Faking a car ride
I watched part of “Dead Men Tell Tales” on the Dead Zone TV series tonight. And I learned a great way to film a car scene.
Shots in moving cars can be difficult, especially when shooting through the windshield. You have problems with sky, etc., reflections. You interfere with the vision on the driver increasing the risk of an accident. And their is a problem with anchoring the camera and the cameraman.
Normal procedure by the big boys is to shoot the car on a trailer. The camera is mounted to the back of the tow vehicle. The bed of a truck gives a place for the crew (though in some states, riding in the back of a pickup is against the law — like Utah). You also have the opportunity to put a shade over the windshield to cut reflections.
In the episode I watched, all this trouble was avoided by shooting the car while parked.
A character was driving someone in a fancy car that had venetian blind in the back window. When you can’t see out the back window, it’s hard to see the car isn’t moving.
It was supposed to be at night so it was fairly dark inside the car. The lights for the characters had someone waving their hands in front of them so they flickered as if passing other cars and street lights.
To add to the effect, the camera moved slightly up and down and side to side. It wasn’t much. My guess is that camera was on a tripod with a fluid head. It was just enough movement to look like the car was moving. But it wasn’t.
The next time you want to shoot someone in a car, maybe the car doesn’t have to be moving at all. It’s a lot simpler.
– Rich Pulham
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