tracking focus on dolly shot

smelni

smelni

Veteran
I know this situation screams for a follow focus device but that is not in my budget so i was wondering how everyone would approach this shot in terms of focus - i think the 24p focus assist will be too slow.

I will have a dolly set up with about 8 feet of track. The dolly will start on the right . The actor will be walking from way past the left side at a 45 degree angle to the plane of the dolly track. As he comes toward the track i will dolly left and then follow him by panning as the dolly moves to the left of him. Then he will walk away from the track 45 degrees to the right - perform some action and then walk back towards the camera.

Hopefully this makes some sense - how would you approach it to maintain focus?
 
Keep a wide DOF, or arrange the dolly shot so the actor is always the same distance from the camera (if possible with your setup.)
 
Break your shot into "key frames". For example, if the actor starts at 10' away and move to 5' away, that will be 2 key frames. Get your focus for the first key frame, and mark the lens barrel with a china marker. Get the focus on the second key frame and mark that point on the lens barrel. Then you are just follow focusing between the two marks. It still takes a lot of skill, but atleast you'll have solid start and end points as long as your actor hits his marks and your dolly grip keeps the same distance between the dolly and the actor.

Dan
www.DVcameraRigs.com
 
you don't neccesarily need to mark your camea, if you can just work through it and figure out what the focus setting needs to be when you start and what it needs to read when your done.

then have someone next to the camera with the lcd flipped around so they can see it and have them turn the focus ring slowly so they can start at the first number and end at the second number.

with a little bit of practice they should be able to get from the first number to the second number over the same course of time as the actor covers the length/path of his walk.

matthew
 
Great suggestions guys...I'm looking into this myself...
Can you make a D.I.Y. follow focus...? As soon as I saw one I thought LEGO...
 
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