- Let's say your client wants an overhead rig.
They say, "Hey, Pete, we'd love for you to do this shoot,
"but we need that shot top down."
What are you gonna-
I don't even know why I'm talking about a client.
Let's just say you want an overhead rig.
You're making a video.
You're doing whatever it is that you're doing.
You need an overhead shot.
Now, your choices, you drill into the ceiling.
You drill into the wall.
(imitating jackhammer drilling)
I don't know what kind of drill that is,
unless you're using like a- doesn't matter.
The drywall's getting ruined.
Things are coming out.
You can't find the stud.
You need batteries and you never have AAA's
when you need them.
The whole thing just ends up being a huge hassle
and you think I hate overhead rigs.
I wish there was just a super easy way.
Maybe something that I could buy
where I don't have to hang and drill, screw, mount.
I just want a top down shot so I can do a card trick.
And I just so happen to have a deck of cards right here.
When in Rome.
So check this out.
Let's say we want a nice, clean overhead shot,
where we can monitor what's happening.
We want someone to go through, pick a card.
They take one out.
It's the 10 of hearts.
Ooh, that's a favorite of mine.
It's a total lie, this is just patter.
You do this when you do magic tricks.
You gotta come up with a story and make it entertaining.
All right, so the 10 is lost in the middle of the pack
against all odds.
We snap our fingers, (exhales excitedly) magical gesture.
Going through the cards to find one card,
(gasps) and one card only has changed colors.
Oh my goodness, it's a miracle.
Magic has happened folks.
One card is red.
Now, could it be the card that you're thinking of?
Turn it over, boom, 10 of hearts it is.
The crowd goes wild.
But you gotta do it again, 'cause there's always a skeptic.
There's always someone who's like mmm-mmm.
So take that 10 of hearts.
I will leave it on my knee, so it doesn't go.
I don't have a table, so it's gonna have to do.
So we'll go through it again.
You say stop anywhere.
You can't, so I'll just stop for you.
Take a look, that's the king of hearts.
We'll leave that in the center.
Magic gesture, whatever, I don't even know what I'm doing.
And we'll go through it again and would you look at that.
One more card.
(crickets chirping)
(snaps)
One more card.
You see this is the part where I'm faking it.
I'm making you think that I messed up,
because I already know
that one card that's on my knee,
bring that into focus.
Ladies and gentlemen, today,
we're talking about overhead rigs.
(inhales sharply)
(upbeat music)
What's up, everybody.
Peter McKinnon here, and welcome back to another video.
And yes, that long exaggerated intro
was just to say that we're doing a video
on overhead rigs today.
Now, I'll tell you why we're doing this video.
Because a lot of the times, I like to preface my material
on things that happened to me in real life.
So, for instance, the last video you guys saw on my channel
was me disassembling a 1D X Mark II.
I know, if you haven't seen it, link above.
Now, before I even did that,
the challenge was trying to figure out
how I was going to shoot this overhead
because I have nowhere in my office, nowhere in my studio
that actually allows me to mount this camera.
Now, in that little gear room,
which is actually a walk-in closet,
there are crossbars for hanging clothes.
It's just, the window is behind me
and the light doesn't work,
so I needed to do it in this main space,
but I had no way to do that.
I didn't want to actually ruin the drywall.
I don't want to drill into stucco in the ceiling.
And a lot of you guys don't have studios
or dedicated spaces for shooting,
so you just have to rig something up
and overhead rigs, as simple as they sound,
are actually kinda difficult.
Everybody that I've seen that has an overhead rig,
it's usually jimmy rigged in some sort of way,
which is kind of awesome
because it really takes some creativity
in knowing which parts to use,
but I'm kinda just gonna break this video down
and show you what I use for an overhead rig.
It's something that every cinematographer
needs in their arsenal.
Something that every photographer needs in their arsenal.
So if you don't have one of these,
you should probably go out and buy one anyway.
Then we're gonna talk about how I actually monitor
what I'm shooting when it's overhead.
And then lastly, we're finishing this off
with another giveaway and speaking of giveaways,
we gotta give away that M5.
Whoo, yeah, baby.
Okay, folks.
Winner of this tasty M5 package to get you going,
vlogging, taking photos, making videos,
just changing the world is...
What's her name again?
Maria Simoranda.
She's from Spain, so it's probably like Maria Simoranda.
(speaking foreign language)
congratulations, you won the camera, I think?
(laughs) uh, I should watch more Narcos.
I will be shipping this to you in Spain this week
or next week, so keep an eye out for it.
I've already emailed you, so check your inbox.
Congratulations.
Thanks for participating.
Okay, so there are probably 1,000 ways
to actually mount a camera overhead.
There are safe ways to do it.
There is not safe ways to do it.
There are actual things you can buy to do it.
A lot of people, like I said earlier,
jimmy rig their own solutions
and some people have permanent mounts for overhead rigs,
so that when you need to go shoot something that's overhead,
it's already there for you.
Now, the problem with overhead rigs
is they're just a little bit of a pain in the ass,
especially if you only have one camera.
