The Hood Mount
By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer
Last night we needed to film more car driving stuff. This time we couldn't be bothered with our trailer because we had three scenes to film and needed something quick and dirty. The solution was renting a hood mount that we could use for the camera and the lights but still allow our actor to drive. A self-contained car rig is not hard during the day but at night you run into some problems.
See all that crap? It needs to live on the front of the car, between the driver and the innocent pedestrians. The big light also blinds anyone in the car so you need to mount it high enough so that the driver can see. But the higher it is the less light actually reaches actor and they become a nice white spot on our negative.
Another problem is rolling the camera. Some camera packages come with remote start/stops but ours did not. This meant we had to stop the car, run to the front, roll the camera, run back into the car, drive, film, stop the car, and run to the front, and stop the camera. What this means is we have about 30 feet of film where the actors are sitting in the car and someone can be seen running around.
The third problem is power. Lights typically use more power than a regular car inverter can provide. This night we actually used very little power but only realized we needed any at all after I had assembled the hood mount. The hood that the battery is under. We decided to toss a small generator in the back of the truck with our sound mixer and hope for the best.
Usually the solution to most of these problems is having the actors towed by a truck with everything we need on it. But we didn't have the time or the resources for it. Our solution was to cross our fingers and drive at 3am (home to very little traffic, most of it drunk).
Luckily we made it. However we must have seen about 10 cop cars on the same road as us. We were pulled over once but were let off. In LA we would have been in jail.
Last night we needed to film more car driving stuff. This time we couldn't be bothered with our trailer because we had three scenes to film and needed something quick and dirty. The solution was renting a hood mount that we could use for the camera and the lights but still allow our actor to drive. A self-contained car rig is not hard during the day but at night you run into some problems.
See all that crap? It needs to live on the front of the car, between the driver and the innocent pedestrians. The big light also blinds anyone in the car so you need to mount it high enough so that the driver can see. But the higher it is the less light actually reaches actor and they become a nice white spot on our negative.
Another problem is rolling the camera. Some camera packages come with remote start/stops but ours did not. This meant we had to stop the car, run to the front, roll the camera, run back into the car, drive, film, stop the car, and run to the front, and stop the camera. What this means is we have about 30 feet of film where the actors are sitting in the car and someone can be seen running around.
The third problem is power. Lights typically use more power than a regular car inverter can provide. This night we actually used very little power but only realized we needed any at all after I had assembled the hood mount. The hood that the battery is under. We decided to toss a small generator in the back of the truck with our sound mixer and hope for the best.
Usually the solution to most of these problems is having the actors towed by a truck with everything we need on it. But we didn't have the time or the resources for it. Our solution was to cross our fingers and drive at 3am (home to very little traffic, most of it drunk).
Luckily we made it. However we must have seen about 10 cop cars on the same road as us. We were pulled over once but were let off. In LA we would have been in jail.
Labels: Week_6
posted by Tony Vallone at
7:07 PM
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