Here's my dilemma: I'm currently in production on a feature-length film in which a car crash figures very prominently. I need to shoot a car crash (from inside the car) without harming the car (I don't have that kind of budget). I want to avoid any compositing or CG work as much as possible because I can't afford to make anything like that look any good (although I do have access to After Effects so I could probably get away with a few mattes).
I'll be fine as far as wide exterior shots go, I've got a clear plan in my head as to how to make those work. What I'm worried about are the interior shots. I'm planning to go in the direction of a lot of shaky camera moves and breaking candy glass, but I'm not sure how far I can go with that.
The overall goal is not to be impressive or show off, just to make it convincing, which probably means showing as little as possible (I've thought about just "implying" the crash by panning away and adding some sound effects, but this seems even cheesier to me than directly showing a poorly-executed crash).
Any ideas?
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Andrew Gingerich
Exploding Goldfish Films
Check out my blog at http://www.exgfilms.com
and my reel at http://portfolio.exgfilms.com
personally for the inside shots i would do exactly what you are thinking. Alot of shaky camera. But i wouldnt even break candy glass. i would do one of two things: 1)shake the camera whenever the impact is suppose to happen and have you actor whip foward then cut. 2)do the same thing but then have the camera end up tilted on the floor at the end of the shot looking up at the driver whose face is laying on teh steering wheel and pump some smoke into the car. both are easy and require minimal effects. as for the outside shots of them crashing, i got nothing for ya if you dont want to actually damage a car. hope this helped
"I believe the cinema is one of our principal forms of art. It is an incredibly powerful way to tell uplifitng stories that can move people to cry with joy and inspire them to reach for the stars."-Wes Craven
"Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write 'War and Peace' in a bumper car in an amusement park, when you finally get it right, there are not many joys in life that can equal the feeling." - Stanley Kubrick
(1) Park car next to crash victim. Camera inside car. Drive backwards very quick away from crash victim (who walks backwards or stands or whatever). We'll reverse this when the time comes.
(2) Shoot through drivers window of car to get reaction shot of drivers face as he throws his hands up in terror or whatever.
(3) Sprawl actor across hood, or have them laying nearby.
Add in sounds of (1) Engine roar and car skid (2) Car skid, horn, sickening thump broken glass?
Cut it all together quick and it will look like the car hit the victim.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
wow. there are so many different ways of doing this.
all the suggestions here are great and will all work equally well.
i guess what you will have to do is decide how much money for gags you can spend.
if you cant spend any money then you will have to use 'style' 🙂
i guess style in action shots is trying to cheat without being cheesey. 🙂
for low budget, small money, i always use tight reaction shots and good sound design, but post-facto set dressing is vital.
this is what i did before:
if you want a damaged car, go to a junk yard, see if you can find a good condition wreck, something that was someway transportable and didnt look like a rust bucket (but still didnt have blood in the interior) but most vitally: ONE WHICH YOU KNOW CAN BE RENTED.
the location i used for the crash was straight outside the junkyard, so it wasnt a logistic nightmare to move the crashed car.
dressed the set, smoke and so on, blood for the driver.
the effect was great.
but beware of stickers in the window. for all of my work, i was caught out 🙂
i hope this helps.
