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Shooting doors off from a Helicopter

Mitch Ayers

Mitch Ayers

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Hey Guys.

Have a tourism job coming up
We are proposing shooting doors off from a helicopter. just wondering if anybody has done this much?
how were the vibrations ? did you use a gimbal? eazy rig?

( we are shooting in the middle of australia so we cannot take much grip equipment, we will have a movi pro though, just working out if thats our best approach or handheld?

thanks
 
I would propose you change your proposal to include a helicopter with proper camera gimbal like a GSS or Shotover gimbal if you want great footage. Out the door is only good for stills.
 
I have done it with a Ronin....was not ideal...one thing with doors off and a gimbal is to make sure to stay out of the wind blast....gimbals tend to freak out uncontrollably.
 
Some helicopters companies have gimbals they can install before your flight. I'd ask. It can get bumpy up there especially if you're in a lighter Robinson R44. Also, you might be leaning at times (towards where the door used to be). Handheld alone is not easy. If you must, I'd bring some bungee cords to rig up inside.
 
Any reason to be up there instead of flying a drone. Out the door footage from heli tend to look quite docu style while good drone footage for the same amount of money will normally be uite stellar.

Get a proper gimbal or... Bring a drone, fly it next to the chopper ;)
 
Drone is gonna be way cheaper, and way smoother. Can't remember the last time I shot out of a real helicopter.....

Nick
 
I have a good friend who was drafted into doing the "beauty shots" of Tampa Stadium for a weekend CBS Sports TV football event in the 1970s. He strapped himself into place wearing a harness and let his legs dangle over the edge of an open-door copter and handheld a live camera with a microwave feed back to the truck, which they used every time they came in and out of commercial. A couple of times, the helicopter banked at a steep angle to get a better shot, and my friend nearly slid out, but the straps seemed to hold him in place.

As the game ended, they landed the craft in an adjacent parking lot. My friend laid the camera down and was horrified to discover that the second strap was not bolted to anything! There was a hook on the end, but they forgot to actually clip it to the bracket on the wall. So he was "this close" to dying on the air, all just to get a shot. Let's just say things were pretty loose in the 1970s.

If you shoot out of the doors of a helicopter, make absolutely sure you are double/triple-held firmly in place and there's no way you can fall out.
 
https://vimeo.com/225531030 Using Movi pro
https://vimeo.com/82706597 Hand held

Shot out of Heli's loads without proper mount. Shooting 50fps takes out the bumps (neither film has been stabilised in post). Works really well. The London skyline happened as drone was so expensive, and couldn't stray from the Thames. Plus I got to keep rights to the footage. The shots over the Iger in the Alps was great fun. Self funded and within an hour of landing I had sold the footage to the tourist board and then BBC. I bought a full body harness and strapped the camera to me keeping it lens only.

Stay safe and have fun
 
Giles Harvey said:
https://vimeo.com/225531030 Using Movi pro
https://vimeo.com/82706597 Hand held

Shot out of Heli's loads without proper mount. Shooting 50fps takes out the bumps (neither film has been stabilised in post). Works really well. The London skyline happened as drone was so expensive, and couldn't stray from the Thames. Plus I got to keep rights to the footage. The shots over the Iger in the Alps was great fun. Self funded and within an hour of landing I had sold the footage to the tourist board and then BBC. I bought a full body harness and strapped the camera to me keeping it lens only.

Stay safe and have fun
Click to expand...

Yes high alltitude, far from object and hardly moving and streifing/shooting sidways works well no need for gimbal in sush shot just shoot short shutter and things can be stabilized in post.

flying fast looking foward and passing close is a different scenario.
 
Björn Benckert said:
Yes high alltitude, far from object and hardly moving and streifing/shooting sidways works well no need for gimbal in sush shot just shoot short shutter and things can be stabilized in post.

flying fast looking foward and passing close is a different scenario.
Click to expand...

100% no comparison. If i had the money it would have been a heli mounted gimble for sure
 
Depending on the subject matter, you can get decent shots with the doors off.
For these shots, used a Tyler mini mount gyro. Since it does not attach to the helicopter airframe, no FAA approval is required.

https://vimeo.com/manage/265065618/general

Uses two Kenyon K8 Gyros for stabilization. They take about 15 minutes to fully spin up. A pogo stick below acts as a shock absorber and carries the weight.
Quick and easy.
 
