[Todd Terry]

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Just did a tiny bit of investigating, and yeah the C200 handgrip will work that way.

If you can’t get a long off-the-shelf cable that will work (if standard 1/8″ stereo connectors aren’t exactly right), you could buy one of these….

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1357833-REG/shape_c200re_canon_c200_relocator_extension.html?ap=y&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5ebG3tuw3QIVhJOzCh3W9AysEAQYBCABEgJUm_D_BwE&smp=y

…and cut it in half, and then use just some additional cable (I’d probably buy just a regular 1/8″ stereo cable… 25′ or 50′ or 100″ or however long you need and hack the ends off) and use that to splice into the “proper” cable. It would take a tiny bit of soldering skill, but wouldn’t be too bad.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

This would be a question for Canon, but I do not think the C200 has any kind of IR receiver for a conventional remote on it. You might ask Canon support if it does.

BUT… there might be a fairly easy solution.

Now, I don’t know that this is true for the C200, but with the C300 if you remove the side-grip handle you will see that it is just connected to the camera body with a little cable and 1/8″ pin… like this….

Seems to me it would be easy enough to take off the handle and add an extension cable to the mix so that you could put the camera body in one place and string the handle to where you need to be able to remotely control it… since the camera has both a “roll” button and a couple of other assignables on it.

I don’t know that this is a standard 1/8″ (3.5mm) pin (I haven’t checked it), but it looks like it might be… or maybe a little shorter. This would be exactly the same setup that Zacuto (and probably some others) use to re-locate the handle for their handheld rigs… just with a much longer cable.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Thanks guys…

Chuck… we’ll give you a call next week.

Bob… I have no idea what you mean (I’m betting Bob has heard that before, though).

Mike… good things to think about. Livestream says though (and we talked with one of their reps for a very long time) that they can be public OR very private, with tons of privacy and security options, so I think they are used to that. Really the ONLY problem with them is the cost… they are very expensive. Well, the service would actually be fairly reasonably-priced if we were doing live events every day, or every week, or even every month… but this is only once or twice a year. And since they have nothing except an annual plan (which seems asinine to me, but hey it’s their business), that doesn’t make one-off events very cost effective. Fortunately this event is always at the corporate headquarters, so hopefully dedicated bandwidth won’t be an issue… we can put the onus on our client for that…no dealing with the IT guy at the Radison to make sure there’s adequate service in the Magnolia Ballroom.

I DO really like the Livestream switcher, though, because it is so all-in-one and pick-it-up-and-go. It’s one black box, with a handle, that is everything… switcher, encoder, five SDI inputs, five HDMI inputs, audio XLR inputs, and screen. It’s only about the size of a very (well, very very) large laptop, if you stood it up on edge. All we had to do is plug our cameras into the side (well, and a keyboard and mouse). We did add one external screen just to solo monitor the program signal, but didn’t have to. Internally it will record the program stream, the clean program stream sans graphics, and any or all of the cameras as iso streams. We just recorded the program, but could have recorded them all. It’s pretty sweet. Not dirt cheap, but not wildly expensive either (the box is about $10K), but we rented it for only about 800 bucks for a whole week.

Appreciate the input…..

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Mark had a tiny bit more patience than I did.

You can only entertain the same exact questions over and over ad nauseam for so long, with the distinct feeling that all advice is falling on totally deaf ears, and is only fodder for an argument…. a constant barrage of “why it won’t work” or “but I heard that…” or “do you think it’s better to…” for the umpteenth time (despite the advice coming from people totaling well over a century’s worth of experience).

This is all a bit akin to the old saying (sometimes attributed to Einstein), “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But in this case it’s asking the same four questions over and over again (literally the same question in different threads), with the poster apparently expecting different answers this time ’round.

Use a gimbal if that’s the look you want. If it’s not… don’t. If a half dozen seasoned veterans look at your example and tell you over and over “That’s a dolly shot, not suitable for handheld,” you can take their advice… or not. But stop arguing about it. We’ll tell you that you can’t shoot with a telephoto lens on a Steadicam only so many times and listen to you (who apparently has never tried it) argue about it for so long. Take our advice… or don’t. Learn by failing.

If you are a real director, go out and direct something. Make some decisions for yourself. Stop it with the constant “Do you think it would look better to…” aesthetic questions. If it looks good to you, do it. If it doesn’t, don’t. People in here are happy to give advice, but actually making those decisions is your job… not ours.

