Jumping From a Two Stroy Window...

[zepheadjc]

Hi, I'm in production of this movie where two charachters are fighting and find themselves on the second floor of the house. So Charachter A hits Charachter B and Runs into another room, opens a window and as he is hearing footsteps jumps.... Now the Hard Part the jump. What I did was I put my shutter speed really low creating a blur, I tilted down extremely fast and when the charachter got wiwthin range of Charachter A I had Him jump and fall down.
Now this looked pretty good but I want it to look better. Is there any way to do this, should I use better sound Fx, if so where do I get them? Or is There any better trick for the effect. Or how can I build the suspence up enough to make it look belivable?
Anything will help Thanks.

 

[mrWr0ng]

Are you talking cinematography here? I shot something along the lines where the character had to take a big jump, so what I did was shoot them jumping halfway (in your case, leaping TO the window), then shot the second part of the sequence from the ground, pointing up as she leaped overhead, in your case you'd set the camera near the first floor and say have the person jump out a first floor window and over. then the third shot was from behind as she "landed" on the ground. My style is very cutaway heavy, so that may not be satisfactory, but that's how I would approach it.

 

[Neil Adamson]

Are you talking cinematography here? I shot something along the lines where the character had to take a big jump, so what I did was shoot them jumping halfway (in your case, leaping TO the window), then shot the second part of the sequence from the ground, pointing up as she leaped overhead, in your case you'd set the camera near the first floor and say have the person jump out a first floor window and over. then the third shot was from behind as she "landed" on the ground. My style is very cutaway heavy, so that may not be satisfactory, but that's how I would approach it.

I've done this a bunch of times for Stunt Demo work, It works well but sometimes I've felt like its missing something. Not seeing the shark can be a great for an audience, but when it jumps out at that final moment, it can be even better.

Probably your best bet is to have three separate shots of the action, one of the jump through the window from behind (inside), another of him coming out the window and falling (outside), and the last of him landing (whether he lands on his feet or not).

The middle shot is usually what people shy away from b/c of safety. however it can be very helpful (esp if you slow down your shutter speed). probably your best bet for that would be a stunt crew, two-stories is a small enough jump to not be qualified as a high fall with most Stunt companies and your rate would be less.

However, if you're on a tight budget and your actors don't mind taking a risk you could always go the box route and do the actual jump...but i wouldn't recomend this at all, I'd say go with a stunt company. Check out local ones on the web or go to (if you're in a bigger city) the city's film office for a book on all of the local ones. You might be able to negotiate something low-budget with them.

Good luck!