Floating Person Camera Rig

M

Mutoscope

Member
In the film clip Deadweight by Beck Michel Gondry has a shot from above of Beck floating as if 2cm off the ground: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UI8NnBZo5M
Bout 3:05 into the clip
Now knowing Gondry and the techniques he uses im sure this is some kind of camera rig rather than a post effect like a composite with a moving background.
Does anyone have an idea of how he did this?
My guess is a overly wide dolly on tracks (the tracks wide enough apart to not be seen in shot) The main thing i can figure out is the fact that Beck is so rigid and hardly even moves, if he was hanging off the back of a dolly he would surely be struggling to keep his head up? even with a plank of wood up his back.
Any ideas apreciated as this has been bugging me ever since i watched this clip again last night.
 
If you mean 3:13, it looks to me like Beck is just has basically a skateboard under his back, and is being shot either with a Steadicam operator, or with the camera shoulder-mounted. Nothing fancy.
 
I would really tend to think that it was done in post. Beck laying on a green screen. That would explain why he was so rigid and why he looked like he wasn't struggling to hold his head up.
 
Chris Geukens said:
I would really tend to think that it was done in post. Beck laying on a green screen. That would explain why he was so rigid and why he looked like he wasn't struggling to hold his head up.
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You guys are way overthinking it. It would be easy enough to put some support under Beck's neck -- they could have cast a mold of his back that he was laying in, obscured by the angle of the camera. It honestly wouldn't be that difficult to achieve that shot, particularly considering that it dovetails directly from another shot where you see Beck also gliding along on his back, in a full-body shot, which is clearly not on green.

Besides the fact that you could get the shot very easily by doing it practically, Gondry never films on green screen. Well, I won't say never, but it's damn rare. He prefers to do it practical if it's at all possible.
 
Looking at it again, you can even SEE the black support plank under Beck's head in those shots looking down at him.

As far as the car, there's a lot of ways it might have been done. Could be a CG car, but I think it's more likely that the car was supported on some kind of rig on its left side. In the first shot it was carefully framed so that the support rig (probably a kind of crane arm on a vehicle) would not appear in the shot. The second shot is locked off so it would be a simple matter of shooting a clean plate and then painting the rig out of the shot.

And of course we're talking about a prop car that weighs maybe a couple hundred pounds, not a real one.

That would be how I would have done it given the final product.
 
The video was about contrasts (ie He's working on the beach and goes on vacation in an office, his shadow is walking and his body is being cast on the ground, a man is carrying a car instead of a car carrying a man etc etc)

Yes Beck was on a skateboard, it's so obvious. I blame his head bobbing around to the lack of muscles on his spindly little stick neck. He is also not doing the same arm movements in the close ups and the wide shot they cut to, I blame that on the same bad acting.

The car was composited in post he probably held onto a piece of cardboard with some markers on it. Come on are you going to rig up some crazy car and then green screen the crane out of a scene or are you just going to track a photo of a car onto some markers in After Effects.? I'd go for the cheap and easy method that would look identical to the expensive way.
 
Arson said:
The car was composited in post he probably held onto a piece of cardboard with some markers on it. Come on are you going to rig up some crazy car and then green screen the crane out of a scene or are you just going to track a photo of a car onto some markers in After Effects.? I'd go for the cheap and easy method that would look identical to the expensive way.
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This is not what they did, as the car is quite visibly reflecting its surroundings, as well as showing parallax shift as it moves away from the camera.

You could do this with a 3D car tracked in, but that would NOT be the cheap and easy method compared to rig removal with a practical car.
 
Thanx for the replies guys. The reason i was interested is what DorkmannScott mentioned, the fact that gondry does almost all of his effects in camera and is a genius at coming up with original in camera effects.
I think a skateboard or wheeled dolly is totally out of the question due to the stabillity issues with running on that rough pavement.
I remember seeing a "making of" of this clip at a video art exhibition but have never seen it since. I do remember that the car and everything else in the clip was all done practical though.
 
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