How To Do Single Shot Cinema:The secret behind the camera flying through the window or a car

4/15/2013 ISO 1200 Magazine 0 Comments

This is a collective shot using an OmniRig with 2 camera operators and directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich

Single Shot Cinema is a way of filming that enables you to shoot a scene in one single shot using just one camera moving flexible in order to have all the different camera angles that expresses your personal feeling and perception of that moment.

In practice you will have to move the camera steady and flexible but constantly moving from one angle to the other.

Using camera movements fast and slow, high and low, close by and far away all in one single shot within a scene. Doing that the movement of the camera itself becomes the major way of cinematographic expression.

Both the philosophy behind “Single Shot Cinema” and the practical consequences in filming have been developed by Leonard Retel Helmrich. He based “Single Shot Cinema” partly on the ideas of the film theorist André Bazin.

THE SECRET: How To Do Single Shot Cinema

Leonard Retel Helmrich is a Dutch cinematographer and film director. He developed his own film style based on the principles of Single Shot Cinema. One day i came to his workshop to learn how to do the single shot with his "do'a cam" it was fun.- Via TheCleansound

Single Shot Cinema workshop, Salvador, Brasil, July 2011:

Other "Single-Shot Cinema" workshop where Leonard explains "Camera flying through a car"

The "single-shot cinema" theory is a method to carefully compare filmhistory with the history of other forms of art, like painting, sculpture,architecture, music and poetry, "to get this close to the skin of thepeople." (Leonard Retel Helmrich)

Interview with Leonard Retel Helmrich

THE STEADYWINGS ( Images via © Jan Keck 2011 )

Leonard Retel Helmrich with his SteadyWings | © Jan Keck 2011

Leonard Retel Helmrich demonstrating the SteadyWings

The SteadyWing is an invention by Leonard Retel Helmrich and Willem Doevendans, created to support the “Single Shot Cinema” filming method.

The purpose of the SteadyWing is to provide extreme flexibility without the loss of stability. It is a camera mount that places the weight of the camera comfortably and ergonomically in the middle between your hands. You can even fold the SteadyWing while filming, thus enabling you to move the camera through very small spaces. Multifunctional handles enable simple passing of the camera from one person to another (done regularly in “Single Shot Cinema”). The handles also prevent the camera from falling while making complicated camera movements.

Over the past few years the SteadyWing has been tested by some hundred professional (documentary-) film makers. The result is a camera mount with great maneuverability in shooting; reliable and easy to use. Altogether the SteadyWing is a simple and light device, that provides great support, especially when you want to shoot “Single Shot Cinema” or any other flexible way of filming.