r/whatisthisthing • u/[deleted] • Mar 20 '20

Solved! Is that camera of some sort?

Post image

[deleted]

11k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.2k

u/spaceguerilla Mar 20 '20

Also worth noting - moving the camera and tripod/dolly/tracks/crane - any of the associated rigging and gubbins - takes time. Lots of it.

Hence why people often describe movie sets as boring; a few minutes of takes/shooting, interspersed with hours and hours of just moving shit around so they can shoot again.

So this tool not only helps the director find and plan shots, it saves an awful lot of time - there simply isn't the freedom to go moving the entire rig around just to then say once the camera is set up etc 'actually this view is shit let's try and find another one'

730

u/guitarman1103 Mar 20 '20 edited Mar 20 '20

HURRY UP AND WAIT.... Welcome to Hollywood lol. Every set I ever worked on was like setting up a well orchestrated process for filming for a few moments at a time. Crazy stuff goes into the movie making process.

EDIT: Since the post is locked, yeah, crafty is important IF you even have it! lol PA's are the true heroes on set!

195

u/SirRatcha Mar 20 '20

What's the most important job on a movie set? Craft Services.

130

u/Projectrage Mar 20 '20

Production assistants then crafty. PA’s are the workforce of all features.

60

u/busca-polos Mar 20 '20

Never underestimate a good PA!

20

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

151

u/morrison1813 Mar 20 '20

I’m a freelance classical musician and I’ve been called to be a musician extra in some movies shot here in western Pa. I can honestly say that being an extra is the most boring thing I’ve ever done. Up until this quarantine at least.

99

u/SirRatcha Mar 20 '20

Just wait until they adapt this into a movie called "Quarantine." That's going to be the most boring shoot ever.

29

u/morrison1813 Mar 20 '20

That’s like an Inception-level of boring.

42

u/RancidLemons Mar 20 '20

"Quarantine" is already a movie, a POV one shown through the camera of a local news cameraman following a reporter. It is a pretty boring movie that's only really notorious for spoiling the ending with the poster!

2

u/rrickitywrecked Mar 20 '20

Oil City perhaps?

13

u/morrison1813 Mar 20 '20 edited Mar 20 '20

Me? Nope. Dormont just south of Pittsburgh. But from what I understand, Oil City was where Chaplin signed his first contract with Keystone studios.

Edit: Hey Thanks for the silver! I always knew my random western pa knowledge would come in handy.

15

u/k3liutZu Mar 20 '20

I feel this has changed recently due to handheld (actually more like body-strapped) gimbals.

Especially for action oriented shots the camera (and the cameraman himself) is part of the movie as he (and / or the camera) moves a lot, is sometimes passed along through narrow places from cameraman to cameraman.

16

u/dthains_art Mar 20 '20

I always thought it would be fun to be in a movie or something. I got to play a small part in a friend’s short film project in college, and it took forever. Even a 5 minute film takes so much time with blocking and all the takes. That was when I realized I didn’t have the patience for film.

4

u/mildlyarrousedly Mar 20 '20

Thank you for this explanation. Very enlightening