You gotta disassemble the camera that you're shooting on,
unconnect everything, figure out how to mount it above.
It depends how heavy your camera is.
It's gonna depend on which lens you're using
with that camera and then how are you gonna see
what you're doing?
And then how do you make sure it's not gonna fall over?
I can't mount it.
There's so many different issues that you can run into.
And here it is.
This is essentially the overhead set up.
Now the best part about this is I can move this rig
wherever I want because all this is is a C-Stand,
counterweighted over here with a sandbag
so this whole thing doesn't come oooh,
falling down on top of me.
But that's essentially it.
Now that you get to see it,
you kinda know what it looks like.
Doesn't take up a whole lot of room
and is really, really easy to assemble.
Kay, I'm gonna film this on my 1D X II,
just so that I can get mobile with it.
I'm gonna put the microphone, here's a fun little tip.
Put the microphone on backwards
if you know everything you're gonna be shooting
is in front of you.
That way, the audio isn't trying to pick up around.
It's not gonna be very clear.
You turn that mic around,
you've got a microphone right in your mouth.
You almost have to be careful not to get too close
to that thunk.
The audio is way crisper.
It sounds way better and I've been doing that a lot
when I'm doing a hotel room tour
like you guys saw in that video in New York.
You can watch Blade Runner while you're in the bathroom.
That is just absolutely incredible.
If you didn't see it, I'll link that one too.
Whoo-hoo, links.
I'll leave this running too, just so we have two angles,
'cause, heh, why not.
Okay, so this is a C-Stand.
The reason C-Stands are really good
is because they have really wide supportive legs
that can really hinge in and out any which way you want.
Super solid.
They're not going anywhere
and they come out quite a distance.
And they're really built so they can withstand
a lot of weight from multiple angles.
All right, so they're really, really heavy,
really heavy duty stands.
We come on up here.
This is where we have our first grip head.
Now this grip head has a whole bunch of holes in it
and different mounts and it comes with this really long arm.
That's my light, sorry that it's super bright and blown out.
But this really long arm has another grip head
at the end of it.
So I've taken a spigot, that's what this is right here.
That's a spigot and it has different thread sizes
on the top and on the bottom and I stuck it in this hole,
clamped it down with this,
and just put my GorillaPod head on it.
And on the GorillaPod head is the tripod plate,
which connects to the camera,
which lets me point it straight down.
And that's pretty much it.
That hangs all the way out this far.
So you can see that's a pretty good distance,
and that let's me shoot straight down.
Now I have countered that with a sandbag
because if I didn't have a sandbag,
this whole thing would be falling down this way,
so it's important that you have counterweights.
Get some sandbags, a couple,
but once you have a C-Stand, a sandbag,
a couple of these little jobbies here,
and I'll show you a close up in a second,
and some tripod heads, you can pretty much mount anything,
anywhere to any position.
The little friction arm over there
is just a small little aperture light
that I had shining on the background,
which isn't even on right now.
So it's completely pointless.
Forget that.
Pretend that's not even there.
But that is essentially how I'm doing the overhead rig.
Now a lot of you might be like,
"how are you actually seeing what you're doing?"
and for that, I'm using the SmallHD focus monitor.
It's that new monitor they have for DSLR's that swivel.
So check this out.
You can swivel it to any direction.
If you need it to point straight down, so that you can see.
If you need it to point straight up, it doesn't matter.
That's the best feature of it.
You can point it right around,
if someone else wants to monitor it from behind the camera,
if you don't need to look.
Since I was doing some card stuff,
I had it pointed straight down
so that I could just look up at a moment's notice,
make sure I'm in focus.
Continue to peek up.
Heck, I could just do this the whole time
and make sure everything's in focus,
but that's the beauty of having the focus monitor there.
And, and as it just so happens to be,
I have an extra focus monitor.
You see, SmallHD sent me one to play with
and they actually sent me another one,
should I want to give it away on my channel,
and I think this is the perfect opportunity
to start another giveaway.
I'll let it run one week.
You guys know how it works.
Click the link below to participate.
There's a bunch of different things you can do to win.
So I'll announce the winner in a week or so time
and you'll be taking home a brand new SmallHD focus monitor.
So all you have to do is pick up the C-Stand.
I've linked some cheap options in Amazon below,
if you guys want to check that out.
And I did a video called seven stupid things you need on set
and the grip head, which two of them come with the C-Stand,
was one of those things.
So, invaluable tool.
Very handy.
It's not gonna be something that sits in the drawer
or under the bed that you never use.
You'll use it all the time.
Let's go ahead and zoom out here and do our exit.
Too far (laughs).
So that's pretty much it, guys.
I mean, this was a fast video.
This was just something I wanted to share with you
because I've struggled trying to figure out an overhead rig
for ages and this just like a super simple solution.
Stand, arm, spigot, tripod mount, good to go.
So the links for everything are below.
The contest, the C-Stand, the monitor itself.
Check those out if you want.
Hit that like button if you liked this video.
Smash it, if that's something that you're into.
2018 style.
Subscribe if you aren't already and, and!
I will see you guys in the next video.
It's true.
See you later.
(mellow music)