Filming Techniques - Lucas Brunelle

I was researching on the internet for any information i could find regarding filming techniques, when it comes to filming bikes. The first thing i found was an interview with Mike Martin who is the director of the mash video that i have featured previously.

'Is there anything that you did differently with Mash to document biking that hadn’t been done in other videos that you’ve seen?
There had been a few documentaries about messengers prior to the Mash video. There were just a few pure riding videos. Lucas Brenell’s videos were capturing the closest content we were into. His videos are helmet-cam alley cat race videos. They take any viewer willing to watch through the experience of what it feels like to be at the front of the pack in a street race, all the sketchy moments, the speed. Our goal was to develop some filming techniques that were more filmic then helmet camera footage. Another goal was to show the non-messenger side of these bikes. The freeriding, transportation side of these bikes. The video is a good mix of messenger and non-messenger riders, racing, working and freeriding.'

(from http://www.vaporsmagazine.com/2008/08/mike-martin/)

I found this really interesting and started to look into Lucas Brenelle and the alley cat race vids that he has shot. I went onto his personal website (http://www.digave.com/index.html) and realised that i had seen a lot of his videos before without knowing who he was. They are all really high paced race videos documenting the dangerous alley cat races whereby racers have to get to checkpoints whilst weaving through traffic, pedestrians and red lights. I think that his videos are really exciting to watch and in most cases mindblowing at how fast and skillful the riders are. These races throw up a lot of arguments as to the legality of the races and the danger the riders are putting themselves under and could possibly inflict on members of the public.



However I'm not going to get into that as i was more interested with one aspect of his website in particular, which explained how he physically mounts his cameras and films his ride footage (http://www.digave.com/videos/how.htm).



This is an example of the lengths Lucas goes to in order to get good footage. Firstly it must be so heavy having three cameras mounted to your helmet, when this is factored into the speed that he manages to ride, I am truly amazed. The short guide is a good introduction to several different methods you could use to film ride footage. It does look like you need to make a few things such as camera brackets to secure them to your helmet. I don't think this would be something that i will be doing this project as it will take quite a bit of work to make something like Lucas Brunelle has and there would need to be practice time. I think the best way for me to get good quality ride footage would either be to attach the camera to the bike, which i see as being easier than attaching something to a helmet as well as being more secure. The other option would be to do it using a car where i can have someone driving and then i film out the window. This way i can travel a faster speed in order to overtake riders or in many cases keep up with them