Driving scene montage. . . west to east. . . but. . .

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

I have a problem. I'm shooting/directing a feature starting on Monday morning, the film is basically a road-trip movie starring an 88 year-old woman.

She's traveling from Kansas to Indiana. . . west to east.

Several sequences are music videos where we'll show her driving and visiting places along the way.

You can probably already anticipate my questions. Normally, the main car shot will be across the passenger seat to the driver. The problem is, with that direction established, it would seem to preclude my ability to mount the camera on the driver's side and shoot toward the passenger seat (for just a different look as there will be no one else in the car with her). So my questions:

1. How jarring is it to switch sides in a west-to-east film and show a shot where the landscape is suddenly moving the opposite direction? Should I always avoid that reversed, driver's side shot?

2. We are trying to stay close to home for the drone shots. One thought is to drive west to east and then drive back east to west. However, the shadows on the road will be on the wrong side of the car. Is this something I should worry about?

3. Is there anything else we should worry about?

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Stephen Pruitt

 

[Elsie N]

Hi all. . .

I have a problem. I'm shooting/directing a feature starting on Monday morning, the film is basically a road-trip movie starring an 88 year-old woman.

She's traveling from Kansas to Indiana. . . west to east.


Several sequences are music videos where we'll show her driving and visiting places along the way.

You can probably already anticipate my questions. Normally, the main car shot will be across the passenger seat to the driver. The problem is, with that direction established, it would seem to preclude my ability to mount the camera on the driver's side and shoot toward the passenger seat (for just a different look as there will be no one else in the car with her). So my questions:

1. How jarring is it to switch sides in a west-to-east film and show a shot where the landscape is suddenly moving the opposite direction? Should I always avoid that reversed, driver's side shot?

2. We are trying to stay close to home for the drone shots. One thought is to drive west to east and then drive back east to west. However, the shadows on the road will be on the wrong side of the car. Is this something I should worry about?

3. Is there anything else we should worry about?

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Stephen Pruitt

When you are showing the empty passenger side, can you just reverse the footage? Probably would make the driver footage noticeable, but for an empty seat, maybe not?

 

[Julio Quintana]

When you are showing the empty passenger side, can you just reverse the footage? Probably would make the driver footage noticeable, but for an empty seat, maybe not?

If the camera sees out the window at all it will look like the vehicle is driving in reverse.

Stephen, I don't think the audience will be suddenly confused by a change in screen direction. However the biggest drawback I see is that if you are driving west to east with a camera facing north, you will always be front lit with the sun behind the camera. Besides just not looking very nice, this may cause problems for you with your camera casting shadows into the shot. I would personally commit to mostly shooting from the driver's side window, through the windshield, or from the back looking over the woman's shoulder at the highway, rearview mirror, hands on the steering wheel, etc.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I hadn't considered a camera shadow, Julio. That's a great point. And it will solve my wide-angle problem simultaneously, as well, albeit by making it harder to get into and out of the car!

I always like lens flares, so shooting into the driver's side will work. Is there another reason shooting north would make for a less-pretty shot???

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Nick Gardner]

I just shoot everything backlit all the time and logic be damned. I had a script superviser ask me where the light was supposed to be coming from once. I responded that it was coming form the same place the music was. It's a movie, it's not reality. Make it look good and tell the story.


Nick

 

[Steve Sherrick]

I just shoot everything backlit all the time and logic be damned. I had a script superviser ask me where the light was supposed to be coming from once. I responded that it was coming form the same place the music was. It's a movie, it's not reality. Make it look good and tell the story.


Nick

The line about the music is so true. Sometimes you have to just go with what works for the look, feel, story, etc. I had a DP explain to me that I was going to too much trouble trying to get a wide shot and a closeup to match. He said the closeup wasn't supposed to perfectly match the wide shot, it was an aesthetic choice based on what was needed in the closeup. It was a valuable lesson for me.

