HELP: Camera to Car Rig

Danny Salazar

Danny Salazar

Active member
Hey everyone:

I've been wanting to see what I can create or purchase a rig to mount on a car. Of course to get shots of the driver and passenger driving. Lemme know! :D
 
What's your budget? I bought a Sticky Pod ($170) for one project and it works fine, although it doesn't filter out vibration as much as I would have liked. The Sticky Pod Director would be considerably better for smooth shot, although it's $600. I believe Varizoom also makes a car mount for around the same price.
 
I'm building a car rig for an upcoming shoot from film tools 10'' suction cups and speed rail.

I bought a four way leveling head from willyswidgets.com and Im also using the Matthews Studio Equip slide tray for side mount shots.

However it all depends on how large of a camera you are using. With just an HVX or something like it you can get by with the cheapo stickypod.
 
If you're on a limited budget I highly recommend the green screen method with a background plate added in with After Effects. I'm finishing some shots for a feature this way and it looks fantastic. You also can tweak the shot/background/reflection/etc as much as you want. I highly recommend looking at Andrew Kramer's website at the tutorial footage there and see if the method works right for you. It can save you loads of time with resets and matching backgrounds in the editing process...

Hope this helps, and good luck!

-Lee

Find the tutorial at www.videocopilot.net
 
My HVX + Letus + Lenses and support rods proved too heavy for a suction cup mount (mounted on a door, not a hood or roof).

If this is similar to your setup I'd stick with heavier grip gear, something in the way of a hostess tray, etc.
 
aedude01 said:
If you're on a limited budget I highly recommend the green screen method with a background plate added in with After Effects. I'm finishing some shots for a feature this way and it looks fantastic. You also can tweak the shot/background/reflection/etc as much as you want. I highly recommend looking at Andrew Kramer's website at the tutorial footage there and see if the method works right for you. It can save you loads of time with resets and matching backgrounds in the editing process...

Hope this helps, and good luck!

-Lee

Find the tutorial at www.videocopilot.net
Click to expand...

Can you post a little clip? I couldn't find it on kramer's website.
 
I'm at work right now, but I'll try to post a clip tonight online. Until then here's a link to the tutorial DVD page: http://www.videocopilot.net/seriousfx.html

Now the tutorial is offered in a DVD bundle that you have to buy. But I will say the $50 is well worth it. I've done probably around 20 shots with the technique and they look like we shot em while the car was really moving...

And for the record, I don't get a kickback from sales or anything like that :)
 
Hi lee - Do you have a longer version of this vid - it looked really good. I'd like to see more.

How did you achieve the reflection on the glass?
 
I highly recommend the sticky-pod, it's quick to setup, though leveling can be a *****, and I can hang from it and I weigh in at about 200lbs. I've even attached it to a headache ball on a construction crane and had the crane op swing it around 300 feet in the air. (though I did tape the hell out of everything)
 
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