so i want to shoot a film.....

[SpiralDragon]

looks like we are going to end up shooting with a zero budget... again... any ideas of how to shoot realy steady shots without a stedy cam... or how to do a smoth 360 shot without tracks? or do a decending or accending shot without a crane or jib arm?

[az]

360 - put the actor on a platform and rotate the platform, rather than the cam (should be a nice effect, landscape staying still and actors rotating)

AZ

[spadnos]

Re: so i want to shoot a film.....

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
looks like we are going to end up shooting with a zero budget... again... any ideas of how to shoot realy steady shots without a stedy cam...

You can build a steadicam with almost zero budget.
http://www.videouniversity.com/xlstablz.htm has a pretty complex example - it can probably be done more easily. All a steadicam is is a hinged (or gimballed) handle, with a weight rigidly suspended below the handle (and balanced, of course).
edit: here's a simpler and less expensive one http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/steadycam/.

or how to do a smoth 360 shot without tracks?

Which kind of 360 are you talking about? Do you want to do a 360 degree pan of a scene, or a 360 degree view of an actor/object?

or do a decending or accending shot without a crane or jib arm?

Use your homebuilt steadicam and a see-saw (lever). Depending on the weight of the camera, you may be able to use something like a couple of pieces of angle aluminum as the support. Look at an adjustable desk lamp to see a method of keeping the end pointing in the same direction.

It's always a pain in the ass to do things on no budget - but even multimillion dollar projects allocate as little as possible to each thing (at least, they allocate as little as possible for the things I do...)

- Steve

[smitty]

360.......... rope cam , high mounted attachment with rope hanging attach with a clip( like dog leash has) walk the camera around
steady shots...... you don't say what camera you wish to use, I have a Canon XL1S and find the optical stabilizer one of the best
Practice moving techniques that keep the camera stable eg. if you want to truck in a short distance hold the camera at waist level behind and to the side of you planting your lead foot and move the other foot in a flow movement.
There are several software packs avaiable that will aid in stabilizing the footage after it's shot.Some very good (and expensive)(Boris Red)this will reduce your image quality proportionatly to the remaining camera "shake"
Descending you can use the rope with a hi quality pulley ,add weight to camera mounted to the bottom, add a ball socket to the mount and put a pole to the socket. 2 operators needed , 1 on the rope 1 on the pole to keep image straight.(external monitor of course)depending on the shot you might be able to do ascending in you can reverse the scene movement then reverse in post
good luck
smitty

[SpiralDragon]

thanx guys... great ideas so far.... will probably be using a Sony PD150p.. unles i can get my hands on on ofthe biger 500series models

[Duty]

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/

[SpiralDragon]

Duty.. thanx for that link

[UtwigMU]

Just stick to Dogma95 handheld camera.

[SpiralDragon]

lol.... i dont like that style all that mutch.... besides.. IMO it was all some sort of marketing trick for their films and to sling shoot DV in to the filmmaking industry... its a great concept but to implement it is kind of not in my styl of film making...... especialy since i tend to go for an expresionistic/surealistic kind of style

[deathmonkey]

Bend your legs.

I don't mean to sound like a smart-ass, but I've gotten some surprisingly good results before asking my friends to do walking tracking shots by semi-crouching. I find that some people seem to have a natural talent for it, while others don't.

But nevermind that. Here's my real suggestion: I once bought (I know you said it's a no-budget film, but having made several of those myself, I'm pretty sure they don't really exist) a wagon with large rubber tires at a sporting goods store for $80 that was the best dolly I've ever worked with. The only tricks are: 1) you must have two friends to help with shooting (one cameraman, one dolly grip) and 2) one of those friends should ideally have good enough balance to stand in the wagon while it's moving so all your shots don't have be low-angles (know any skaters?).

If you can meet those conditions, it's relatively cheap, works surprisingly well, and your crew will have a ball playing with the dolly while you set up each shot.

--jim

[Frank Marshall]

BTW SpiralDragon, its HAL, not HALL. Stanley Kubrick was said to have been mightily impressed when presented with a calculation of the odds of accidently hitting upon a name for the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey" which corresponds to IBM when each letter is replaced with the alphabetical letter following it:

H -> I
A -> B
L -> M

Spooky heh?!

[tanjun]

i found a really easy, but also cheap way to stablize a camera.

Leave the tripod on and carry it by the camera. of course this might break it so be careful. but my monopod doesn't seem to put much stress on the bottom.

Im cheap and lazy