to a dummy, fill up some of your old clothes with leaves and rubber-band the ends shut. be creative, the dummy doesn't need to be in the shot long so it doesn't have to be perfect.
 
=Prodigy= said:
My second hint, use sound effects. Sound will add to the shot. Third cut to black right when the car hits.
Click to expand...

Sound is key. I did a Ultimate Frisbee mockumentary and in one scene as one of the characters came towards the camera (he was "accident prone") he falls. Now that doesn't sound very exciting, but when you HEAR it, he's not just falling--there is a very nice sound effect of a bone breaking. Without that effect, it just doesn't work. With the effect, audiences have just screamed in agony (and I give myself a pat on the back for finding the right sound effect:))

Matthew
 
a dummy is obvious... if you are trying to be funny then go ahead. It will look and act like a dummy. If you want 'believable' don't use a dummy.
 
Well the youth group (Epik) is a pretty cutting edge group. I lol'd at that, but that video probably wouldn't fly. Here's our website

www.epik.us


But about the original question...I'm still confused on how to do this.
 
I would cheat the whole thing. Show him OTS in the road with the pickup truck coming at him, then show from the pickup's perspective coming at him (would be good to put a big screen behind the camera to cast a shadow on him as the camera gets close to him) then cut to a shot of him flying through the air and landing.

you don't have to *show* the truck making impact for people to see he got hit by it
 
Here is an example I did a few years ago. You can see where the girl gets hit in the screen shot on this page. The actual clip is at the end of the short.
http://www.puffinfilms.com/FILMS_Mi_RoBoT.html

I set up the camera on the side of the street and waited until something drove by that was big and recorded it. Then without moving the camera(this is key) i had my daughter run out into the street and flinch like something was about to hit her. Then I took both shots and put them in Aftereffects and layed the footage of my daughter over the truck footage and made a mask around her for every frame which cut out the background on her footage revealing the truck background. The reason you dont move the camera is so that its easier to mask out and you dont have to be so precise with the mask since the backgrounds should match up. I did have one problem with a car pulling out right after the truck came by and had to get tighter in with the mask when it got to that spot.
 
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