Filming boxing / sparring

[Marco van Belle]

Hey there all,

In about 2 weeks i'm off on a foriegn jolly to film a boxer doing his warm weather training before he takes on a big title fight.

I'll be armed with my works issue Z1 and manfrotto legs / head.

Only problem is that because this guy is going to be in serious training, i won't be able to control the shoot. In fact, i have to stay out of the way and keep up with him. Unless i want a very dull impersonal piece of television, i'm going to have to shoot cu's.

However, handheld, zoomed in cu's of a guy ducking and diving ring all my alarm bells. They will be shaky and nasty! Especially since he won't really get into any patterns of repetition like some sports do (eg, i've shot motor racing and racing bikes ..and at least they always use similar lines into corners etc)

Can anybody offer a solution in the form of a support that i haven't thought of? Not a tripod of course, but is there anything that would help with the zoom shots? And something i can take delivery of in the UK inside 2 weeks.

Many thanks for any advice.

[Dean Sensui]

I'm considering building a shoulder mount for my PD-170. And I just read a story about a production that made good use of a Mightywondercam shoulder mount. It'll help take out a lot of the shakes.

Monopods work very nicely, too, and we use them a lot for our own coverage in our fishing show.

Get a variety of shots. Wide, close, medium. Get some tripod-mounted establishing shots of the locations. Get the boxer taping his hands and preparing. Road work. Jump rope. Speed bag and heavy bag.

For sparring, get the hang of tracking the shot by hand. You won't have to track it exactly as a boxer will move unpredictably, but instead allow the boxer to move in and out of a tight closeup. Otherwise the camera will be going all over the place with little chance of catching the boxer for very long.

If it's just boxing, then medium shots are common. If it's kickboxing, you'll need a lot of full-length shots to show the leg work.

Spend the two weeks practicing shooting the boxer. If it's training then you might be able to get into the ring or at least just outside the ring at one of the corners.

[Marco van Belle]

"For sparring, get the hang of tracking the shot by hand. You won't have to track it exactly as a boxer will move unpredictably, but instead allow the boxer to move in and out of a tight closeup. Otherwise the camera will be going all over the place with little chance of catching the boxer for very long."

Thanks Dean,

that's good advice which makes great sense. Thinking about it, its the way i've seen many similar situations shot a thousand times - but i've never been the one shooting them before!

I'm looking forward to it more now. I'll check out the support you mentioned.

[Saturnin Kondratiew]

also, play with shutter speed for different desired effects(especially when hes shadow boxing or hittng the bag). It will add so much more to the footage
1/250 should be plenty.

[Laurence Kingston]

I would just get a Spiderbrace or Spiderbrace 2 (depending on your camera) from Spiderbrace.com