Filming stunts

[TheStrandedMoose]

Me and my friend collaborated a script for a comedy short a few nights back.
There are about 3 different scenes where people are hit by cars.
I've seen well shot car impacts and poor ones, so does anyone have any advice or knowledge about filming a convincing shot of someone getting hit by a car?
Any help is appreciated thanks.

[Xendar]

Hi there,

I'm guessing that you won't have a massive budget for this short. With this in mind I think its going to be a difficult task to show fully someone being hit by a car. Also there are the safety concerns when filming these types of things. I think sometimes it can be just as effective implying that someone has been hit. Such as Showing a close up of the victims face with their eyes widening as they see the car coming towards them with a screech of tyres, cut to a shot of the drivers foot slamming on the brake pedal.

[GingeUK]

I asked this over on theforce.net a few weeks back since those guys are in the know on effects and stunts to a certain extent.

They suggested you shoot three slates.

1. Clear road

2. Person crossing the road

3. Car passing from screen left to screen right.

Once these are completed you put them in after effects to composit all three shots with some motion blur and cutting out a frame of the man crossing the street to make it look like he's been hit. Hopefully some of that made sense. I am in a rush. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[TheStrandedMoose]

mmm sorry, that doesnt make much sense.
wouldnt it just look like the guy vanishes on impact? that wouldnt look good.
plus im not really sure how to composite, i assume thee camera would be fixed on a tripod tho?

[eidde]

closely watch the clips that you think work well and figure out how they shot it. Copy.

Alternativley use cuts and sound:

- Man crossing road
- car speeding down road
<sound of car>
- CU on mans face looking up suprised/scared
<screech of tyres>
- man throws himself off bonnet of (stationary car) onto the road.

or permutation. Not that hard.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 21, 2006 10:29 AM: Message edited by: eidde ]</font>

[Ornsack]

If you're daring, do it for real

The best advice would be to not drive too fast, and whoever gets run over should jump backwards on to the bonnet before the car actually takes you off your feet yourself

Clever filming (usually from far away, zoomed up), quick cuts and speeding the footage up a lil' bit helps

We did it for this - [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6e16mLYNls"]YouTube - Sheriff John Bunnell Spoof[/ame] and I think it came out pretty good!


Saying that, someone running and diving on to a parked car while the cameraman zooms in and runs past the car can look great with sound effects!

[Nigel]

Ornsack...

That link you posted is about the worst shit I have ever seen!!!!!

A complete waste of time.

[GingeUK]

Yeah that wasn't the best video I have seen. If you are going to try and pass it off as American you might want to try and make the scenery American and not have British numberplates and police lookalikes.