Filming inside of a car?

teamzissou · Mar 29, 2015

How do you film scenes from this angle inside of a car:

How do you mount the camera? How do you avoid the reflection of the camera in the windshield?

Thank you.

WhiteOpus · Mar 29, 2015

searched "shooting a moving car scene through the windshield" on google. this was literally the first hit.

http://www.cineman.co.uk/car.html

mlesemann · Mar 29, 2015

I'm in post-prod on road-trip movie (writer/producer not the director fyi), so as you can imagine there are a lot of scenes in the car. We used a process trailer for some shots coming in the windshield - with very clean glass! You can see a short video about it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t2eZAxt9gI&feature=youtu.be

We did a lot of shooting with the camera & the dp in the back seat as well, but my personal favorite in terms of quality of the shots (based on the rough cut that we just finished) was the use of a hostess tray for the camera. You can see it in the photo at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/qgk55fv

Alcove Audio · Mar 30, 2015

You're also going to need lavs and plant mics, and/or even use lavs as plant mics. And if you have back seat passengers you'll also need wireless.

mrpink89 · Mar 30, 2015

man you guys ever see children of men? that's a crazy scene when they're driving

sfoster · Mar 30, 2015

At 20 seconds into the video I have a shot like that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo5Yl9kyn8k

The best way is with a suction cup mount. But I didn't have one or the money to spend on it.

So I drove a second car in front of the first one and had the camera guy in the back of the truck. Luckily we had a truck or I would have stuck him in the trunk to get the shot

And yes I cleaned the inside and outside of the windshield before filming.
I stuck an audio recorder inside of the cup holder between them for dialogue.

mus · Mar 30, 2015

hang a guy outside, holding the camera. Tell him if he gets a good shot, he'll live

Alcove Audio · Mar 31, 2015

teamzissou said:

What film is this from, and who is the actor on the left?

stef · Mar 31, 2015

Alcove Audio said:
What film is this from, and who is the actor on the left?

I'm pretty sure that's Wayne's World. It's definitely Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey doing either the movie or a skit.

They did a movie spinoff from a SNL skit.

Party on, Garth!

edit: here ya go
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe30habM0ls

stef · Mar 31, 2015

teamzissou said:
How do you mount the camera? How do you avoid the reflection of the camera in the windshield?

Old school was to put a movie screen behind the car and project the background, then have people on the sides occasionally moving lights down the side as if it was the headlights of other traffic passing, and other crew rocking the car now and then.

I actually wired sound for a car, and planted a mic on the rear-view mirror. The crew had cleaned the car and applied armor-all, which made planting a mic HELL since tape wouldn't stick anymore.

I also wired the actors with lavs, and the plant was basically a boom.

I then passed the wires around so that they couldn't be seen by the camera, and hid the transmitters taped behind the seats.

The sound mixer was in a separate car, close enough to pick up the transmitters.