Filming "The Sweetest Place on Earth"

Last week, Sarah and I, along with our freelance assistant Arion Doerr, traveled out to Hershey Pennsylvania. Hershey, Pa is the home of Hershey chocolate and Hersheypark and we were there to create some HD POV B-Roll at on two of their roller coasters, Fahrenheit and Storm Runner.  

If you haven't already guessed, POV is the acronym for point of view and that means we needed to mount HD cameras on the first car of each ride to show what a park visitor will experience sitting in the front seat.

This in itself creates a challenge.  The cars on which the cameras are to be mounted were designed to carry riders safely around the track, but they were not necessarily designed to have cameras mounted on them.  And while my cameras are capable of creating beautiful HD images under some extreme conditions, I'm fairly confident that they were not designed to be subject to the physical stress these rides can demand.

Fortunately, we've had prior experience mounting our cameras on several high speed coasters, including Six Flags Great Adventure's  Kingda Ka, the tallest and fastest coaster in the world.

Our first concern is safety.  Not just the safety of our cameras, but the safety of everyone working on the crew, everyone around the coaster and of course, the coaster itself.  We did not make a move without the approval and oversight of the park's ride technicians.  This is a multi-million dollar investment that they were letting us work on and they wanted us to leave it, and everyone around it, just the way we found it.

We had brought two cameras with us to Hershey, a Sony EX3 and a Sony MC1.  The EX3 was our primary camera and we brought it along to create B-Roll of the exterior of the rides and surrounding park areas.

The MC1 is a unique HD camera in that its lens and body are separate from each other, connected by a six foot tether.  This makes the camera head extremely small, light-weight and easy to mount almost anywhere.  It also allowed the addition of filters and wide angle lens adaptors.   For better audio, I had Arion tape a small piece of windscreen foam over the built-in microphone to help minimize wind noise.

The recorder part of the system uses readily available AVCHD cards or Sony memory sticks.  It fits easily in your palm and includes a built in HD monitor with a touch screen that controls all camera and recorder functions.

Both the MC1 and EX3 are file based systems, which means no video tape.  This is important when filming rides.  The tape drum in the camera spins like a gyroscope and hard turns are very difficult for the camera's tape and mechanical system.  A spinning gyro doesn't like being forced off its current direction.

The built in screen was very important to us, as it allowed us to check the position of the camera as we were mounting it, as well as giving us a confidence check after each run of the ride.  The torque during launch and many of the ride's turns and corkscrews can easily alter the alignment of the camera.  Being able to rapidly check the previous shot, without having to remove a card and download the shot to a computer saved us considerable time and helped us travel lighter, as well.

I used a Manfrotto 405 geared head bolted to a 2x4 to hold our camera head.  We needed a mounting device that could be delicate enough to give us critical, reposition-able movements while aligning the camera head with enough strength to hold the camera in place.  I've been using the 405 to hold a Sinar 4x5 for years, so I knew it would hold our cameras securely.  The quick-release plate was an essential part of the process and made it possible to remove the camera without undoing everything else.

The 2x4 was clamped and bungeed to the ride with the tripod head positioned between the two front seats.  Once in place, nylon zip ties and sash cord were used as a backup on each and every element, ensuring that even if the mount should fail or come loose in transit, it would remain securely in place.

The wood 2x4 also acted as a bit of a shock absorber.  I wanted the image to be steady, but not to look like it was floating.  On the contrary, although I wanted some vibration to show through, I didn't want it to all be a blur.   So, the wood base was a perfect compromise.  It was also light and easy to install across two seats.

Regardless of our care and concerns for safety, my heart is always in my throat when the camera launches for the first time.  Seeing it come back into the station, in one piece.. still functioning,  always brings a sigh of relief.

Check out the Fahrenheit POV here

The end results were worth the effort and hearing "I love it!" from my client was simply icing on the cake.

Of course, that would be Hershey's chocolate icing.

www.hersheypark.com
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Chuck is a featured DP on Sony's Videon Site
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