Okay, so today I messed around with making a “racy film.” Not that kind of racy, get your mind out of the gutter! I’m talking about, like, fast-paced, exciting, car-chase-type stuff. Think “Baby Driver” but with, uh, less budget. A lot less budget.
First, I brainstormed some ideas. I only had my phone and my buddy’s beat-up old Honda Civic, so I had to keep it simple. No exploding helicopters, unfortunately. I decided to go with a “package delivery gone wrong” scenario. Very original, I know.
The “Gear”
- My phone (which, let’s be honest, has a pretty decent camera)
- A cheap phone mount for the car dashboard
- My buddy, bless his soul, who agreed to drive and “act”
- A cardboard box (the “package”)
- Some duct tape (because, what’s filmmaking without duct tape?)
I stuck the phone mount to the dashboard, jammed my phone in, and hit record. My buddy, bless his heart, is not exactly Oscar material, but he can drive like a maniac when properly motivated (mostly by the promise of pizza). We did a few test runs, trying different angles and speeds. It’s surprisingly hard to make a slow car look fast on camera!
We spent a good hour just driving around the neighborhood, trying to get some decent shots. I yelled things like “Faster! More intense! Look scared!” from the passenger seat. I’m sure we looked completely ridiculous to anyone who saw us.
The “action” shots were…interesting. I basically hung out the window (safely-ish, I swear!) and tried to get some dynamic angles. We nearly lost the cardboard box a couple of times. It’s amazing what you can do with a little bit of creative camera work and a whole lot of reckless abandon.
After we got all the footage, I dumped it onto my laptop. I used some free editing software. I’m no pro at editing, so I just chopped up the clips, threw in some royalty-free music I found online, and added a couple of cheesy sound effects.
The final result? Well, it’s no Hollywood blockbuster. But it is kind of fun, in a “so-bad-it’s-good” kind of way. I’m pretty sure I captured the “racy” feeling. And hey, for a couple of hours of messing around with a phone and a car, I’m pretty happy with it! Maybe next time I’ll add explosions. (Just kidding… mostly.)
