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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Epic/Scarlet Camera Car

Phil Bates

Phil Bates

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www.artbeats.com
We built this rig for shooting driving plates (also called process plates). For those not familiar with them, driving plates are layered behind actors to make it look like they are driving. The need for driving plates is on the rise as productions look to save money on location work.

We picked a 90's era Cadillac because of it's size and smooth ride. It was designed to do 9-angles of a street scene in two passes using 2 Epics and 3 Scarlets. The small size of these cameras makes it feasible to have three on the hood in front of the driver. We can also do a 5-angle set using much wider (Tokina) lenses.

Here is a demo (we threw together the green screen work to show examples, so please don't be too hard on me :-) ):

https://vimeo.com/51765666

We started shooting several months ago and have been very busy at a lot of different locations. We are using mostly Canon and Tokina lenses.

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The red button is the recording control for all 5 cameras, so they can start and stop in sync.
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We are starting to post the footage on our website:

http://www.artbeats.com/footage/search?c=2&keywords=driving+plates&utf8=✓

Thanks for looking,
Phil
 
This is even more cool than the Google car.
 
I love that you chose a Cadillac. Really nice. Did you get custom EVF/LCD cables made for the length you needed?
 
Phil Holland said:
I love that you chose a Cadillac. Really nice. Did you get custom EVF/LCD cables made for the length you needed?
Click to expand...

Good question. We looked into longer lengths, but ended up going with standard 20 footers and they were barely long enough.
 
What shutter speed to you shoot with? I have been shooting with a mathews car mount and I get lots of movement I dont want. Picking the right shutter speed helps a lot but Im still testing.
 
Ben A. said:
What shutter speed to you shoot with? I have been shooting with a mathews car mount and I get lots of movement I dont want. Picking the right shutter speed helps a lot but Im still testing.
Click to expand...

We've been asked for 24fps so that's what we've been shooting. However, we've also been told driving plates look best when you are driving slow (max 25mph), especially the side views. When it's not possible to go that slow, we will shoot 30fps then "interpret" the footage to 24fps in post.

We've had terrible luck with portable car mounts, suction cups on hood and windshield, etc, even with support bars. Our biggest problem was high frequency vibrations. After months of experimenting, our only solution was to weld our mounts to beefy steel that was in turn welded to the car frame itself. Those vibrations disappeared, thank God.

Phil
 
Hugely impressive rig! Love that the cameras are all named after Firefly characters too, that's my kind of setup :)
 
Ben A. said:
What shutter speed to you shoot with? I have been shooting with a mathews car mount and I get lots of movement I dont want. Picking the right shutter speed helps a lot but Im still testing.
Click to expand...

I just realized you were talking shutter speed, not frame rate. We use a 180° shutter by default, (1/48th of a second for 24fps). When it comes to high frequency vibrations, it looks bad at any shutter speed unless you are going to stabilize in post. In that case I would go 1/500th at least, but then you would lose the natural movement of the car.

Phil
 
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