Shooting a scene in a car without a car rig

DeadChannel

DeadChannel

Okay, so, I'm close to moving into pre-production into a brand new film that I'll be shooting around the 20th of December. However, there's a bit of a problem.

The script is approx. seven pages, and most of that is set inside a car. Now, during about half of this, the car is parked. I've tried to get most of the dialogue out of the way while the car is parked because of audio, but it still concerns me. Filming inside a parked car isn't really a huge problemo, but I don't have access to any type of car rig, and I'm worried about the moving scenes.

I intend to shoot this practically. This is for a few reasons.
A) I don't have the experience to properly pull off green screen. I think that practical will probably end up looking better.
B) I really prefer to put actors in actual situations. Driving is part of my actor's performance, so it's easier to have him actually drive.

In addition, I feel that we'll be able to pull this off safely. The actor is a very experienced driver, and we won't be going anywhere with too much traffic. I'd be more worried about going into a busy area, but that just isn't an issue here.

I'm concerned about audio. The car that we'll probably be using is either an older Subaru or a 90s Japanese Sedan. I'll be looking into which one runs quieter, but is there anything I can be thinking about to help get good audio? I won't be able to tow the vehicle, so it'll be under its own power.

Furthermore, I want to start thinking about camera placement. Has anyone done this before? How can I go about displaying the full range of emotion in the performances? The camera has to be inside the vehicle at all times (no money for rigs etc.), so how can I avoid the whole thing just being the backs of people's heads? I have access to a 17mm lens, but the crop on my camera (BMPCC) means that this isn't all that wide. I have a few different cameras that I can borrow, all of which have larger sensors, but the BlackMagic is by a pretty decent margin the best of the lot. Should I sacrifice image quality for the ability to shoot wider?

Thanks to anyone who can help. You rule.
 
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so how can I avoid the whole thing just being the backs of people's heads?
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They can drive in reverse the whole shoot, right?

for a few reasons
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What's the third reason?

So let me get you right. You want to know how to do it properly without doing it properly?

I've done a couple of shoots like this. They rarely work well. While I don't know your script and what you need to achieve, it's been my experience that there's not really enough space to work with inside a car to do the job well.

You may need to consider another script that you can execute properly that is within your budget.
 
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a 17 mm lens is going to make the shots look too wide. There will be barrel distortion in the actors faces which will make them look unappealing and unprofessionally cinematic.

I would recommend probably a 50 mm lens or maybe 35 mm won't be so bad with barrel distortion but I would test it first.

I am yet to do a car scene myself, so I am not sure, which lens would be best, but I can say that 17mm has too much barrel distortion.
 
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@Sweetie

I'm looking at reworking the script so that more dialogue takes place in the parked car. Hopefully, I can get to the point that anything while the car is moving is minimal. I've also decided to go for the Subaru because it has more space, even though the honda is more "filmic".

I'm going to do some tests w/r/t camera placement once my lens comes in, but you might be right. We'll see.

@harmonica44

That simply isn't the case, because of the 3x crop factor that the Blackmagic's sensor has. To wit, if I were to use a 50mm lens, it would be equivalent to a 150mm lens on a full frame camera, which is completely unusable. The same goes for 35mm, which would leave me at equivalent 105mm. I've been using a 28mm lens up to this point (w/o noticeable barrel distortion), but even that's far too long for my camera. Hence the 17mm lens, which puts me at equivalent 51mm.

Shooting on a 50mm lens on this camera is silly to begin with. Doing it inside the car is completely ludicrous and undoable.
 
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My just-completed feature Detours (see www.detoursfeaturefilm.com ) is a road trip movie with a lot shot in a car.

Leaving aside the hostess trays that attach to the windows - which aren't terribly expensive but I guess you can't afford even that? - I think the best you can do is shoot multiple takes with the camera in different places within the car. So when it's in the front passenger seat, the driver can turn to face the camera some of the time, and vice versa when it's in the driver's seat during the seated portion. Front passenger seat can also shoot toward the back seat passengers. Then edit it all together.
 
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@mlesemann:

Yeah, I guess that'd be the way to go about it. Probably be tough shooting profile shots of the passenger seat, though, because I can't op camera and drive. I'll do some tests to see if I can get it to work.

@sfoster
Yeah, that a good idea and I'll probably use it, but I don't think it's something that I can do for the whole film.

@WalterB:
I'll think about that, because I have some contacts w/ a production company that has smoke machines, but I'm not sure it'll really match the tone of the short. Also, in the past I've not been super successful with smoke, but I'd be willing to give it a shot.
 
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Alright, this might be really dumb, I'm a composer, not a camera/film expert at all, but....gopros? Like, how deadmau5 films those car interviews he does. And his car is super loud, he's practically racing through the entire thing. Maybe even headband mounts for alternating pov shots, or something. Will gopros even look good enough for film quality?

In terms of recording sound in the car, maybe look into small lavalier mics with small cardioid patterns that the actors can wear. If you get the live audio performance close enough, you can always fix small problems in post, av dialogue, etc.
 
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Sorry may bad, I had no idea that the Blackmagic was cropped 3 sized down in the sensor compared to a lot of other cameras. Why is that with the blackmagic?

With the gopros though, they still have a lot of barrel distortion, so it would be unprofessional looking, for shooting close up in a car, I would say. For sound, one person recommended to me once, to pull the car with a truck, while the car engine is off. You can pull it on a cart or something. That's what I was told but I am not sure if that would be good enough since there is still sound around the car, with other traffic outside.
 
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Yeah, GoPros aren't really for shooting whole films on. They're fine for the occasional shot, but the barrel distortion plus the videoy look probably won't work out. I'm probably goingntonbe testing some audio setups soon, so we'll see.

@harmonica44
Different cameras have different sensor sizes. Granted, the one on the Blackmagic is a bit idiosyncratic, but most dslrs are already cropped compared to like full frame 35mm. I think APS-C is pretty common.

I probably can't get a truck to tow the car behind. I'll ask around, but it seems doubtful. I might have another solution, though. I might try to shoot most stuff with the car coasting down a slight hill. The area I'm shooting has a lot of these types of gradual hills.

If both of those options fall through, I'll try to get the best audio I can and then do adr if I have to. I want to avoid that, though.
 
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GoPros aren't really for shooting whole films on
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Hate to break it to you, you're shooting a 7 page short. The GoPro is a very good option. If I were you, I wouldn't discard it that quickly if I were you....

the barrel distortion
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Easy fix.

plus the videoy look probably won't work out.
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Isn't the BMPCC video?

In regards to the audio, test, test, test. Your best options are probably going to be a couple of good Lav microphones like the COS-11d. Without knowing what you're shooting, it's pretty much impossible to suggest anymore... but I foresee the issues will become apparant when you come to edit, not wen you're recording.
 
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From H44:
one person recommended to me once, to pull the car with a truck, while the car engine is off. You can pull it on a cart or something. That's what I was told but I am not sure if that would be good enough since there is still sound around the car, with other traffic outside.
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What you're talking about is a process trailer. It works well but is (a) expensive to rent and (b) not simple to use. Yes there's sound from outside, but that's fine provided that you use lavs on the actors.

We did it in my just-completed feature Detours; here's the bts that we put together about how & why we did it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t2eZAxt9gI&feature=youtu.be
 
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