https://vimeo.com/140144344
As mentioned in previous posts, I’m currently interested in capturing the sense of speed and energy that can be felt when a single car drives past a quiet scene during the night. Before getting too deep into this idea, I thought I’d go for a short test drive – with a GoPro strongly mounted (taped down) to the back of the family car (and tethered to the inside of the car – just to be safe).
I plan on getting my hands on a suction-cup mount to give me a wider range of mounting options/angles BUT the tape method proved to be very secure and effective for this test. Despite only really having a few mounting options, I was really happy with how the footage turned out – I think the low-down shot of the road looked really good, and for the most part, the lack of light wasn’t a big issue. The footage definitely had a Lynch-ian feel, which was partly what I was going for = success!
I did note that my slightly outdated GoPro2 doesn’t handle low-light shooting as well as I would have liked BUT to get around this issue I’ll just have to find a lot of well lit roads. I reached the conclusion that having slightly grainy footage isn’t too big of an issue anyway, as the road passing by is quite fast/blurred anyways – a bit of colour grading and adjusting in post should fix any ugly visual issues.
I was also impressed at how well the camera recorded the engine noises of the car – and how interesting the car sounded in the quieter night-time environment. If I were a ‘car-person’ I probably would have been bro-ing out over the fairly pleasing buzz of the engine.
This test developed some new ideas (such as potential angles, low-light workarounds, etc.) and confirmed that my current GoPro is generally capable of capturing decent low-light footage. Even with the basic set-up I used last night I think I was successful in capturing the themes I want to pursue – speed & energy juxtaposed with the quiet of the night. I’m really looking forward to being able to try out different angles once I get that suction-cup mount, I think it’ll really extend my creative options.