Gear for a Same Day Edit Wedding Shoot. Rent cameras and gear like lenses and oculus rifts in New York. Tutorial: Your Car is (Still) Your Best Friend for Capturing Smooth Tracking Shots. Forget using expensive dolly tracks or handheld gimbals to pull off beautiful camera moves.
You've got a car, right? Admittedly, using cars to get these shots is kind of an old school technique that indie filmmakers have been using for a long time, especially before handheld 3-axis gimbals came along. (In fact, you can get some amazing shots using a car and a gimbal in tandem.) But since gimbals are becoming more ubiquitous (though still spendy), it seems like now's as good a time as any to remember one cinematic tool that you might've forgotten -- or hell, maybe you never knew! So, if you own a car, or at least know someone who will lend you theirs for the sake of filmmaking, you can use it to capture high angles, creative special effects, and (of course) smooth tracking shots. Now that we've gotten the vetting out of the way, here are some things you might want to keep in mind when you decide to use your car as a cinematographic tool.
Your car ain't no stabilizer. 20 Gear Purchase Under $20. Don’t have a large gear budget?
No worries, there is a lot of important equipment that can be had without breaking the bank. It is also getting close to Christmas… And a lot of these purchases would make for great stocking stuffers for that special filmmaker/photographer in your life. 1. Macro Tubes Attach to the rear of your lens for fantastic macro shots on almost any lens. 2. Don’t have $100+ to spend on a high-end fader filter? 3. From mounting accessories to building rigs, these monitor arms always come in handy. 4. These are cheap enough to have one for every Nikon lens you own. 5. To many accessories and not enough cold shoes? 6. The clean, simple and discreet way to rig your camera. 7. Macro Tubes: Getting Close on the Cheap. For only $10 you can get macro shots with almost any lens using these macro tubes (you can find the Nikon version here).
I found it didn’t work well with my wider primes but I got good results using a 50mm prime and my 28-70mm zoom. There are 5 parts to this particular macro tube set. One piece attaches to the camera, then there are three sections in the middle for adjusting how close you can get, and finally the end that attaches to the lens. WATCHED. Essential Video Production Gear for Filmmakers. Production Gear Packing for a Two Day Shoot. 5 Essential Tools You Probably Don't Have For Your Productions. This Sexy Short Film Was Shot in Just a Day with the DJI Ronin & S900 Hexcopter. What kind of film can you churn out after only one day of shooting?
This isn't really a challenge, but a serious question: how much do you think you could get done within a 24-hour shooting period? If it was five years ago I'd say, "Psh! Probably not much," but now that there are so many compact, easy-to-use, and inexpensive cinematic tools to help you move your camera, the indie film set has never been more efficient. This short film called Open Your Eyes by director Sheldon Schwartz and DP Michael FitzMaurice was shot in just a day using several motion control/stabilization systems from DJI, like the S900 hexcopter and the Ronin gimbal stabilizer, which not only shows just how quickly a film crew can work, but also how great the S900 and Ronin can make your footage look. Check it out below: Learn How to Build a Good DIY Rain Machine for $15 (& a Great One for $60) If your scene is calling for rain, don't wait for Mother Nature to get her act together.
You can create your own rain and not spend a ton of money to do it. Here's a tutorial by Tom Antos that shows you how to construct two different rain machines: a $15 rig made out of a flat sprinkler hose and a sturdier $60 to $70 rig made out of PVC pipe. Before you get too far into making either of these rigs, here are a few things you should know. First of all, movie rain is not like real rain. Real rain tends to be more sparse with smaller droplets and tends to not show up on-camera. Secondly, getting that sexy movie rain may require more than just a simple garden hose or PVC pipe -- something more along the lines of a fire hose. Lastly, you might want to use a few other things to help your movie rain look more dynamic, like smoke, debris (leaves, etc.), or Fullers earth, as well as a fan to blow all of that around. In the end, if all you have is a regular old hose, don't fret.