I'm going to be shooting a conversation on bikes - any tips?

[John Scott]

I've done some shooting before but I've never tried to shoot while actors were talking on bikes.

Does anyone have any advice (or found something that worked/didn't) after doing this themselves?

 

[Joe Calabrese]

Keep the 180º rule. Keep the camera stable: use steadicam or dolly when moving the camera. Cover all the usual angles, then maybe think of some creative ones, just for shits and giggles (if you have the time).

 

[clang]

I presume the actors will be riding the bikes (or at least pretending to), as opposed to talking while stopped? Make sure you have a nice out-of-focus background, to avoid continuity issues. Hmmm, other than some establishing shots showing them actualy riding, you could fake quite a lot of the closer shots (e.g. have both the bike and camera being towed by a vehicle), which would make shooting easier.

Definitely do some practice shots with a couple of extras riding bikes and just randomly talking, in the actual location if at all possible - that will show you how easy/hard it will be to shoot steady footage of them, and also how good/bad your sound will be.

 

[djkarn105]

you could fake quite a lot of the closer shots (e.g. have both the bike and camera being towed by a vehicle), which would make shooting easier.

Or you could have them ride down a slight incline so they don't have to worry about pedaling.

Also, you're going to get some nasty wind noise on their mics if they go too fast so watch out for that.

 

[John Scott]

djkarn I was planning on using ADR for this scene.

clang - what would you use to mount a bike to a trailer?

 

[polfilmblog]

I've seen a bike scene shot with the cameraman riding, sitting at the very back of a pickup truck, with a steadicam on. Pretty slow. But nice footage, smooth.

 

[clang]

two best ways to mount a bike to a trailer:
- find a low trailer and secure a stationary bike stand on the trailer bed. So the entire bike will be stationary on top of the trailer, but will still look like it's moving against the background when you tow the trailer.
- or talk to an engineering firm about custom-building a towing clamp that can connect a towing vehicle and a bicycle, probably attaching just below the handlebars.
In both cases, you'll need to frame your shots carefully to avoid spoiling the illusion, but that shouldn't be too difficult.

And in both cases, talking to your local bicycle shop may help with finding suitable equipment.

 

[adamrahn]

I think the trailer route would be best, if you can't rent one or borrow one then having the actors actually ride down a street while you get shots from the back of a car/truck would be good too. attaching a towing clamp to a bike could be dangerous if you don't have proper working knowledge of a bike - a small bit of lateral pressure could easily shatter a frame/fork/etc - as Clang said talk to your local bike shop before doing anything like this.
you might also be able to talk a bike shop into letting you borrow stationary bike trainers to put the bikes on when they are on the trailer to allow the actors to pedal and keep the realism of the motions that come along with riding.

whatever route you choose best of luck and make sure your actors wear helmets

cheers,
Adam

 

[bruce southerland]

Here's a photo of a bike rig.

 

[John Scott]

Oohh.. that's cool. Any tips on how to make that?

 

[Tommy K]

I shot a bike scene with a lot of dialogue going on between a girl and her boyfriend, and they were riding the bikes like you normally would on a leisurely ride. No trailers were used.

We shot on an old country road and did quite a few takes. The main shot was from the back of a golfcart with a boom pole and shotgun. The couple followed the cart. We than got shots along side of them, on both sides, and than got POV shots from each person on the bikes. Also got coverage of them riding by the camera, to and from etc. It worked out very well and wasn't that hard. The edit looked very natural and flowed nicely... Give yourself plenty of coverage and some cutaways to fix any continuity problems.

 

[pwyll]

Tommy - would the golfcart engine be discernable in the audio?

 

[Tommy K]

Tommy - would the golfcart engine be discernable in the audio?

The cart we used was electric and was actually fairly quiet, and kept it far enough away from the bikes and shotgun mic as to not be a big issue. We did roll some footage of the just the cart moving along in order to do noise reduction in post... just in case. Use as long a boompole as you can handle and a very directional mic.

I have also shot another scene of a biker from the hatchback of a car using the same setup. The car was fairly quiet as it idled along and he did coasting whenever possible.


Another good option would be using a tricycle or pull a bike travel trailer with another bike...

 

[John Scott]

Tommy you don't have any footage of your scene on Vimeo or anything do you?

I may have access to a cart so that could play well.

 

[Tommy K]

Tommy you don't have any footage of your scene on Vimeo or anything do you?

I may have access to a cart so that could play well.

Sorry, these scenes aren't available... even to me... we shot them for a couple of European companies several years ago. One scene in Amsterdam with the shows female host riding a bike, while explaining the tradition of why everyone rides a bike. This was shot from the back of a car. As I recall the cities ambient sounds that the mic picked up blended into the background and the car we used wasn't even an issue.

The other bike scene I did was shot outside Budapest Hungary in the countryside using an electric golf cart.

Regardless of which camera vehicle method you go with, with some good planning and varied shot selection, most of the dialogue could be inserted using just audio captured on the location while they are riding the bikes, or even ADR, just make sure you have lots of ambient location sound recorded as well. Just concern yourself with the "close ups", "POV" and other parts where they are clearly visible speaking. But than again that depends on what your scene calls for. You have a few options to approach this scene depending on what your shot list calls for. Going wireless is one of those options...

 

[Noel Evans]

How many cameras do you have access to? You could build like a three camera rig at the angles you want and grab it all in one.

 

[John Scott]

If this is going to be shot in the middle of the day with the bikes riding free would you even try and light it or just have them bike into the sun?

 

[bruce southerland]

If this is going to be shot in the middle of the day with the bikes riding free would you even try and light it or just have them bike into the sun?

If you have to shoot in the middle of the day, you should try to let the actors bike in a direction so that the light is most flattering-preferably an angle where the sun is hitting their hair and shoulders
and not their faces-if that's possible. If it's not possible, you'll need some lighting/reflection to light up the actor's eye sockets. Sometimes-even with bounced light- it's distracting to see only the actor's
eye sockets dark. You could possibly have them wear some type of hat, and then shoot/bounce light up under the brims of the hats. I've seen that done many times.