How to do this? Rotation/lighting

[Rick Wise]

Likely that iPhone was shot live. Using a turntable. Possibly a small support to lift the phone off the surface that is rotoscoped out in post. Otherwise, on a white surface that matches the white background. The object has to be centered exactly, otherwise it will swing around the screen and not just rotate on itself. This is not easy to do. You need a professional turntable (props/rental house) which allows you to adjust the speed exactly as you want it.

Pulling off the perfect camera move is also no easy task. It is possible this was shot with high enough resolution that the entire pull was done in post. But I think it was shot live all the way.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Mark Suszko]

The cheap way is to power a lazy susan using a battery-powered barbecue grill rotisserie motor. Or a wind-up kitchen timer motor.

The very precise, speed-controlled and repeatable way is to use a stepper motor, driven by a controller circuit, or a servo with continuous rotation capability. Those, along with the other parts you might need, can be found many places but I’ll suggest https://www.servocity.com

Specifically this page:

https://www.servocity.com/html/vertical_shaft_worm_drive_gear.html

[Todd Terry]

Yes, a turntable is your friend.

We’ve tried different things, not having access to a “real” photographer’s turntable.

Several times we have used, with pretty good success, a regular phonographic turntable (our general manager’s wife’s old one rescued from their attic). We took the drive belt off of it (after discarding the Peter Frampton LP), and on top made a much bigger white foamcore “platter” which sat on top of it. The moves weren’t precisely repeatable, of course, but we were able to make some smooth rotations (and put light pencil guide marks for stopping and starting on the edge of the foamcore). We did have a slightly visible “horizon” at the far edge of the platter… but in one spot it didn’t matter at all (in fact it looked cool), and in the other we masked it out (with a little bit of rotoscoping, too). Having tried several things, we never found anything like a lazy susan that would spin as smoothly and effortless as a phono turntable… which does spin very well.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark Suszko]

Terry, click the video link on that second link I posted in this thread, just before your response.

[Todd Terry]

That’s interesting, Mark, and not very expensive.

I note though that they do mention “extremely slow and smooth rotational motion.” My bet is that that would be a lot slower than I personally would ever use. The few turntable shots we’ve ever done were, I’d guess, something like 4 or 5 seconds for a full rotation (though we usually only did half or quarter revolutions). I’m betting that industrial gadget is mucho slower than that. A good tool, though, if that’s what you’re needing, and probably could create an excellent camera platform for timelapse as well.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark Suszko]

Shoot it slow and dead-smooth… then speed-ramp it in post to taste?

There’s other systems on that site that can turn faster and at all kinds of variable speeds and reversable directions.

[Mark D’agostino]

We recently did a rotating shot transitioning from a 1910 candlestick phone to a smart phone. We used our 25 year old, 20lb. turntable with a 700lb. capacity hooked up to a variac, (I could have used any portable lighting dimmer). The variac let us set our speed and the heavy turntable was rock solid smooth. We were able to slow the turntable to about a 30 second rotation.In post we made minor speed corrections for the timing we needed. The tricky part for us from a lighting stand point, especially with the very shiny smart phone, was that this was a green screen shot. Lots of large soft bounce light, flags and distance from the green…

Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com

[Todd Terry]

Here’s the sample of the down-n-dirty turntable shot we did for a commercial for a local realtor. This was just using the old photographic turntable that I mentioned earlier… with a big round white foamcore “platter” added to the top of the turntable.

It’s not perfect by any means (and a tiny bit shaky if you look closely), but it was quick and easy. This was a very low-budget spot so the client didn’t have funds for us to do it any better, but I think it was passable….

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T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Mark D’agostino]

I imagine your client was thrilled. Very nice, low budget or not. How did you do the zoom into the screen closeup?

Mark D’Agostino
http://www.synergeticproductions.com

[Rick Amundson]

We use a turn table marketed to bakeries. It is reversible and speed adjustable and was very inexpensive compared to “commercial” turn tables. It’s not for heavy duty uses but we have shot a LOT of cell phones on it. Getting them to stand up is the tricky part as each phone has a different shape, center point, weight distribution and mounting option. We have used tacky wax, USB plugs taped green and keyed out, carpet tape and giant paper clips, clear plastic run behind the battery, etc. The key is to give yourself enough room along the bottom to rotoscope out the rig.

Best of luck!

Rick Amundson
Producer/Director/DP
Screenscape Studios
Bravo Romeo Entertainment
http://www.screenscapestudios.com
http://www.bravoromeo.com
http://www.indeliblemovie.com