Two cameras on one tripod

Charles Papert · September 2nd, 2007, 11:31 AM

Here's that concept taken to ridiculous lengths...I had to shoot wide and tight with the same eyeline on both cameras.

One of the things I realized very early on when designing that rig was that both cameras needed to be separately operated. In almost all cases framing for one size with the other one "following" will result in the slaved camera having a less-than-desirable composition. Renton's green screen example would be a notable exception as you have the flexibilty of repositioning the talent within the frame in post to "tidy up" the composition.

Consider a situation where you are shooting a play, for example--if an actor was to cross downstage and take a few steps to the right, the tight camera would have to react and pan/tilt with him while the wide may have a much more minimal adjustment, if at all--if one simply operates that tight shot with the wide shot slaved to it, the wide will appear needlessly "active".

Renton Maclachlan · September 2nd, 2007, 01:45 PM

My goodness!!!! I'm not in that league!

I've wondered about how it would look if I did the same as I described above, but with one camera through a teleprompter and the other not.

Would it matter if in one shot the talent is looking into the camera, and in the other off camera? I can't remember ever seeing that but may have and not taken any notice - thus showing it works. Does it?

Charles Papert · September 2nd, 2007, 02:54 PM

Renton, I thought long and hard about this before setting this rather complicated rig into motion. Given a certain distance from the subject, mounting the two cameras next to each other and having the subject look into the tighter of the two could work. However it leaves a bit up to chance because if you had to move in closer with the cameras, either physically or by zooming, you risk having the eyeline appear noticeably off. In this particular shoot, we only had so many hours with Jerry (Seinfeld) and a lot to do, and the dolly moves were not defined ahead of time so I had to be prepared for anything. We had pre-laid a 12x16 dance floor just to cover our bases, and we ended up doing a variety of moves using the entire floor so it was a good choice. When the heat was on, I was literally calling out the variations to the move to my dolly grip as we were starting the roll the cameras. Luckily he was on the ball!

Anyway, as far as one camera having a direct eyeline and the other not, it's a little fishy looking. If you can make out the orientation of the eyeballs, you can "feel" that something is off a little bit. It's fine if the cameras are quite different perspective but not when they appear to be virtually identical. The "normal" way to shoot this is to do a wide version followed by a tight version, with a single camera. We just didn't have the time.

A much more streamlined version of this concept will very shortly be possible with a high-resolution camera like RED, where the 720p window that we were delivering the program in would fit many times over within the 4K image sensor. You would simply shoot the scene wide, and then later extract the tighter version to taste. It would obviously involve a certain amount of tracking (and for this project, the timeframe was too tight to allow this). It would be interesting to imagine a hardware tracking interface such as a joystick that would allow one to "operate" the frame-within-a-frame and have tracking captured real-time--probably some version of this is available somewhere!

Renton Maclachlan · September 2nd, 2007, 03:34 PM

Thanks for the ideas Charles. I'm only very new at this and am a little man with very limited budget, but never the less wanting to do the very best with what I've got. yesterday I scrutinized Peter Jackson's interviews re the making of King Kong to see how they were done - just basic shooting and setup, but well done.

I've just made a teleprompter which works stop on. It could accomodate two cameras with different levels of zoom, but more what I was thinking about is what a two camera shoot like I described above would look like if the off eye line camera was 'obviously' off line and not 'only just' off line. How would it look flipping between a shot speaking to the camera and one speaking obviously off camera?

Charles Papert · September 2nd, 2007, 03:41 PM

Renton:

You'll see that sometimes in interviews, where a second camera is set for a profile angle. The prototypical version of that some years ago was for the producer to man a small-format camcorder and grab cutaways from a different angle (often these were desaturated to black and white and/or treated to hide or make the most of the different visual quality to the primary camera).

It's a stylistic choice that can and is done. The trick is to figure out how much to use that shot. If you sit for a long time on a frontal, to-the-lens recitation and then suddenly cut to an off-axis shot, it might be a bit disconcerting.

As I said, it has been done. With the Seinfeld shoot, the segments were too short to justify any kind of "odd" cutaway; we knew the only place to cut to would be a tighter version of the same shot.

Denis Danatzko · September 3rd, 2007, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham Bernard

There is this twin head system which HAS intrigued me

http://www.b-hague.co.uk/Mounting%20Brackets.htm

Plus what I'd be wanting would be at east 2 LCDs in front of me to "monitor" the video outputs. Meaning, it isn't necessarily the issue of controlling 2 cameras, it is VIEWING them independently of each other from one point.

Yes, if I could get my head around the viewing system, which ain't cheap, then it would also fill another part of the puzzle.

Grazie

and more $$.

I've done a couple shoots where this rig would have been a big help. (I beginning to realize just how demanding shooting w/1 cam is, and how boring the footage can become).

Thanks for the tip.

Jon Omiatek · September 3rd, 2007, 06:14 PM

Double post

Jon Omiatek · September 3rd, 2007, 06:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham Bernard

There is this twin head system which HAS intrigued me

http://www.b-hague.co.uk/Mounting%20Brackets.htm

Graham you are my hero!! I have looking for creative ways to hang my grizzly pro remote heads, now I have many options!

I will post pictures of my dual camera bracket I made a while ago. It puts the 2nd camera on top of the main camera.

