shooting in a vehicle (car)

E

EVIL_HOMER

Active member
I will be shooting a scene in a vehicle (4WD) with 2 occupants in the front and 2 occupants in the back conversing. (driving along a desserted highway)

Any Techniques & Tips for shooting in and around a moving car would be greatly appreciated

Has any one used car mounts? (hood & side windows) and what are your experiences and advice?
 
Day or Night?

If Day, use big white cards to reflect light into the car. I;m not sure what the time of day but play with bouncing/reflecting light onto the actors. Gives more a natural look plus it dosen't require electricity.

Night, maybe a portable light with some diffusion. Really you should experiment and position lights where you think looks good. Sorry if this isn't much help. Plus its 3 in the morning.
 
I would agree that lighting will be a challenge. My advice is to try and keep as much natural light as possible, since in a moving vehicle the light angles/reflections are always changing. This will give it a more natural feel. As for car mounts, I have never used one. I have heard a cinesaddle (or similiar device) with some ratchet cargo straps can work wonders. Car mounts are rather spendy, but will deffinetly give you way more control. Check this site out, they have a pretty large selection of car mounts...

http://store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/carmounts.html

Above all, make sure that whatever mount you're using, you ALWAYS attatch a safety cord or strap to your camera. And also, if the camera is going to be mounted externally, it would be a good idea to cover it with a plastic bag or similar device to prevent it from getting road grime on it, or getting rock or rain damage. Hope this helps! Oh and another thing, a good way to get shots from another vehicle is to use a truck and suspend your camera from a bungee cord while sitting in the bed. This should reduce vibration and suspend the camera making if a fairly smooth picture. You may want to let some air out of the tires too to give a smoother ride.
 
I recently shot a bunch of car shots. I had great results by setting in the back of a extended cab pick up and shooting thru the sliding glass window, into the truck behind us. I just rested the camera on the base of the window and shot. I had a polarizer so there was no glare issue to worry about, it looked great.
 
i have the 3 point car mount from filtools (the yahoo store link that was posted above)

its great, it uses these heavy duty vacuum cups where there is a red line to warn you if you need to repump the suction.

doing front and back will get tricky, could take a lot of blocking, i would draw it out on a piece of paper and get it all written out that way and use that sheet when the time comes to have four people sitting around so you don't forget your shot list.

for lights, i would goto home depot and get 2 or 4 of the ge basic lights, they are like 18" (whatever is the shortest one)

they put out a good color but you can also search on the web for the bulb model which is written on the bulb and you want the highest (i forget the term but search for messages from walter graff, he is the lighting guru) and you can use these flourescents with a simple inverter.

you can put them below the talent and the light will eminate up.

you can probably hide four of these, one for each actor.

i'm going to be working on a feature in june which will be 80% car shots, it follow 4 characters from dusk to dawn and i'm planning on using the same setup i mentioned above.

matthew
 
I believe the term you are looking for is Color Rendering Index, or CRI. Walter says that the ones he uses are fine the way they are, but adding a 1/8 minus green gel wouldn't hurt.
 
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