Marc Wielage said:
I have a good friend who was drafted into doing the "beauty shots" of Tampa Stadium for a weekend CBS Sports TV football event in the 1970s. He strapped himself into place wearing a harness and let his legs dangle over the edge of an open-door copter and handheld a live camera with a microwave feed back to the truck, which they used every time they came in and out of commercial. A couple of times, the helicopter banked at a steep angle to get a better shot, and my friend nearly slid out, but the straps seemed to hold him in place.

As the game ended, they landed the craft in an adjacent parking lot. My friend laid the camera down and was horrified to discover that the second strap was not bolted to anything! There was a hook on the end, but they forgot to actually clip it to the bracket on the wall. So he was "this close" to dying on the air, all just to get a shot. Let's just say things were pretty loose in the 1970s.

If you shoot out of the doors of a helicopter, make absolutely sure you are double/triple-held firmly in place and there's no way you can fall out.
Click to expand...

My heart ended up in my mouth just reading that Marc :o terrifying.
 
Aaron Lochert said:
Not trying to discredit you, but I think you did stabilize the shot at 12 seconds in the Alps video, yeah? Your letterbox is moving up and down in compensation. Looked like a fun shoot, great shots!
Click to expand...

Sorry I must have missed that must have had a go at a couple of shots. A while ago now. But you get my drift.
 
I'm with Brian. Tyler mount works well. Back in the day it was understood between the pilot and the operator that the harness would be unfastened while the operator was shooting. There is a tremendous force pulling you out the door or pushing you back in the door while the heli goes into hard banks. It depends which side you are seated on. But in those days to get a good shot you had to have both feet on the heli rails to control the camera while going through those Gs. Some people use to use shock cords fastened above the camera. I never did that but I did do some hand held work in Russia back in early 90s. A lot of this depends on the pilot and their experience. I once flew with a Viet Nam pilot who was very aggressive he was flying through peaks in BC, kind of weaving in and out, way above the tree line. It was the most awesome and terrifying experience of my life. Good luck.
 
My very first helicopter filming experience was similar to what was described here. Strapped heavily to the bird, sat on the edge, then stood on the skids to operate the shoot. XL2 w/ Kenyon Gyros to stabilize the camera. Safety line on camera and mags. A remote nature area well north of Vancouver. Did some low tree and higher cliff work mainly for those shots.

Results were decent due to the shoulder cushion and Kenyon gyro setup for short takes. Similarly I've seen people using gimbals inside helicopters filming out the door, I've only done it twice and didn't think it was the best way at all. At that point your body plays a role in damping the high frequency vibrations as well as the gimbal smoothing the motion. The whole bungie cord method is silly as hell and might net you a few seconds of a decent take. You're very limited when working out the door in terms of what types of shots you can get.

Safety-wise, just ensure you're strapped in as well as anything that could potentially fall out of the cabin. Shot-wise, there's way better ways to get the shot.

Outside of earlier mount experience, I've been mostly using appropriate gimbals. A smidge of GSS and Cineflex, and very much outnumbered by the Shotover F1 and K1. Pretty much responsible for well over 95% of my aerial work now. Anything you've seen that I've done in the last decade has been from those 3 systems.
 
I just got back from my second job shooting Heli footage with a Movi Pro. The footage came out good and much better than handheld but not as good as GSS or Shotover for sure. It can be done and you can get it to look nice. Here is a link to my first job shooting with this set up in a R44 with one door off. Red Raven and Canon 24-105mm in this for the Heli footage.

https://vimeo.com/355782198
 
I did that once. ONCE! Don't underestimate how scary it is being in a helicopter without a door next to you. We were hovering around skyscrapers in Chicago and it felt like it would drop 5-10 feet. Can't say if it actually did, but damn it was frightening. It made me scared of heights for about 5 years, like some sort of PTSD.
 
You will need to stabilize depending on how aggressive the shots are and how smooth the pilot is. I just did it shooting some boats, and there were very few shots that wouldn’t benefit from stabilization of some sort. If the flying is aggressive, don’t expect long usable takes. Also you can decrease shutter angle a bit, 172 or 144 depending on how much motion blur you want on your subject opposed to the foreground or background. I shot at 172 and had a decent amount of sharp frames of the boats, with half of them resulting in some motion blur. Increasing speed helps with eliminating perceivable motion blur on the object you are tracking.

Like others said, a shot over would be ideal, and should be arranged if the client is looking for long shots that need nominal post work to make usable.
 
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