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Acceleration vs. constant movement


Alan Greene

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I did a shot in which there was a wheel chair in front of me and I was walking backwards in a hallway of a dismissed mental hospital, very very nice location, a guy was pushing the wheel chair with a girl sitting on it. First couple of takes we do it at the same pace (camera and actors) than the director changes idea and wants me to run away after the first half of the hallway to give a particular feeling of abandoning. I think in this case different pace between camera and actors give a particular sense to the scene, that couldn't be achieved at the same pace. It was for a video not fiction, but it did work. What people think? was a mistake the different speed or was a good idea?

 

regards and peace,

 

matteo

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Hi Matteo,

 

I think it's usually interesting to vary the size of the subject in shot. It can be anything from dull to dramatic to hold the subject in the same frame in a moving shot, and that may not concur with with what you want to achieve.

 

If you are happy with the shot, it was probably a good idea. How about that for non-committal answer?

 

All the best,

 

Chris

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Hi Chris,

 

thanks for the feed back, I'm sorry but I didn't get your last question... what is a non-committal answear?

Anyway they were satisfied with the shot, the director and the DP, from my point of view I was not so much, I still could feel the moment in wich I was starting accelerating and other problems but as for the purpose of the shot it all works... so I keep trying and flying.

 

my best regards,

 

matteo "still crying for Ischia" Quagliano

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Hi Chris,

 

now I understand you and I think you answered in the best way, it's really difficult to talk about aestetichs without having infront what it's been discussed, I give a suggestion upon a shot and you answear with a suggestion... cool... :lol:

 

my best regards,

 

matteo "soon I'm gonne be in a workshop" quagliano

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  • 8 months later...
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Perhaps the shortest example of this is the "wrong way" to sit someone down in a shot. If we simply boom down with them as they sit without altering the angle of approach to the subject in any way, the actor has essentially remained neutral while the world behind them has " elevatored" ( new word ) upwards violently. Not nearly what we as animals experience as we sit.

 

Which is why when we work on sitting people down, we incorporate subtle tilts into the operation. It breaks that moment of perfectly matching size and pace of the subject and allows us to "feel" them sit down properly.

 

N'est pas?

 

Peter Abraham

 

Director of Technical Services, Steadicam

 

The Tiffen Company

 

" The Tilt Guy"

 

pabraham@tiffen.com

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N'est pas?

Hi Peter,

 

You meant : "N'est-ce pas ?" ?

 

That translates into : "Isn't it ?"

 

WordReference

 

;)

 

About the "elevatored world" versus tilting down, it depends of the style/mood of the shot and the skills (or lack of) of the operator.

 

The "no tilting" style can be pretty cool and not distracting at all if made in perfect sync with the talent and without wobble, that's something that Steadicam is able to do in a way that is hard to achieve with other tools.

 

As always it's better being able to deliver both styles flawlessly (and create many new ones).

 

K.

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N'est pas?

Hi Peter,

 

You meant : "N'est-ce pas ?" ?

 

That translates into : "Isn't it ?"

 

I sit corrected. :)

 

About the "elevatored world" versus tilting down, it depends of the style/mood of the shot and the skills (or lack of) of the operator.

 

The "no tilting" style can be pretty cool and not distracting at all if made in perfect sync with the talent and without wobble, that's something that Steadicam is able to do in a way that is hard to achieve with other tools.

 

As always it's better being able to deliver both styles flawlessly (and create many new ones).

 

K.

 

Oh, the assumption is that you can pull it off with no wobble. I was addressing how the world "feels" as you watch the shot. It's an odd one. Always seemed to me that the way to make a "sit down" with someone feel more natural and less like an elevator is to precisely emulate what we humans do when we sit:

 

1. Approach where we will sit.

2. Slow, and drop our head and eyes for a split second. This is a basic self-preservation motion. Unless you are a wild and wooley 6 year old, nobody throws themselves into a seat blindly.

3. After quickly checking visually, we drop into the chair and then- even if we are sitting down with the intention of reading a book or newspaper- we instinctively glance up at the horizon. As though we are taking a moment to tell our brains, " You're here now. Lower. See horizon? Got it? Okay then".

4. We get on with whatever we're sitting down to do.

 

If we use this exploded view of sitting down as a guide, then we can see why it's very natural feeling to tilt slightly as we boom with an actor, and as they settle, we continue our boom down but tilt up slightly to kiss off the shot. ( Not tilt UPwards, but as we stop booming, we slightly level the frame from the angle we'd committed to as we boomed down. )

 

Make sense?

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This is an interesting subtlety, but there are so many variables involved in the concept of sitting an actor--what focal length are you using, what distance from the actor, are they sitting down "properly" (keeping their back straight) or doing that awful lean-forward, sit then lean back thing that makes operating them down so much harder and ends up looking so much more erratic. In general I think whatever means to keep them nicely in the frame and make the shot solid will win out.

 

There are other types of shots that I think are more egregious to the viewing experience, such as the telltale early descension or ascension of the camera when leading actors towards stairs. I just came back from a cast and crew screening of a movie I worked on that had such a shot; simple track with two characters when suddenly the camera is booming down and the background disappears, then a few seconds the actors begin to descend steps that are not seen until the shot cuts away to a wide. I had forgotten about this one (I hate stairs so I think I had blocked it from my memory) and while it was technically OK, I just dislike that unmotivated camera motion that is forced by the geography. I'd much rather do that kind of thing on Technocrane where you can keep the lens at the same height throughout.

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A lot of your work makes the actors look more erotic. It's like a calling card. Bless you...

 

;)

 

Agreed that the least disturbing is best. I always sweated stairs work where within a step or two of ascending or descending, it is not apparent where the heck we are and why we are suddenly flying around.

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Although this original post is old, I couldn't help but chime in. I am blind in one eye which prevents me from seeing in 3d. Everything that I see is very much like what everyone else sees on the screen in this 2d medium. The only way I can judge distance, size, speed, etc. of the things around me is when I move my frame of view by moving my position. A completely static looking shot that might as well be a pan of a photograph is not a good way to describe these shots. What you're missing is the ground movement, the objects between the subect and the distant background. The movement of these things adds a depth to the picture that a static camera is never going to give you. The NASA description and definition of this is a great way to try to understand it.

 

Kristy Dyson

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I think I understand what Alan is saying. He's talking about doing a moving shot at an exact constant speed without acceleration and having the perception that the world is moving around the people instead of the people moving around the world.

 

Sounds familiar, I had that experience many, many moons ago after trying my very first so called wacky tobacky. While driving home on the highway in my shaggin' wagon ( my age is showing), I had the distinct impression that I was standing still and the road was moving under me....pretty interesting concept and I then wondered if a tree fell in the woods and I wasn't around to witness it, did it make a sound?

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