Something I'm very curious about -- how do you use your slider? In an events or wedding environment particularly. What sorts of moves do you make? What sorts of opportunities do you hunt for?
Some rambling thoughts...
I'm awful with a slider. When I started accumulating gear, I always thought, "I just need X, and it'll transform my shooting", whether "X" = a lens, a light, an EVF, a slider... But, of course, it never really does. When my first slider arrived on my doorstep, it was the longest Konova slider I could find, and it was completely impractical for running around in an events or wedding environment. But, more importantly, I had no idea how to use it, and what sorts of shots to get and why.
In school, we were generally taught to think of dolly shots in two ways: (1) there is some specific effect to be gained -- for instance, pushing in on someone or pulling away, or revealing something; or (2) you plan out nice composition A and nice composition B, and you use the dolly as a flowing and visual-interest-adding way to move between them, perhaps leading into a scene or out of a scene, tracking a subject through foreground elements, or following some moving object (eg a waiter) that hands you off from one subject to another.
But I don't know that this sort of thinking is entirely applicable to sliders in an events environment. For one thing, sliders are a lot shorter. For another, since everything's unplanned and happens fast, you often don't have the luxury of thinking about nice composition A and nice composition B -- often you just go with the flow. For another -- and perhaps this is just me -- I don't always think about narrative when shooting weddings, so the slider isn't used, like a dolly might be, to serve a story. Perhaps I need to change my thinking, but I'm usually on the lookout for beautiful or interesting shots, for human moments (people laughing, hugging, shaking hands, etc), for interesting moments (close-ups of things blowing in the wind, people preparing food, candles being lit, etc) or for things that need recording for the sake of the memory.
So, how the hell to use a slider? My current list of moves is pretty small:
-- Reveal. The shots everyone uses in wedding films are coming around a wall to reveal a bride getting ready, and coming around some chairs to reveal an aisle, perhaps with people walking down it.
-- Movement down a line, which in effect is lots of reveals. For instance, a line of bridesmaids' shoes or groomsmen's cuff links.
-- Combination move: combine the slider with a tilt/pan/focus pull or even zoom. For instance, coming around someone's letterbox and pulling focus to the house as an establishing shot. Doing a wide-angle low-angle shot of a dress, and dollying into it while tilting up to try to create some sort of feeling of wonder. The ability to combine techniques in this way is a big advantage sliders have over Steadicams.
-- Keyframe to keyframe, like a dolly.
-- Pushing in and pulling out, like a dolly. Very rarely: pushing through something, like a bead curtain, or creating the illusion that you're passing through fence bars or similar.
-- Tracking through something, with objects in the foreground to create visual interest, like a dolly.
So the list of ways we consciously use a slider isn't at all large, and I personally struggle to find ways to use them. Usually it's someone else who handles the slider. I'm very, very curious to hear how other people think about using sliders and what sorts of shots they're getting.
Couple of final random thoughts:
* Most wedding films that use sliders will have the slider positioned on the ground. It's a pain in the butt to tripod-mount the thing and run around with it, though this probably gives you more flexibility.
* Cinevate DSLR slider is about the right length. Any longer, and you're hitting guests, you're getting ridiculous see-sawing when you centre-mount, you're making carrying equipment a huge pain...
* Sliders is an events environment can be fantastically fiddly -- and you just know, as you set them up, or pack them away, that you're missing fleeting moments. You also have a higher chance of damaging the slider, as I've done, if you need to detach the head every time you pack it up or assemble it -- much better to keep it assembled, for instance to purchase a bag that fits slider with head attached.
* Our normal setup doesn't allow for tracking over something, for vertical mounting, or for getting good shots while the whole slider is mounted semi-vertically.
* Positioning the slider at 45 degrees to the subject, rather than parallel or perpendicular, seems sometimes to create interesting effects.
* Many people seem to use sliding moves with no rhyme or reason and just to add a bit of icing to the cake...
Some rambling thoughts...
I'm awful with a slider. When I started accumulating gear, I always thought, "I just need X, and it'll transform my shooting", whether "X" = a lens, a light, an EVF, a slider... But, of course, it never really does. When my first slider arrived on my doorstep, it was the longest Konova slider I could find, and it was completely impractical for running around in an events or wedding environment. But, more importantly, I had no idea how to use it, and what sorts of shots to get and why.
In school, we were generally taught to think of dolly shots in two ways: (1) there is some specific effect to be gained -- for instance, pushing in on someone or pulling away, or revealing something; or (2) you plan out nice composition A and nice composition B, and you use the dolly as a flowing and visual-interest-adding way to move between them, perhaps leading into a scene or out of a scene, tracking a subject through foreground elements, or following some moving object (eg a waiter) that hands you off from one subject to another.
But I don't know that this sort of thinking is entirely applicable to sliders in an events environment. For one thing, sliders are a lot shorter. For another, since everything's unplanned and happens fast, you often don't have the luxury of thinking about nice composition A and nice composition B -- often you just go with the flow. For another -- and perhaps this is just me -- I don't always think about narrative when shooting weddings, so the slider isn't used, like a dolly might be, to serve a story. Perhaps I need to change my thinking, but I'm usually on the lookout for beautiful or interesting shots, for human moments (people laughing, hugging, shaking hands, etc), for interesting moments (close-ups of things blowing in the wind, people preparing food, candles being lit, etc) or for things that need recording for the sake of the memory.
So, how the hell to use a slider? My current list of moves is pretty small:
-- Reveal. The shots everyone uses in wedding films are coming around a wall to reveal a bride getting ready, and coming around some chairs to reveal an aisle, perhaps with people walking down it.
-- Movement down a line, which in effect is lots of reveals. For instance, a line of bridesmaids' shoes or groomsmen's cuff links.
-- Combination move: combine the slider with a tilt/pan/focus pull or even zoom. For instance, coming around someone's letterbox and pulling focus to the house as an establishing shot. Doing a wide-angle low-angle shot of a dress, and dollying into it while tilting up to try to create some sort of feeling of wonder. The ability to combine techniques in this way is a big advantage sliders have over Steadicams.
-- Keyframe to keyframe, like a dolly.
-- Pushing in and pulling out, like a dolly. Very rarely: pushing through something, like a bead curtain, or creating the illusion that you're passing through fence bars or similar.
-- Tracking through something, with objects in the foreground to create visual interest, like a dolly.
So the list of ways we consciously use a slider isn't at all large, and I personally struggle to find ways to use them. Usually it's someone else who handles the slider. I'm very, very curious to hear how other people think about using sliders and what sorts of shots they're getting.
Couple of final random thoughts:
* Most wedding films that use sliders will have the slider positioned on the ground. It's a pain in the butt to tripod-mount the thing and run around with it, though this probably gives you more flexibility.
* Cinevate DSLR slider is about the right length. Any longer, and you're hitting guests, you're getting ridiculous see-sawing when you centre-mount, you're making carrying equipment a huge pain...
* Sliders is an events environment can be fantastically fiddly -- and you just know, as you set them up, or pack them away, that you're missing fleeting moments. You also have a higher chance of damaging the slider, as I've done, if you need to detach the head every time you pack it up or assemble it -- much better to keep it assembled, for instance to purchase a bag that fits slider with head attached.
* Our normal setup doesn't allow for tracking over something, for vertical mounting, or for getting good shots while the whole slider is mounted semi-vertically.
* Positioning the slider at 45 degrees to the subject, rather than parallel or perpendicular, seems sometimes to create interesting effects.
* Many people seem to use sliding moves with no rhyme or reason and just to add a bit of icing to the cake...
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