Any ideas for motion shot?

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djembeplay

Well-known member
Hey guys. Ok I am doing a project that I want to get a particular shot for. Without going into detail about the contents or overall concept of the shot (unless someone wants to hear it), I am hoping someone sparks some ideas. I need a cheap cheap... cheap solution as well. I need to slide slideways and pan around my subject with my DVX maintaining stability. Also, I need to duplicate this motion (although not at the same speed necessarily) 3 times. In other words, I need to have three pan around shots where the framing of the camera is exactly (or very very close to) matching on each sequence. This way I can layer them together smoothly. The reason exact speed is not important is because I can slightly alter that in post... and one of the three pans is going to move reaaaallly slow for a time lapse.

The best idea I have thought of yet is to get some sort of a dolly and some rubber hose. I can cut the hose vertically in half, bend it and anchor it to where I want the shot to go. I will need four tracks of hose next to eachother for each wheel of the dolly. Once I have the tracks laid out and anchored, I put the dolly in the four hose tracks, then place my tripod on top of the dolly. I dont think I will need to anchor the tripod down because it is going to be a slow enough movement where I dont think it will tip. Then I can start recording and push the dolly at the speed I want.

uuh... yaaaaaaa... I feel this reeks of failure or need of serious tweeking. Let me know if you guys have any thoughts. Thank you.

Tejay
 
Is this outdoor or indoor? concrete or dirt? distance from subject? what is the subject (a person, I presume)?

No matter what the situation, it's going to be a lot of trial and error. Start rigging things together, go out and test shoot, tweak/change what's needed, and test shoot some more till you've accomplished the desired look.

my .02
 
Tejay,

If you plan to dolly and pan, there is not way you'll get three shots to match. You need a programable crane and head to pull off a perfectly matching shot. If you haven't praticed with a dolly before, you'll find it's hard enough just to get one good take while dollying and panning (tip, have someone else push and ride the dolly while you operate the camera). It takes practice.

I'm interested to hear more about the concept for this shot. Perhaps there is a better way to get it.

Josh
 
Hey guys. Sorry for the late reply... been havin some computer troubles here. Well the subject is going to be a kid on a half-pipe. I actually havent even scoped out the site I am going to shoot yet but I am assuming it will be grass. I picture being about 15 feet away and dollying about 20 feet sideways. One take is going to be for the background which will all be time lapse. Another will be about an 8 second shot without the kid, and the last being around the same time with the kid. I am going to animate frame by frame on white paper and then blend that into a composition of the three real takes (background time-lapse, first part without kid, then pass by a close object such as a tree and switch to last take with the kid). All for a 5-8 second shot. I dont know if that made much sense... im tired... hope to hear back. Thanks-

Tejay
 
Here are a few ideas...

dollymove.jpg

I was a bit confused by your descriptions. In the first post you mention bending a rubber hose, which I assume means you want to move in an arc or semi-circle, as in #1. In the most recent post you mention dollying sideways 20’, as in #3.

If the subject is at the exact center of the circle as in #1, its not a pan, its just a dolly. In #2 and in #3 it’s both a dolly and a pan so you have to coordinate those motions. In #2 and #3 the matching shot of the background without the subject is complicated, because you have no target on which to focus for the pan. So the motion has to be based within the camera and operator and not based on visual feedback from framing. So #1 might be easier to shoot because if the track is laid out exactly right and the subject is at the exact center, the camera could be locked down on the tripod and you can eliminate the pan and just dolly.

It might be easier to get the dolly speed consistent on a piece of straight track in #3.

Do you need to travel a full 360 degrees for the motion? You said it needs to be about 20 ft covered in about 8 seconds. So the move is at 2.5 ft per second. If that 20 feet is the entire circumference of the circle, then the diameter of the circle is the Circumference divided by pi, or 20/3.1416 = 6.36 ft. And the radius is the Diameter/2, so 6.36 ft / 2 = 3.18 ft. If your move covers 180 degrees of the circle, then the circle is 40’ in circumference. The diameter is 12.73 ft, and the radius is 6.36 ft. You can use this kind of calculation to cut string of the right length, anchor it at the center, and lay out the path you need to follow.

You might consider marking the feet off in chalk as a guide for the dolly operators to move at a more consistent speed.

I keep thinking that if you could find a playground merry-go-round that maybe you could shoot on it. If you can get your subject stationary at the exact center and then put the camera on a tripod close to the edge. I don’t know if that would give you the framing you want, etc. But its cheap, cheap, cheap. And I've seen some witha 3 foot to 6 foot radius, which would put it in the ball-park for the kind of motion you are looking for. Once you get the thing going it would be traveling at a fairly constant speed. You could just shoot 10 times round in short order, giving you a number of options for matching the shot in post.

If you are rotoscoping the images together, another idea is to shoot the subject in chromakey and turn them around instead of moving the camera, and then composite them into the shot.

Good luck!
 
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Place a measuring tape on the dolly or make tape marks every second. Mark the pan as well if you can. Have someone calling out the time while each operator uses the marks as a reference. Use it as an animation guide for the timelapse.

Consider using a program that allows frame by frame painting. More interactive than paper.

You'll need to roto I assume for the timelapse BG plate and the tree.
 
Hey guys. Wow thanks for the info. You have definitly hit some helpful points there. Sorry again for the late responses... I had a processor burn out and have been workin on gettin a system running at all here... heh. So I actually dont know what rotoscoping means but I am assuming it is the same as bluescreening...? I was thinking I would just cut and paste frame by frame because I always get that pixelation garbage around the edges of my bluescreens. Any tips for that? Alright... thanks a bunch.

Tejay
 
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