Shooting from a real helicopter (not RC)

Jawa Ex Machina

Jawa Ex Machina

Veteran
We're getting close to production of MARIANNE, and the first day involves a lot of really important and really expensive shots including aerial shots from a real helicopter.

Does anyone have any experience with this?
Will rolling shutter be a problem?
Do I need some kind of stabilization rig, like a fig rig or something?
 
Hi,

I've had experience from a chopper with the DVX. And I must say its very difficult to keep a steady shot and you'd most definitely have jello if you don't stabilize. If your throwing the money down to rent a bird, you might as well invest in renting a gryo.

Also, they're likely going to open the side door for you to shoot out of so factor in wind at 150mph! It all depends on what kind of shot your going to get and how fast you'll need to travel to get the shot. Are you following a car, person, superman? :) To combat the wind factor you'll want to take off any lens hood, or anything else that will act a like a sail. Tuck your elbows into your chest and hold the camera with two hands. Honestly if your on a low budget, I'd just skip the gryo and go with the hpx170 or hmc150 and get your aerial shot, you won't need the shallow DOF that a DSLR has.
 
We're doing basically three shots from the air.
Two of them are following a car for about maybe three to five km.
The third is a collision on a bridge. One car drives into another car that stands still.

Yes we do have a stunt team, and we do have all necessary permits.
 
most heli pilots/companies experienced with production can advise you on this. sticking a 7d in a nose mount gyro would probably be impractical. imho your best bet would be a tyler mount which is kind of a big arm quasi steadicam thing. you operate it from the back seat and shoot out the side door. these are much cheaper to rent and far less compilcated than a nose gyro.

don't even think about trying to just hand hold any cmos/rolling shutter cam. the jello will be horrible even on a wide lens. i have succesfully smoothcam'd handheld heli footage but only with ccd cams shooting fast shutter speeds.
 
gyro stabilization works best. my heli footage on my web site is hpx170 . i am now shooting with the 5d m2 and just made a mount for the r22 heli. will post some 5d shots as soon as the weather changes. www.hdimages.ca look for the seaplane footage in movies.
 
There are a lot of more variables shooting from a helicopter. Not all helicopters are created equal for aerial photography, a four bladed articulating rotor, like the kind you find on a Hugh's 500 or some Bell Jet Rangers are the smoothest. Two bladed main rotors often have both vertical and lateral vibrations. The key is isolating the camera from the vibration.

Pin the door open and configure the seats so that your facing out the side, not the front. If you don't have the money for a stabilized mount then, a way that I like, is to support the camera from the roof of the aircraft using a bungee cord. Make a small harness out of some "strong" string that is looped around the base of your lens that is attached to the bungee. This provides a nice center of gravity and is easy to pivot around. Also make sure your bungee is loose enough to provide about 5 or 6 inches of smooth travel and strong enough that it doesn't bottom out.

Grip the camera firmly but keep your arms as relaxed as practicable, they are used as shock absorbers but don't think about it, it will happen naturally as you look to get your shots. You are not going to be able to put the camera up to your face so using any kind of loop will not work and don't put anything on the camera that can fall off. Make sure the battery and card compartments are taped closed and both you and your camera are tethered to the aircraft with some sort of safety harness. This is not only for your safety but for anyone on the ground in case you dropped your camera.

Ask the pilot to fly slightly out of trim, this will reduce the angle of shot you get towards the front of the aircraft but it will move the slipstream farther away from the open door keeping you out of the wind. Helicopters can fly fast or slow it all depends on what you want. In reality of your trying to get a shot forward of the helicopter you will have to lean out into the wind, if your hand holding this shot you can't realistically expect to go any faster than 25 or 30 knots relative to the wind.

So an important point here is talk to the pilot, a lot. Before during and after the shoot. The pilot is actually the camera guy, your just kind of an intelligent camera mount. So both of you need to understand what your trying to accomplish. Also be aware that depending on how much aerial photography experience the pilot has, pilots love to "yank and bank," lot's of fun, looks cool but you don't generally get the shots you want. If you need to go to your left, is that a coordinated turn, a skid, or pivot? If your thinking a coordinated turn, where centrifugal force will hold you in, and start leaning out and he does a skid, you might find yourself dangling from a skid. Not likely, but the point is whether you want or dolly left or pan left its up to you to make sure that the two of you are using the same nomenclature. You say what you need him to do, he/she does it, no surprises.

Finally, take it slowly, especially at first. Take a few minutes to get a feel for one another and how each of you react to commands and how the aircraft moves. The simple rule is the slower you go the better chance you have of getting the shot. The faster the airspeed then vibration increases, , reaction times need to be faster and stress goes up.

For a support, I use this: http://www.daframegallery.com/7D2.jpg - without the matte box and viewfinder. I remove the shoulder pad and run my right arm up the middle and grip the support through the accessory box. It basically becomes and extension of my arm. I rotate both handles up and use the left grip to both steady the camera, and this is also where I velcro the PTT (push to talk) switch to communicate with the pilot. As I mentioned earlier the weight is supported by the bungee.