 

[Marc Wielage]

180° Rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180-degree_rule

I can't stand it when I see the 180° rule violated in modern films, because I think it's visually confusing and annoys the audience on a subliminal level (even if they're not technical). I would rely on a good DP and perhaps some storyboards in order to plot out the action so that you don't need to violate the 180° rule and still allow you to shoot in a rational way.

There are a million "chase" movies or "journey" movies -- I would count Cannonball Run and Death Race 2000 as two major ones of the 1970s, and more recent examples would include all of the Fast & Furious blockbusters -- and they find ways to keep the visuals interesting while still making it easy for viewers to follow the action. While I didn't care for the recent Mad Max film as a movie, I gotta say the storyline, action, and visuals were fantastic, and the editing made it very clear at all times who was chasing, who was being chased, where everybody was, and what direction they were going in.

 

[Elsie N]

If the camera sees out the window at all it will look like the vehicle is driving in reverse.

Stephen, I don't think the audience will be suddenly confused by a change in screen direction. However the biggest drawback I see is that if you are driving west to east with a camera facing north, you will always be front lit with the sun behind the camera. Besides just not looking very nice, this may cause problems for you with your camera casting shadows into the shot. I would personally commit to mostly shooting from the driver's side window, through the windshield, or from the back looking over the woman's shoulder at the highway, rearview mirror, hands on the steering wheel, etc.

By reversed, I meant mirrored.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Is there another reason shooting north would make for a less-pretty shot???

I'm saying it purely from a lighting perspective. I always prefer backlighting whenever possible and shooting North in your case makes that impossible since the sun will always be south of you. Also, you will potentially have more difficulty with contrast ratios if you point the camera north since your driver will be in shadow but everything outside the window in the background will be front lit by direct sunlight. Not ideal.

 

[Julio Quintana]

By reversed, I meant mirrored.

You mean mirror the image to maintain screen direction? Won't it look like the woman is suddenly driving a British car?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

For a driving montage, I wouldn't worry about jumping to the other side of the car IF you shoot some angles that are more neutral screen-drection-wise of the car driving towards and away from camera, or had a hood-mount (frontal shot of the driver) or shot from the back seat of the driver's back -- even if these shots had some slight screen direction to them, they are neutral enough to intercut with the more lateral driving shots so that you can switch sides of the car when needed.

I don't know how long the car trip is, but at least for the dawn and sunset moments, you should have to car clearly driving east towards the sunrise or away from the sunset. For middle of the day stuff, I don't think it matters much.

 

[Elsie N]

You mean mirror the image to maintain screen direction? Won't it look like the woman is suddenly driving a British car?

Not sure as I've never reversed any footage like that. It's something I use often with still images but never with moving images that I remember. I do remember watching something recently that used a mirrored image, but the only way I knew that was because there was a sign in the shot that read backwards. '-)

Anyway, I think David's suggestion of shooting from the backseat or through the windshield is best (unless you have to remove the windshield, which adds cost.)

Sounds like Stephen wants to shoot depth of field to convey to the audience the scenery she (the driver) is experiencing. Otherwise a shallow depth of field makes anything outside the car pretty much a non-entity.

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

I'm still having trouble with understanding the backlit scenery issue.

If I'm driving east, and the camera is on the driver's side, it will be facing south, into the (mostly) overhead sun, there will be SOME feel of backlit, but not a lot, as the sun is so close to overhead in the summer. But what backlight there is will really exacerbate the dynamic range of the scene, since the driver will clearly be in the shadow of the hood of the car. If we switch sides, and we shoot through the passenger window, the highlights should be somewhat reduced since the scenery (most of which is pretty distant where we're shooting. . . the prairie in Kansas and Missouri) will be mostly front/top lit and, of course, again, the driver will be in the shadow of the hood.

These are not processed shots. This is a real woman driving a real car. I'm not sure I can get enough light into the car to avoid blowing the highlights up.

I was thinking about using the skintone highlight OLPF for these shots, but I'm worried about noise on the actor and the interior of the car. Would the standard OLPF be a better choice?

