Sideways dolly / pan

legrevedotcom

legrevedotcom

Veteran
So lately, I've been having clients who want those sideways dolly moves, where you move parallel to the subject.

This is something going on tv so I have to render out in 25fps.

But the thing is, I can't for the life of me work out how they got no jerkyness in the spots they did last year. We are talking 2 sideways moves of around 1 meter in less than 1 second (time restricted because of total spot length... so no room there).

We shot on the FS7. But technically... isn't this just a question of mechanics? I mean, I can't really escape that jerkyness can I? 1 metre with 25 frames, that would be a frame each 4 cm of move. Would it help to down the shutter speed and introduce a slight motion blur during the movement?

Same goes for pans right? God I hate these "let's look around" shots :(

Panning video is here... (2 notes... not graded and I had to shoot 50fps because the client wanted to be able to slow the footage as well...just great, so ofc when peopel are moving in "normal" speed the footage is at 200% thus losing more frames)
Password is "kam0104"

 
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(That would be a pan, not a dolly: the camera is not moving, parallax movement is not there)
(I can't help much here, except to say that I'm always having trouble with this as well; playing with distance to the subject and focal length, and with the distance to the foreground obstacles, should be the trick; but I really haven't sorted this out yet)
 
Ah yes... that particular clip is pan. But the other videos (cant show them yet), are strict dollying sideways along a table with products on it.
 
If the shot can begin moving and doesn't need to start from being static/feather off at the end then 1m/1 second is achievable.
 
ggrantly said:
50fps ?

Grant
Click to expand...

But I'm delivering in 25 fps? So I end up chopping off frames anyways? I have a fixed length of 10 secs to complete 1 slight dolly, then rest for 1 sec, then dolly fast, then rest again for 1 sec, then dolly fast again and rest for final 1 sec before the 3-4 sec plate that I cross fade to :S
So I'm not free to take my time...
 
What I think they are saying is you need to start before you get to the part you want, dolly through, and go past there. Then edit out the beginning and end of the dolly shot. That way you get a steady speed through the dolly shot with out the jerkiness at the beginning and end.

But what do I know, never done a dolly shot in my life; but it works with pans.
 
If you're shooting very shallow DOF the path/track of the shot has to be curved so you always maintain the same distance from the object you're filming....for maintaining smooth movement a motorised movement may be the sollution as its repeatable and identical take after take....ifootage has a motor drive for their shark slider that will hold a camera up to 17lbs (I think)...their slider is obviously straight though...a Dana dolly can run on curved track, but that would depend on the size of the radius...and if you're making the move manually, a good dolly grip would be the person to do it
Edit: if you're just moving along one plane you can use the i footage motor drive....cheesy cam does a demo video so you can do a google search and see if it's suffiently programmable to work for you...
 
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