Swish Pans

[FilmUnited]

For an upcoming short that I am shooting, there is a scene on a baseball diamond that rapidly switches from character to character as the scene is building. I wanted to connect this series of medium/close shots with swish pans. I have seen many great examples of this recently (such as in Boogie Nights shot by Robert Elswit, ASC, and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind shot by Newton Thomas Sigel, ASC).

My question to those who have attempted it: is there any technique, or is it really as easy as whipping the camera head around without showing any crew or film equiptment? Any advice would be appreciated.

Corey

 

[Barry Lyndon]

One way to accomplish this would be using a simple editing trick.

Piece together shots of the baseball players in their varying positions using inserts of a swishing camera (where all the movement is a blur and everything is indistinguishable) in between each. Remember to begin and end each shot of the players with a bit of a sharp pan, to help with the continuity. Also be careful that the insert pans are swishing in the right directions, so as to maintain the geography.

If you piece it together carefully, the effect should be seemless. It also helps because you can shorten or lengthen the length of the "pans" to create whatever rhythms you need. It will also be easier to move between close-ups and medium shots if, rather than move the camera, you cut from between different setups while maintaining an apparent continuity. You could also move in and out of close-up during the shots between the pans, if you wanted to get more sophisticated.

This could be considered a cheat, of course, but depending on the duration/difficulty of the shot you are attempting to accomplish, this might turn out to be the easier route.

Hopefully someone else can give you pointers on making a clean, smooth job of the one-shot method.