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

Stephen

 

[Stephen Pruitt]

Oh, yes, and Mr. Mullen: Would the overhead drone shots, which would show the car's shadow being on the wrong side of the car (if we filmed both east and west) bother you much? My initial thought was that the shadow would be bothersome, so I planned only to shoot heading east, but maybe that could be mitigated somewhat by shooting overhead drone shots heading east, and the west-driving drone shots at a much lower angle so as to reduce (or even eliminate) the car shadow in the west-bound shots.

Thanks again.

Stephen

 

[Julio Quintana]

Not sure as I've never reversed any footage like that. It's something I use often with still images but never with moving images that I remember. I do remember watching something recently that used a mirrored image, but the only way I knew that was because there was a sign in the shot that read backwards. '-)

How would you flip any of these still images without the driver being in the wrong seat?

 

[Elsie N]

I'm still having trouble with understanding the backlit scenery issue.

If I'm driving east, and the camera is on the driver's side, it will be facing south, into the (mostly) overhead sun, there will be SOME feel of backlit, but not a lot, as the sun is so close to overhead in the summer. But what backlight there is will really exacerbate the dynamic range of the scene, since the driver will clearly be in the shadow of the hood of the car. If we switch sides, and we shoot through the passenger window, the highlights should be somewhat reduced since the scenery (most of which is pretty distant where we're shooting. . . the prairie in Kansas and Missouri) will be mostly front/top lit and, of course, again, the driver will be in the shadow of the hood.

These are not processed shots. This is a real woman driving a real car. I'm not sure I can get enough light into the car to avoid blowing the highlights up.

I was thinking about using the skintone highlight OLPF for these shots, but I'm worried about noise on the actor and the interior of the car. Would the standard OLPF be a better choice?

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

Stephen

How would it look if you intentionally blew out the highlights outside the window? I guess you could shoot HDRx and choose to just use the A track... or mix in the X track to suit.

 

[Elsie N]

How would you flip any of these still images without the driver being in the wrong seat?

Too much on the brain to do this, plus I think Stephen has moved on from that shot? At any rate, I concede. '-)

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

I'm still having trouble with understanding the backlit scenery issue.

If I'm driving east, and the camera is on the driver's side, it will be facing south, into the (mostly) overhead sun, there will be SOME feel of backlit, but not a lot, as the sun is so close to overhead in the summer. But what backlight there is will really exacerbate the dynamic range of the scene, since the driver will clearly be in the shadow of the hood of the car. If we switch sides, and we shoot through the passenger window, the highlights should be somewhat reduced since the scenery (most of which is pretty distant where we're shooting. . . the prairie in Kansas and Missouri) will be mostly front/top lit and, of course, again, the driver will be in the shadow of the hood.

Not sure how the predominant driver's side shot, closer to the face of 88 yr woman, would appear - with regards to aesthetic (detail, face geometry on a wider lens) and the context of the story. Switching sides issue depends on the cut as well and what is being intercut. I'd go with passenger side as main and check how to bathe the car interior with more light.

 

[Matthew Quinn]

I just shoot everything backlit all the time and logic be damned. I had a script superviser ask me where the light was supposed to be coming from once. I responded that it was coming form the same place the music was. It's a movie, it's not reality. Make it look good and tell the story.


Nick

amazing. hehe why is it the dp always does battle with the script supervisor? haha. I've learned to make nice with them and they actually help so much but yes this is great!

 

[Scot Yount]

180° Rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180-degree_rule

I can't stand it when I see the 180° rule violated in modern films, because I think it's visually confusing and annoys the audience on a subliminal level (even if they're not technical). I would rely on a good DP and perhaps some storyboards in order to plot out the action so that you don't need to violate the 180° rule and still allow you to shoot in a rational way.

This is so true. Violating the rule can make people misconstrue what they are seeing. If anyone remembers Baghdad Bob from the invasion of Iraq, he proudly announces that they have shot down TWO American helicopter gunships I think they were. Then he goes on to talk about TWO tanks and so on. It was one helo and one tank. Why did he think there were two? Because the Al Jazzera shooter shot both sides of each machine, violating the 180 degree rule. That's why it doesn't work. If it can fool Bob...it can fool you.:smiley: