Film Production

Exactly, How Many Cameras really need to make a Movie?

Published on June 17, 2015

Often, a First Time Filmmaker really having doubts Like this- How many cameras do I need to Complete My Movie? Here, in this section we are explaining about it.

You can prefer the Number of cameras on the basis of budget and Necessity. In big-budgeted films, usually the production companies decided to shoot with multi-cam set up, while in low budget film production companies prefers to go with the single – cam setup. Alfred Hitchcock, The all time best directors, uses thirteen camera setups in his movie “Notorious” for getting 32 shots. Alfred described this, in this way- “I want to make the Films in a perfect way and that is why I preferred to use the dual-cam setup.” According to The Motion picture Co, Inc opinion, the vast counts of Hollywood films are filmed in a single camera.

Filimg using a steady cam
Image Courtesy: The Motion Picture Co .com

Multi- Cam Set Up is best for…

The high budgeted films
Films that having large a number of shots
The films that having high end multi-star casting system
Tight production schedule running films

Single-Cam Setup is best for….

Low Budgeted Films
Experimental Films
First-time filmmaker’s films
Found applicable in Short films, documentary films..

Case Study:

Dialogue Scene: Multi Cam setup is found as effective in Dialogue/conversation scenes. In usual dialogue scenes, filmmakers usually use over-shoulder- shots, two shots and wide frame (establishing) shot. So, if you are filming with a single camera, you needed to change the camera position in each and every time accord to your shooting script. In such a situation the multi camera setup is really helpful for shooting the scene easily without the occurring of time loss.

Negativity: The Multi-cam setup will not practicable, if you are filming a dialogue scene in a congested location.

Action Scenes: Filming the action scenes with multiple cameras is really worthy: why because in an action scenes there are too many shots are needed to make the scene visually impactful and that is the reason why multi cam set up are beneficial as compare to a single cam filming method.

Let’s Illustrate clearly with an instance: Suppose you are filming Hero-Villain fight scene, over here the intro- shots will goes like this:- close up view of Hero’s revenge showing eyes, close up view of villain’s angry eyes, over shoulder shots of both the characters, wide angle or top angle view of both the characters , close up view of hero’s blowing hair, anger showing face of villain, close up view of here’s fist etc… In short, there are too many shots are needed in action scenes and that is the reason why we said single cam mode of filming is not practicable in action Scenes.

Common Facts;

Multi-cam filming set up is costlier, why because it needed multiple crews and associated filming equipments.
Never forget to implement the 180 degree rule of filmmaking in Multi-cam setup in over shoulder-shots and two shots.
There are chances to occur the continuity mistakes in Single camera filming method, so beware of it
Always keep remembering about the focal length while you are filming through multi cams. For an instance, if you are filming an over-shoulder conversation scene with multi cam set up and you visualized two medium close-up shot with cameras having different focal length. We warn you that this is really a wrong method, because the lenses having different focal length captures the frame in a different way and it makes visual distractions especially in Close-up shots.