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Tips for Working with Camera Jibs
By Staff
posted Oct 10, 2009, 17:44
There is something magical about moving a camera through space and seeing the perspective change during the shot. I�ve spent a lot of time over the last few years finding different ways of moving the camera, but of all the ways the jib is my favorite.
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Tips for Working with Camera Jibs
by Jon Firestone
One of the first things I learned in film school was to dolly not
zoom. There is something magical about moving a camera through
space and seeing the perspective change during the shot. I�ve spent
a lot of time over the last few years finding different ways of
moving the camera, but of all the ways the jib is my favorite.
One of my first jibs was an EZ FX Jib, and during this time I
landed a job shooting a bunch of apartment complexes. The
director wanted nice jib shots. This was my first chance to do a lot
of jib setups and to learn what made a jib shot dramatic. I was
frustrated that a lot of the shots were unimpressive and would be
just as effective with a pan or tilt of the tripod.
The arm on the EZ FX Jib was about six feet long, limiting the
kind of shots we could get. Jibs are much more impressive when
you are closer to the subject, so that the perspective change is
much more dramatic. Also, jibs are great for revealing shots. I
started using foreground objects to make the movement more
apparent and started using jibs for everything.
In my studio I would leave the jib set up on a dolly and rarely
put the camera on sticks even for still shots because the camera
could be moved more easily like this. Always trying to come up
with new shots I could get with my jib, a few of my favorites
include facing the camera 90 degrees off the arm and positioning
the camera so that a person or a vehicle could be coming right at
the camera and the camera could swing out of the way, catching a
profile of the subject, and continue the arc around to watch the
back of the subject as it moves away. Just like using a curved dolly
track, but with the advantage of not having to keep the track out of
the shot, and there is no track for the subject to walk or drive over.
I also use a jib as a problem solving device when doing dolly shots. I can hang the camera straight out over the end of the dolly
so that I can make a longer dolly shot without the track becoming
visible. Or I will put the track to the side, out of frame, and use the
same 90 degree camera trick to fly the camera over trackless
ground.
The biggest downside to jibs is their complexity, not only to set
up but to get a good shot. The more capable the jib, generally the
more complicated the setup is. One trick is to securely mount the
jib to a doorway dolly. I only use the dolly to easily move the jib
around. For any dolly/jib shots, I will move the dolly onto tracks.
One problem that you have with doing dolly/jib shots is that any
movement on the dolly can be amplified by the jib arm. So you
have to be careful to keep the arm from wobbling. I like to hold the
jib with both hands in different places on the arm to help dampen
any unwanted movement.
Since the movement of a jib is considerably different than a
tripod, you encounter new problems you don�t have with
traditional tripod shots. For example, when working with jibs, I
commonly start from near the ground facing up at the subject, then
bring the camera to a high angle, now looking down at the subject.
Rarely do you ever have this extreme of a tilt on tripod shots, and it
must also be done smoothly while concentrating on booming up
and panning. The problem that becomes immediately obvious is
that traditional tripod heads put the pivot point beneath the camera
and nowhere near the center of gravity of the camera. This causes
the camera to try to pitch forward or backward at the beginning
and end of the tilt, making a smooth tilt difficult.
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