I was wondering if there is anyone out there with experience in filming car chases in any of their films. I understand and have seen lots of equipment for the cameras being mounted on cars, etc, But I am interested in camera settings.

What settings have you found the best? Normal shutter, or slighty higher shutterspeed?, etc

Anyone with any tips or ideas will be greatly received

THANKS!

An important thing you need to realize that if you shoot from a moving car to the side, everything looks 2x as fast.

If you haven't seen it, get the season 1 BMW Films DVD, and watch the "Making of the films" and "Driving Techniques" pieces. These are also available online at BMWFilms.com.
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I'd shoot with a higher shutter speed to get it more clear. But
that depends on what sort of look your after. With things like
car chases you should:

1. be very very very carefull

2. plan plan plan plan

3. rehearse rehearse rehearse

When the drivers are very (important!) comfortable with what
they must do place your cameras and have them rehearse
more. During each rehearsel change settings and check back to
see how it looks after the shoot. This makes sure that:

1. you can se more possibilites

2. spot shots that might not work

3. get more footage for you to use

4. reduce errors when everything goes to final shooting

Good luck and be safe!

when you're shooting something faster, live action for instance you're going to want to use a faster frame rate. This will make things look crisper, if you're shooting at night without much light you might not want to do that. (the faster shutter speed needs more light) Also another technique is to shoot everything slowly and then speed it up in post, this is cool ebcause A) no one get's hurt and 2) it allows you to really play with the camera angles. Cheers.
Nick

<<<-- Originally posted by Dennis Adams : If you haven't seen it, get the season 1 BMW Films DVD, and watch the "Making of the films" and "Driving Techniques" pieces. These are also available online at BMWFilms.com.
///d@ -->>>

Ooh, I didn't know there was a DVD! I think I may have to indulge myself.

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Taylor :

Ooh, I didn't know there was a DVD! I think I may have to indulge myself. -->>>

In fact, the new season 2 "The Hire" DVD just came out, and it includes the season 1 movies too. The season 2 movies are out in HD (720/30p) WMV in some Microsoft XP promotion; perhaps they are on the new DVD as well, I don't have mine yet. You can order them for shipping alone on the BMW site (they even eat the shipping if you own a BMW, log into the Owner's Circle to order).

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The only problem with shooting a car chase slowly then speeding up in post is that it'll look all wrong. It'll be like something out of night rider when they press the pursuit button, the car will look like it's going 200mph with no body movement or roll, it won't look good.

John.

<<<-- Originally posted by John Steele : The only problem with shooting a car chase slowly then speeding up in post is that it'll look all wrong. It'll be like something out of night rider when they press the pursuit button, the car will look like it's going 200mph with no body movement or roll, it won't look good.

John. -->>>

Now you've got me thinking -- what if you had a professional totally loosen up the suspension and whatnot so that even little corners made it roll a lot -- then when you sped it up it would look correct! Just a thought -- don't try this without consulting an expert! Now that there's "how to" videos on doing fight scenes, there needs to be one on doing car chases :)

///d@

what would you say would be a nice round target area for the shutter speed to be set around??? (or as close to as possible dependent upon light levels) what shutter speed would look good but not too rediculous????

Not over the top like Knight Rider, or other extreme...something like the nice car chases in Taxi (french) o Ronin...same people I believe...

I helped a friend shoot a car chase scene for his movie, and we simplified everything by shooting at extremely short focal lengths (we shot in an empty school parking lot on a sunday morning) There were some shots where we'd mount a fisheye on the camera and get extremely close...this CAN be dangerous, but since we used really short focual lengths, and fisheyes, it makes everything seem faster...we shot at about 18-25mph and it seemed more like 50-60 especially when you shake the camera. But most of the speed effect can be conveyed through sound design. The chase scene in The Rock through San Fransisco was shot 90% with absolutely no car movement at all. they sat in a parking lot and shook the camera REALLY REALLY hard (not a good idea for a PD150, but a panavision can handle it)