I’m out as well.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

And in case you need other mounting points… this page shows a couple of other car camera mounts we’ve built….

https://fantasticplastic.com/portfolio/news031.html

I’ve used that hood mount both for driver’s perspective, and turned around pointing back at the driver/passenger as well. It is made out of two suction-cup shower grab bars from Home Depot’s plumbing department, with a piece of plywood bolted to it. People used to wonder why I’d trust them to hold 40 or 50K worth of camera gear on a moving vehicle… but the suction cups hold SO well, they are actually difficult to get to un-seal when I’m ready to take it apart. I used to put lots of straps on it, but I don’t even bother with them any more. I figure the people who make them don’t need any lawsuits from Granny falling in the shower, so they are made to hold really well, and they do. I’ll also use them to put lighting instruments on a car hood when we’re shooting from the side, even in daylight, to give a little kick in to the driver.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

Hey, I’m ALL about buying and using good/proper gear…. and for the last decade or so that’s what I’ve done, buy the RIGHT stuff and buy the GOOD stuff. But I haven’t always been that way and it doesn’t always make sense. The first couple of years of my company we didn’t have any money and I made tons of DIY camera mounts and rigs and such. I made my first full-blown camera crane a zillion years ago when I was just a kid… I like making things.

And sometimes still do…. if I need to do something in particular, and the “right” way is a $3000 job but the DIY way is a 30-buck job and will do it JUST AS WELL and is only needed for a couple of times, then I’ll DIY in a heartbeat.

A homemade hostess tray is painfully easy… here’s mine, made of PVC pipe and fittings and a hardboard camera platform…

Of course when I really use it there are lots of straps and pads, etc… I just threw it on my own car window quickly to show how it works.

Now… I fully understand not everyone is a do-it-yourselfer. We all have different gifts. Myself, I can make or rig just about any kind of camera mount to do just about anything, it’s just something I’m good at…. but I totally have a brown thumb in the garden, and God forbid I have a mechanical problem with a car or one of my motorcycles because I am clueless in the garage (I will call a mechanic in a heartbeat and not feel emasculated about that in the slightest). Not everyone is good at everything. So DIY rigs might not be your thing.

I will say though, as a side note, I’m not sure how anyone can screw up a DIY boom pole… it’s really just two steps…
1) Drive to Home Depot and buy a painter’s pole
2) Enjoy

So… if you can’t DIY it, there’s no shame in that. BUT… you might know someone who can. I have a friend who will tackle building things that I’d never dream of, and sometimes I have to go to him and say “Hey how can we make this work?”

It all depends on what you need. If I was doing tons of driving shots, I’d buy the real thing…either a real hostess tray, or a three-point suction-mount system. If I needed a couple of shots… absolutely not.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

For the shot you reference, you want to get the camera a good foot or two feet outside the car, to get the camera position far enough away from the talent to get that two-shot with the perspective that you want.

I haven’t used it in a while, but I have a hostess tray that I built myself, mostly out of PVC pipe and fittings. It fits over the edge of the car door with struts that support it on the outside, and a small platform for a tripod head. Probably spent less than $15 on it.

T2

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

[Todd Terry]

That little suction mount won’t get a camera far enough back for the two-shot with exactly that framing.

For exactly that shot, you need a camera mount that is known as a “hostess tray”… give it a Google.

Those suction mounts are good for shots that are more just driver-oriented, though, not so much for two shots….

All of the driver/car interiors from this piece were shot with my DJI Osmo Zenmuse X3 camera head suctioned to the windshield…

https://youtu.be/_nEsXsbIuv8

I would have normally used the slightly larger (though much better) X5 camera head… but it was having an issue and was being repaired. I used my X5 for all of the car interiors in this commercial…

https://youtu.be/FcudCo8ES9Y

As you can see, interior-mounted positions are good for single shots, not so much for two-shots.

If you ever watch Jerry Seinfeld’s “Comedians in Cars” or any of James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” segments, you’ll see that they do plenty of two-shots from suction-mounted interior cameras (GoPros), but they do have that warped perspective almost-fisheye look that you probably don’t want.

Also keep in mind…. the example you posted might have been none of these mounts… the vast vast majority of car interiors these days are composited (greenscreen or bluescreen), so then the mount is a moot point. Compositing has gotten so good (look up some of the amazing samples from the post house The Molecule) that towing a car and doing it practically is getting more rare.

T2

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

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[Todd Terry]

[Tomás Monzón] “Is this a viable option or would I be making a bad investment?”

I certainly think that’s a viable option.

One I would look at is a Canon XLH1 (I still have one around somewhere). You can get one for peanuts and pair it with a recorder. Before I moved to Canon’s C300PL (when they first came out), I used the H1 for years with a P+S Technik lens converter for cine-style shooting… but it its original configuration it’s a GREAT doc and ENG-style camera. I’ve been doing this for a long time and it is still one of my all-time favorite cameras.

And as I said, you can get one for very little these days.

I’m sure there are plenty of other cameras that would perform similarly, but that’s the one I have a lot of experience with and can heartily recommend it.

T2

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