Fast And Furious :How To Shoot A Driving Scene

As  Fast And Furious 7 released I am getting tons of requests to write about the driving scene from many amateur filmmakers. Some of them say they have watched Fast And Furious 7 more than 10 times and they just loved it. I am sure it must be great movie though I haven’t seen it.

Well I asked them to search the making of the Fast And Furious to understand the shoot of driving scene. But they requested something else. They wanted me to write a detailed post on Fast And Furious driving scenes and how to do it at small budget. Well my friends I am not going to write on the driving scenes of Fast And Furious but yes we can discuses the driving scenes shoot here. Well here is a video from Film Riot about the top 3 ways to shoot a driving scene without driving a car. many of you might have known about these techniques but still its worth watching.

So isn’t that’s exactly you are looking for?  Well there are many methods of doing it but these are the top 3 methods of shooting a driving scene without actually driving a car. So the methods are Green Screen (Chroma Key), Rear Projection and Special Lighting.

1 Green Screen (Chroma Key)

This is the most commonly used technique by the professional filmmakers. Most of the driving scenes are shot in-front of the green screen. First thing you need is a footage of background. So hope in a car and shoot footage through the window using the sand bag as I discussed in my last article Top 5 Film Equipment Hacks. So now you have background footage, setup the green screen, lit up the character, randomly move a object in-front of the lights to create a moving effect and add little bit push car to give physical look that car is moving. Shoots over. PACK UP 😀

Now transfer the footage to any good non linear editing(NLE) software, replace the green screen with the background footage, some color corrections and your driving scene is ready. 

2 Rear Projection (Outdated) ❓

I have never used this technique. Its super simple and its outdated. So used the background footage project is behind the driver’s window. You are done. Believe me you do not want to try this technique.

3. Special Lighting 💡

This is my favorite one.This is the most creative one. In the above video they are showing how to shot and night but I have a my own sub-technique with that you can shoot during day time also.  So for shooting at night, place a light on a character, place a assistant in the back seat of the car and ask him to light up the character  once in a while to give the lam post  effect.

Bonus : Reflection My Sub-technique

With this technique you can shoot during the day also.  Keep your car in a open space like an open ground or beach. With this sub technique you can shoot through windscreen only. Place the camera above the bonnet (bit high angle), block the shot. Keep in mind some part of bonnet, windscreen and character driving should be in the frame. Now you will notice there will be lots of reflections on the bonnet and the windscreen. We will use those reflections to create a effect of moving car. Now we need some small tree branches and a sky with clouds poster.

Ask your assistants to move the tree branches above the car from head light to tail light. This will give a reflection of tree branch on the bonnet and windscreen. This will give an effect of car moving forwards. Same way use the sky with clouds poster and the reflection on the car will be clouds moving behind and car moving forwards.

I hope you like the post. Please let me know you thoughts,  your ideas in the comment box below. Pease subscribe for the newsletter above.

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