Faux Crane Moves

[budwzr]

I did a baby shoot at the park yesterday with my new GoPro Hero2 attached to a monopod, and using the wifi remote control. Works well, but that's not the topic, so I digress.

During the shoot I had to make some movements from time to time, and by accident I got a really smooth crane-type shot where the camera is circling and moving in at the same time. And it was dramatic! hahaha.

They say it's not the gear, it's the technique, and "they're" right! It's the kind of thing you can intellectualize and be aware of, but until you actually accomplish it, it doesn't hit you how dramatic it is.

So I wanted to share that a camera on a monopod CAN be operated similar to a crane, and you can stabilize it in post, and it has the same impact to the eye/brain of the viewer. I'm lovin it!

I've been stuck for so long in learning the technicalities of the craft, not so much on the creative aspects, so I'm anxious to move forward finally.

[stackner]

a bit of video to actually see this would be awsome. i too have some gopro's and am always looking at new shots to get.

[budwzr]

I can't post it because it's an actual job, and I don't want to lose it And the last time I posted one of my proprietary solutions, it ended up stolen by Alan Speerberg.

But what I did was extend the monopod and move the camera as if I were using the zoom ring on a camera. The GoPro has no zoom so you kind of "have" to do it this way, like a crane shot.

That would be a stationary crane, not one on a track. So you stand in one spot and try to be slow and smooth. Just billboard the camera to the subject, and move in arcs, like a semi-circle.

The GoPro has a sweet spot where the subject is fairly normal looking, and it's about 3-5 feet. And that would be in the center of the lens.

I usually shoot at 720p60, then stabilize, and if I get some border crop, I reduce the resolution of the video until it's sharp again. I find that scaling the video and giving it a unique crop makes it stand out more too.

But if you MUST have 720 resolution, then you want to start off with 1080, then crop it to 720 after edits.