Jon

Dave Blackhurst · September 4th, 2007, 12:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Bennett

Anyone ever tried this with video cameras? I have seen rigs used by still photographers

Hi Doug -
since the wide cam doesn't really need to move in a wedding, you can perhaps go with something like those clamps - I've done that, clamping to the main shaft just below the regular tripod head, which can still pan and tilt a bit if you're careful. Main thing is if you bump the pod, BOTH cams jump at the same time... not ideal for later editing - I want my wide safety cam to just sit there, maybe zoom in after the processional and out just before the exit... so while I CAN rig two cams on one pod, I'd rather take an extra or I leave my handheld on steady stick, which is fine for short ceremonies, shooting from the back.

Doug Bennett · September 4th, 2007, 03:56 PM

anyone know where you can get one of those two head tripod mounts on the b-hague website in the US? B&H don't have them.

September 2nd, 2007, 11:31 AM	#16
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Here's that concept taken to ridiculous lengths...I had to shoot wide and tight with the same eyeline on both cameras. One of the things I realized very early on when designing that rig was that both cameras needed to be separately operated. In almost all cases framing for one size with the other one "following" will result in the slaved camera having a less-than-desirable composition. Renton's green screen example would be a notable exception as you have the flexibilty of repositioning the talent within the frame in post to "tidy up" the composition. Consider a situation where you are shooting a play, for example--if an actor was to cross downstage and take a few steps to the right, the tight camera would have to react and pan/tilt with him while the wide may have a much more minimal adjustment, if at all--if one simply operates that tight shot with the wide shot slaved to it, the wide will appear needlessly "active". __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

September 2nd, 2007, 02:54 PM	#18
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Renton, I thought long and hard about this before setting this rather complicated rig into motion. Given a certain distance from the subject, mounting the two cameras next to each other and having the subject look into the tighter of the two could work. However it leaves a bit up to chance because if you had to move in closer with the cameras, either physically or by zooming, you risk having the eyeline appear noticeably off. In this particular shoot, we only had so many hours with Jerry (Seinfeld) and a lot to do, and the dolly moves were not defined ahead of time so I had to be prepared for anything. We had pre-laid a 12x16 dance floor just to cover our bases, and we ended up doing a variety of moves using the entire floor so it was a good choice. When the heat was on, I was literally calling out the variations to the move to my dolly grip as we were starting the roll the cameras. Luckily he was on the ball! Anyway, as far as one camera having a direct eyeline and the other not, it's a little fishy looking. If you can make out the orientation of the eyeballs, you can "feel" that something is off a little bit. It's fine if the cameras are quite different perspective but not when they appear to be virtually identical. The "normal" way to shoot this is to do a wide version followed by a tight version, with a single camera. We just didn't have the time. A much more streamlined version of this concept will very shortly be possible with a high-resolution camera like RED, where the 720p window that we were delivering the program in would fit many times over within the 4K image sensor. You would simply shoot the scene wide, and then later extract the tighter version to taste. It would obviously involve a certain amount of tracking (and for this project, the timeframe was too tight to allow this). It would be interesting to imagine a hardware tracking interface such as a joystick that would allow one to "operate" the frame-within-a-frame and have tracking captured real-time--probably some version of this is available somewhere! __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

September 2nd, 2007, 03:41 PM	#20
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	Renton: You'll see that sometimes in interviews, where a second camera is set for a profile angle. The prototypical version of that some years ago was for the producer to man a small-format camcorder and grab cutaways from a different angle (often these were desaturated to black and white and/or treated to hide or make the most of the different visual quality to the primary camera). It's a stylistic choice that can and is done. The trick is to figure out how much to use that shot. If you sit for a long time on a frontal, to-the-lens recitation and then suddenly cut to an off-axis shot, it might be a bit disconcerting. As I said, it has been done. With the Seinfeld shoot, the segments were too short to justify any kind of "odd" cutaway; we knew the only place to cut to would be a tighter version of the same shot. __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

September 3rd, 2007, 06:14 PM	#22
Jon Omiatek Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 755	Double post Last edited by Jon Omiatek; September 4th, 2007 at 06:48 AM.

September 2nd, 2007, 01:45 PM	#17
Renton Maclachlan Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 1,180	My goodness!!!! I'm not in that league! I've wondered about how it would look if I did the same as I described above, but with one camera through a teleprompter and the other not. Would it matter if in one shot the talent is looking into the camera, and in the other off camera? I can't remember ever seeing that but may have and not taken any notice - thus showing it works. Does it?

September 2nd, 2007, 03:34 PM	#19
Renton Maclachlan Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 1,180	Thanks for the ideas Charles. I'm only very new at this and am a little man with very limited budget, but never the less wanting to do the very best with what I've got. yesterday I scrutinized Peter Jackson's interviews re the making of King Kong to see how they were done - just basic shooting and setup, but well done. I've just made a teleprompter which works stop on. It could accomodate two cameras with different levels of zoom, but more what I was thinking about is what a two camera shoot like I described above would look like if the off eye line camera was 'obviously' off line and not 'only just' off line. How would it look flipping between a shot speaking to the camera and one speaking obviously off camera?

September 4th, 2007, 03:56 PM	#25
Doug Bennett Major Player Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: NYC Posts: 260	anyone know where you can get one of those two head tripod mounts on the b-hague website in the US? B&H don't have them.