Train "goodbye scene" filming rig - GIF

[Jon]

Train "goodbye scene" filming rig.




Previously:

Drill used for shaking video camera effect during filming - GIF
Rotating hallway scene movie filming rig - GIF
Spinning car rotisserie for filming movie scenes - GIF
Tools for filming cars throughout the years - GIFs and photos
Enormous megaphone from silent film era - photo
Tricks for filming food for advertisements - GIF
Perfect burger drop photography rig - GIF, video, and photos

[DIYSwede]

-Guess it has to be a pretty tight shot, to not show the locomotive in the end?
The grip with the styro board bouncer doesn't get much done in the shadow under the platform roof.

[Frank S]

A lot easier to set up a retake with these rigs than having to have a whole train back up

[DIYSwede]

@ Frank S:
-Well, of course, but AFAIK they made a few odd decisions while trying too look professional and busy:

-Why would you make the scene look like the train is backing out,
(which inevitably will be the result when dollying forwards to the front end)?
-If you have to keep that direction of travel - why not start a few cars further down the train,
lessening the risk of having the loco in the last frames?
-Why take a few man-hours laying the track all the way up to the loco?

These shots usually ends in the train vanishing outta frame, the person standing still and staring at the last car. CUT.
Jump-cutting from a moving train shot is a difficult skill to master.
The camera's framing musn't reveal that the train and all surroundings are still-standing,
and only "the heroine" is moving.

-Why having a bouncer board grip working in the shadow, also blocked by some walk-in cell-phone user?
A soft fill light next to the tracking camera would've get the job done.

-What's the guy hunkering on the dolly even doing? Just holding the cam & actor dollies together?

-Why even have a mike boom sound man in a seemingly non-speech scene?
To preserve the dolly creaking on its tracks? Post-sync'll drown it out with diesel sounds.

Many questions and instant decisions is all in a day's work on a set.

[Frank S]

I'm with you on all counts. The only thing I can think of as to why the guy is squatting and holding on to the adjoining trolley bars would be as an effort to hold down the transmittal of vibrations or deaden the sound. As for the mic as long as any sound track is simultaneously produced it can latter be clipped and dubbed to what ever they desire. No idea what the foam board is for. Quite a few extras in the coach waving and some don't seem to be waving it the correct direction for the intended movement.

[DIYSwede]

-Just saw there's actually two squatting guys, whose only purpose seem to be sitting upon and holding the two dolly-connecting tubes.
Perhaps also for getting some train-like inertia to the dollies?
Sound dampening a dolly in a train station - with call-outs, bustling people and trains/ Diesels?
This "sync" has to be unusable, the boom guy is nearly dropping the mike into the frame.

(Most grips would use a coupla C-clamps, and sandbag the dollies for eventual sound dampening/ mass).
Guess this (Chinese?) team has more people (than hardware) to spare.

Styro boards, sun sails, etc are used as "bouncers", redirecting and softening the Sun's light to lift the low light areas/ shadows a bit.
I. e. Minimizing the contrasts in the shot to fit within the camera's exposure range.
Under a platform roof there's not much sunlight around, so he just gets abt 1/4 board coverage,
and (in being unattentive and hindered by the cell-phone guy) he wastes even that in the wrong direction.

Ideally he should come in real low for light pickup, angle the board to adjust the right amount of fill.
The guy's holding the board parallel to the sun, and even the cell-phone guy just in front of it doesn't get any coverage...
He could even just sit and hold it at the focus-puller's spot - as no focus needs to be pulled in this tracking shot
(as the heroine is stationary to the cam due to the two squatters' firm holds).

Even more simply:
-Send the guy home, put the darned bouncer on a "Magic arm" clamped low to the cam tripod:
easy, repeatable and predictable - needs just to be moved to track the sun ca each 15 mins.

Guess the poor team is from some (other) Film School,
each 1st function with a few assistants not really knowing how, but trying hard to look busy at work.

"-If you sincerely think you can compensate your lack of skill by trying twice as hard, there's no limits to what you can't achieve!"

[Frank S]

"(Most grips would use a coupla C-clamps, and sandbag the dollies for eventual sound dampening/ mass).
Guess this (Chinese?) team has more people (than hardware) to spare." Hence the title grips
You asked about why make it look as though the train was backing out of the station.
There are many stations where the loco pulls into the station head first. around the world. I've been on many in Germany and Austria before ICE and ICEII where it was the norm for this and as recently as 2009 at the Frankfurt(Main) Hauptbahnof their trains still pull in and back out
Yeah I just noticed the guy under the tripod

[Jon]

How it was done in Back to the Future.

[DIYSwede]

-Oh, so that's how time travel will be accomplished? Just a model train and an R/C car...
Or perhaps that has already will be done?

OT:
I think it was the late Steven Hawking who one day threw a party for Time Travellers, but had invitations sent out the day after...
They seemed in all to be a pretty subdued bunch: humble, passive and really anxious not screw up our causality dogmas.
Serious drinkers the whole lot - but conversational humor from 5212-ish A.D. was apparently tough on the host's temper.

Physicists doesn't seem to have a theoretical problem with that, (merely some minor practical ones) but linguists have both problems.
"-I've never seen a Black Hole I didn't like, but I can't stand the sight of Naked Singularities!"