Extremely slow tracking shot

withuk

withuk

Active member
Just wondering if anyone had any experience doing an extremely slow tracking shot, I have a shoot coming up, basically the shot will be about 5 meters distance to travel in total and the shot will be approx 30 minutes in duration.

Obviously I could use a track and dolly and just move very slowly, but, is there some way in which the shot can be done automated so as not to draw any attention to the motion or change of speed in the shot itself. Resulting in a completely smooth shot.

I was thinking something like, still use the track and dolly but use it with a pulley system and weights. I'm open to any suggestions and all will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
wow - can you explain the shot further?? 5 meters in 30 minutes is so slow as to almost be imperceptible to your audience.
 
That's a good idea with a pully system, but what about using a small electric motor, geared down with a little cable or string to pull the dolly along? I assume you don't need audio for the shot?

5 meters in 30 minutes is about 2.7 mm per second, pretty slow, so you don't need very big motor.

Do you need to move the camera too? If so, that might be tough without a motion-control rig.
 
The purpose of this movement is to take the spectator into a fiction within a fiction without noticing. So I really want to have no camera movement visible.

Starting in one story and ending in another.

I was thinking of setting mark points on the track and on the floor and have the dolly move slowly to the next mark point within a predetermined time. This will help to maintain a uniform way of the distance travelled and enables us to maintain the same speed. Say if the shot was planned to be 30 minutes long over a distance of 5 meters that means that we would have to move the dolly approximately 16.6cm per minute. We could mark out on the floor these increments and also make them even smaller, like 8.3cm every 30 seconds.

Or, as mentioned I could hire a variable speed winch that can be secured at one end and attached to the dolly at the other. The winch will slowly wind in, pulling the dolly towards the scene. This has its pros and cons. The pros are that it will ensure a 100% smooth shot. The cons are; that as mentioned we will not be able to record real time sound as the winch will make noise, we will also have to find somewhere to secure the winch in front of the camera and this could be problematic.

I'm not sure of the slowest winch we can get but I know you can get them to about 2ft. per minute. Does anyone know of a slower winch? Or have any other methods?

Yeehaanow, I’ve never even seen a motion control rig, how much are they to hire for a day in $ or £? Also what distance and speed are they able to travel? Do they do very fine movement? I want the camera to stay very still only movement with a tracking shot and pulling focus.

Thanks for the replies!
 
Last edited:
withuk said:
Or, as mentioned I could hire a variable speed winch that can be secured at one end and attached to the dolly at the other. The winch will slowly wind in, pulling the dolly towards the scene. This has its pros and cons. The pros are that it will ensure a 100% smooth shot. The cons are; that as mentioned we will not be able to record real time sound as the winch will make noise, we will also have to find somewhere to secure the winch in front of the camera and this could be problematic.

I'm not sure of the slowest winch we can get but I know you can get them to about 2ft. per minute. Does anyone know of a slower winch? Or have any other methods?

Yeehaanow, I’ve never even seen a motion control rig, how much are they to hire for a day in $ or £? Also what distance and speed are they able to travel? Do they do very fine movement? I want the camera to stay very still only movement with a tracking shot and pulling focus.

Thanks for the replies!
Click to expand...

Motion control is Mucho Expensive $$$ toys for the big boys. I've seen rentals as high as $12,000 a day. http://www.mrmoco.com/

If you use a cable or even some thin nylon kite line (doesn't stretch) you could put the winch far away in another room or out of audible range. You might need some tension on the line, depending on how smooth your dolly wheels are. Skate wheels on a smooth track would probably be best.

Another thought I had is if you built a hand crank winch with a very long handle, (so the circle diameter would be 50-80cm to smooth out the cranking) then, just have someone crank it for 30 minutes. It would be silent and probably smooth enough, especially if you aren't speeding up the footage for time-lapse, like I originally thought.
 
Wow! that motion contral system is a beast, not to mention completley out of my budget.

Hmm, very good idea with the nylon kite line, I'll research how much weight it can take, the setup may be quite heavy, I was planning on using the Key West Magic Dolly and black track so I will be on the dolly pulling focus. Also really like the idea of the home made hand crank, I'll look into how to build it.
 
WithUK trying contacting some local rental houses in London. Chances are there are some lower end mo-co stuff that could work for you. If you shoot during a slow day (say wednesday) and are very persuasive they will most likely help you out.
At best you get a proffesional who is interested enough in your idea that he does it within your budget and at worst you make some contacts at some high end rental houses and learn how much it would cost.

Also be creative, maybe you can get someone to loan you a system for a day for this shot for some cash and also some free publicity. Maybe you add a "Rental House X Presents" title credit at the head of the film and on the title, which would give them free publicity and get you the shot you want for your film.
 
Very intresting concept.

I had self build light wight dolly (wood plate with skateboard wheels on PVC Track) that only holds a normal tripod and the camera.
It had a cheap (30 Euros on Ebay) geared motor on it (inaudible when you boom the dialog) a 12 Volt battery from the camera and a poti so i could do variable speed.

The motor had a pulley wit 10 meters of hevy duty kite line and a hook at the end.


Worked great. I could kick my ass that I sold it.

Frank
 
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