Two (rather hopeful) requests

[Generic Skinhead]

Theres a shot in a project I'm doing next month, where the camera is upside down and i need it to turn the right way up. Here's the setup:

There's an hourglass in the foreground and a girl lying in the background. The camera is upside down at this point. As the sand flows through the hourglass the camera flips the right way round- the effect hopefully of the room moving but the girl staying in the one position.

The camera is big, so im trying to avoid handheld. I've heard about Technoheads but they are too expensive methinks.

The second thing is, if anyone out there is good with graphics, i need footage of a beating human heart. Stylistic or realistic I don't mind too much.

Anyway if anyone has any thoughts, I'd be very grateful.

[sn-films]

For the hourglass shot, have you considered stapling the actress to the floor and spinning the room! [img]wink.gif[/img]

Actually, the real limiting factor on that shot will be the hourglass. Because gravity is the way it is, the hourglass will need to remain vertical the entire time in order for the sand to keep flowing, right? Any chance you could blue-screen the hourglass and composite it in post? I can't think of another way to do it without distorting the laws of physics, physically spinning the room, or resorting to CGI.

As for rotating the camera... here's a wacky idea, but it might help to get you started on a better solution.

Cut the bottom off of a sturdy bucket and use odds-and-ends from the local hardware store to mount the camera inside the bucket. Your local paint store might have a bucket that fits the bill. Have four friends with bicycles stop by the day of the shoot. Flip the bikes over so they're upside down... two to the left of the camera-bucket and two to the right. Rest your camera-bucket in the cradle created by the four rear tires of the bicycles. Have one of your grips work the pedals of one of the bikes with one hand and the rear brake with the other. To prevent the camera from spinning past the mark, you could use a piece of string. Stand on one end and have the other attached to the bucket. When the string is taught, the bucket will stop, and which point your grip will need to pull the brake to prevent the camera-bucket from bouncing around.

All of the other ideas I have come up with are variations on this that require advanced welding and carpentry skills that would probobly be better suited for a different forum. Anyway, I hope this helps to get you started.

One request though... bookmark this thread and post a follow-up after the shoot. I'd love to hear how you eventually solved this one.

Good luck!

[tim partridge]

Generic,

is the girl infront of a plain black BG?

[Andy.tom]

Gray's Anatomy possibly for the picture of the heart LinkI yhink your free of copyright because it was first published in 1858(I m not sure about that so don't blame me if you get in trouble)

[jbridges]

Couldn't you just do everything in post? [img]eek.gif[/img]

[Groovemeister]

Doing it in post would be the easy way, what's your budget? Could you hire in some gear for the shot?

[Generic Skinhead]

First off thanks to all who replied.

SN-Films: You are an imaginative guy. But I'm thinking there must be an easier way.

Tim: To be honest i'm not sure what the background will be yet. Would plain black help somehow?

Andy: Unfortunatley i'm looking for footage of a heart not stills.

Direktyr: Do it in post, how?

Groovemeister: My budget isnt huge- about 5000 euro.

[tim partridge]

I'm not entirely sure I understand the design of the shot, but I WOULD DEFINITELY have a black background to conceal as much as possible and help if you decide to go with any simple matting- I would go with sn-film's spinning the room idea, seriously. This way you can get interactive lighting on the girl to suggest movement.

I also think you could use the black background and do seperate passes of the timer and the girl that could be double exposed, assuming you are shooting film- it could all be done incamera-
it's just that fekkin' eggtimer- you could replace the grain with iron filings and use a magnet. This could be done seperately for double exposure so you could have the element shot on it's side.

Unless you can get a dandy freebie, I'd avoid the hothead.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 10, 2005 08:01 PM: Message edited by: tim partridge ]</font>

[occasus]

Originally posted by Generic Skinhead:
There's an hourglass in the foreground and a girl lying in the background. The camera is upside down at this point. As the sand flows through the hourglass the camera flips the right way round- the effect hopefully of the room moving but the girl staying in the one position.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I don't get it. Why would the girl be staying in the one position? That means the hourglass is moving. Why..? Hummmmmmmmmm...

[tim partridge]

I've just had another idea:

film some footage of the eggtimer against black, static- get it processed-

keep the background black as before to make life easy, shoot the girl spinning from above as before-

then while filming the girl, front project the image of the eggtimer onto a two way mirror using an ordinary cine film projector and turn the projectors lens to fake the timer spinning, ala the zoptic system from the superman movies! there's no overlapping of elements and it's all against black, the two never crossover- DEAD simple! if you are going to an electronic master you can crush the blacks and tweak the grade on after effects.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 10, 2005 08:17 PM: Message edited by: tim partridge ]</font>