Use as wide angel a lens as you can. You might also want to experiment with stabilized lenses. An easy way to practice, is out of the side door of a minivan.

Good luck. Aerial photography is really a lot of fun once you get past the noise and the nerves...
 
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Thanks for all the help guys.
I just talked to the pilot, he's on his way from the UK, and we'll talk more in a few days. I'll see what kind of helicopter we'll use.

I don't think there's a place to mount a camera on the actual chopper, but I know the guy is experienced when it comes to this sort of stuff.
 
Generally there are lots of places to rig a bungee from the roof.

The first time I did that people kind of laughed at me but I've been flying for more than thirty years and I've seen just about every mount from high end professional to DIY. Its amazing the footage you can get using a bungee cord. But it takes practice.
 
I second the bungee idea, I've heard it used from more than one pro, and it seems to be a cheap, yet effective stabilization. You really should not be using a DSLR for these shots considering you don't have any aerial experience and the (tyler) rig will be expensive to rent as well as tweak it to work with the chopper. Go CCD with a bungee
 
I filmed from the Passanger window an airline flight during take off and the Footage is a bit jumpy but solid. once in the Air it was smooth shooting
 
Ok I've finally got some more info on this.

We'll be flying with an EC120 Colibri, which got three blades.

The pilot is experienced with this sort of thing, which is good since I'm not and neither is anyone else on my crew. We'll go take a look at the chopper on Monday night or Tuesday afternoon.
Aparently the side door slides open on the left side, and whenever he's flown before with a cameraman, they've never used a bungee. Instead they've used a saftey strap of some kind from inside the helicopter to the camera, and the cameraman has shot handheld from his shoulder.

I'm looking to borrow a bigger HD camera for this instead of the 7D, I think it's a JVC, but I'll know more on Monday. Hopefully, I'll be able to bring it to the helicopter on Tuesday and try it out. I'll also bring the 7D just to see.
 
Yeah the camera I can get hold of for the chopper shots is a JVC GY HD-100.
Haven't tried it yet, but I'll make some tests with it asap. According to this page it's at least 1080p 24fps.

Anyone have any experience with this camera?
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
We're getting close to production of MARIANNE, and the first day involves a lot of really important and really expensive shots including aerial shots from a real helicopter.

Does anyone have any experience with this?
Will rolling shutter be a problem?
Do I need some kind of stabilization rig, like a fig rig or something?
Click to expand...

Ive used both jvc hd100 and hd200 on planes

Use 60P so you can easily stabilize it in post.

For the hd100 i had to make do with 480 60p mixed with hd footage later on. Good thing the HD200 already do 60p 720.

f8-f16 if possible.

My experience is with cessnas 4 seaters.

n1290214697_30323559_8059781.jpg
 
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the hd 100 is 720p only. you also can't shoot 720/60p to tape, only hd-sdi out to an external recorder.

this type of camera is really meant for live broadcast.
 
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longshanks said:
the hd 100 is 720p only. you also can't shoot 720/60p to tape, only hd-sdi out to an external recorder.

this type of camera is really meant for live broadcast.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? On the link I found about the camera, it says "Full High Definition (HD) progressive recording at 24 frames per second".

Are there different versions of this camera?
 
Jawa Ex Machina said:
Are you sure? On the link I found about the camera, it says "Full High Definition (HD) progressive recording at 24 frames per second".

Are there different versions of this camera?
Click to expand...


Positive. Read here for verification if you want. http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/jvc-gy-hd-series-camera-systems/53911-can-shoot-60p.html

Full HD recording is only available on these cameras through a live HD/SDI out feed to 1080. In fact the whole line of these cameras are limited to 720p for tape recording. HDV tape is simply not a robust enough codec to handle a 1920x1080 stream, unless they severely compromised the quality by compressing the crap out of it to fit on a HDV/DV tape. (Hence 1440x1080 HDV format in other brands of cameras, i.e. Canon)

And yes, there are different versions of the camera, the 200 and 250. Both which shoot in 720/60p to HDV tape but in a long-GOP format which is going to be really compressed.
You should take a look at this: http://usjvc.com/faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=2&id=144&artlang=en
 
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Thanks for the warning, longshanks.

After digging around a bit, I've also found a Sony HD 1000 for rent here in town.
We're very limited due to this being an isolated small town, and there's no film making community here. The guy who owns it says he's also got a rig of some kind that'll help me stabilize it in the chopper.
I'll take a look at the helicopter today and the camera with rig next week.
 
Jawa,

I also have the sony hd1000,

You are better off using the JVC compared to that. Thats 1080i single chip, and very small sensor.
 
up in the air, time is money, you need to be able to adjust framing, focus, and iris very fast.

You can't do that with the sony hd1000.


Heres a project using hd100 with the aerials shot at 480 60P uprezzed to 720p , note that the 480p of the jvc is much better in quality than "traditional" dv sd footage.

[size=+2]BBC 60sec TVC HD[/size]
 
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