Sometimes the simplest things can help us achieve those cinematic shots.
It's all about the creative idea behind it.
So that got me thinking what can we do with a simple rope?
Well actually a whole lot.
So here are five crazy camera shots using nothing, but a rope
A big thanks to Hollyland for sponsoring today's video.
They have a bunch of solutions for transmitting wireless video and audio.
With me I have the MARS400S and
and the brand-new MARS X
For the first setup we will be using the Mars 400s.
Basically, you connect the SDI or the HDMI output of your camera to the transmitter
and on the receiving end you connect the SDI or HDMI out to a display.
It pretty much works straight out of the box.
Now what we did was attaching our camera to the ceiling truss with two ropes.
You need that so that it won't start spinning like crazy.
Now we start with a close-up and then pull up the camera revealing the rest of the scene.
And because we can see the video on a monitor
we can also use a wireless follow focus to keep the subject in focus.
Minimal latency is important when doing focus pulls.
The 400S is not latency free
but it's very minimal and definitely usable for focus pulling.
You can actually choose the quality of the video transmission.
If you set it to speeds mode, the latency will improve.
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Moving on to the next trick, which I call the "Swing"
We'll attach the camera again to the ceiling with two ropes
and by the way guys if you don't have high ceilings
you can also go outside and just throw a rope over a tree branch or something.
Now this time secure the rope as we're going to let it go and swing.
Now using this technique on an epic action gives you the following results:
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Now it is also possible to let other people on set connect to the wireless video using their phone.
This is a separate Wi-Fi signal so you won't get the same quality
but it's great for other crewmembers to just be able to see what the camera is doing
or if you don't want your client to breathe in your neck the entire time
just let them connect with this phone and have them sit in a green room.
Now if you do need the full image quality on the receiving end, you can also get a second receiver unit.
Remember that the connection between the Mars units and your phone are separate.
And before I forget to mention it, there are eight channels that you can choose from
if you might have interference.
There's even a scan option to pick the best channel for you.
Now between the two units you can go up to 400 feet.
Or knees.
Or shoulders.
I don't know.
Let's go for 120 meters that makes more sense.
Anyhow moving on to the next trick this one is easy.
Simply attach the camera with a single rope to the ceiling or again a branch of a tree or something.
Now pretty quickly you'll notice that the camera will start spinning,
which is exactly what we need.
Now this camera trick works great for dance videos
or anything else where you have a rotating or moving subject.
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Now for the next trick I'm going to use the entry-level Mars X from Holleyland
which is a brand new thing and only costs one 179 bucks,
but you get a ton of features.
For starters it's small you can power it through USB or use the internal battery so that it remains small.
But it's very durable in its aluminum body.
Now, it only comes with its transmitter unit as you want to connect using your phone.
It's the same app that we're using before
and what I love about it are all the monitoring features that you have in here.
You've got waveforms, histograms, focus peaking, false-color, magnify for focus
you can even add a LUT for displaying
and you even have the ability to record the feed on your phone.
And this could be very useful if you have your camera hanging somewhere
so you can watch a playback on your phone without having to take it down.
Anyways, we're going to create a sort of Steadicam using a simple rope.
Attach to or three ropes to your camera and bring that to a stick.
and we can use that stick to clamp our phone to as a monitor.
And by the way, the other crewmembers can also connect using their phone.
I think that you can go up to three users.
Anyways,
because of the weight of the camera is pulling itself down
you're getting more stabilized motion as you walk around.
It's not a Steadicam, but it definitely stabilizes some way.
Do try to walk as steady as possible and the end result should work pretty good.
♪
And this brings us to the last trick.
Attach one two or three ropes to your camera and bring them to the ground
where you will just secure them in place do something heavy.
When pulling your camera up you'll keep the same distance to the ground
and you'll be able to make more steady shots now.
Of course you can also attach it to the ceiling.
If you have high ceilings like we do you can actually do longer movements
like the swing trick that we did before.
You'll still get a handheld motion, but it's a lot more smooth.
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And those were my five crazy camera tricks using nothing but a rope
and of course the Mars 400S and the brand-new X
which made it a lot easier to pull these off.
There's a lot more about these products, make sure to click that first link in the description down below
or there's also more information somewhere in there.
Anyways, thank you so much for watching.
Thank you Hollyland for the support.
And as always
Stay creative!