Glidecam Test and Trombone Shot #2

We have been putting off doing another trombone shoot after how much of a pain it was last time, but we decided to bite the bullet and do it today, and also test out the glidecam for a few test shots ducking in between the crowd in the Circus. 

We started with the glidecam. I had a vague idea how to set it up watching a few tutorials the night before (this one was particularly useful) and also watching Ethan test it from Allurement last year. We attatched the harness no problem, balancing it however was a lot more difficult. We thought we had it sussed, moving the adjustable plates underneath the camera (left and right, and back and forward), but it kept swaying and spinning around on its own (even when I walked carefully and straight). So we went to find the lecturer and balanced it on a tripod and also handheld/not on the harness. We were going wrong with the weights and we needed it to be a lot lighter. We also need to do a drop test (lie the camera horizontally and see how long it takes to drop down) which should take 2-3 seconds to fall. You can also move where the weights on the bottom are to add to the drop test.

It was very time consuming, and still didn't 'glide', but the director liked it bobbing up and down to create uneasiness. We will have to decide whether it was worth all the time to set up, or use the spider rig or a tripod with wheels attatched instead. 

Special thanks to Drew, Mikey and Chloe for helping out as a crowd for this bit.

After lunch, we tacked the trombone shot again. We figured out that last time it wasn't as dramatic as we hoped because the clown was stood too close to the background. So we had Chloe step in and come a bit closer to the camera to test out whether we figured correctly. We did it from a few different distances to see which worked best. The first one where Chloe was stood a bit further from the wall we could see an instant difference. We then decided to bring her a bit closer, to where the track ended, and this one worked the best! We also tried even closer, but it was a bit too much. I also had to push the dolly, zoom and also tilt up to get all of Chloe in at the same time. I managed, but the shot just wasn't as good as the previous one.

Special shout out to Chloe for helping us out in this bit!