Cinematography: Vehicle Series - Blocking, Framing, & Execution
The Final Chapter in the B.O.D.V.O. System
This course is the culmination of years of on-set experience—distilled into a real-world framework specifically for one of the most technically challenging setups in cinematography: shooting inside vehicles. Be it inside cars, planes, or trains it makes very little difference to the approach.
Vehicle scenes introduce limitations most filmmakers don’t realize until it’s too late. Space is tight, reflections are everywhere, and time is always short.
Vehicle scenes are one of the most difficult setups in cinematography—and yet, most DPs face them without a plan. This course gives you a repeatable system to break down, block, frame, and light these scenes before you ever step on set.
If you’ve ever been on a shoot where you had to “figure it out” inside a car, you know how quickly things can fall apart. This course solves that—once and for all.
This course is the first time I am sharing this system publicly.
I've been a cinematographer since 2009 and have shot 100s of commercial projects over that time.
Throughout the course of landing, prepping, and shooting those jobs I have learned a lot about the different approaches a DP can take in their role.
And over the past few years, I've shared that knowledge of how to shoot commercials in over 400 episodes of The Wandering DP Podcast. Every week I receive emails from people who have found the podcast and immediately improved their work because of it.
During the course of my own career I discovered that while it may appear that there are countless different scenes and set ups, in reality, there are only a handful. When you can recognize these situations you can drastically increase your results because you know where the path leads.
If you know the final destination then you can work backwards and make decisions accordingly.
Working with a system can improve your results overnight no matter what situation you are in.
The goal of this course is to present the way I approach the work and show you why using a specific system will make you more effective as a DP.
This isn’t a collection of pretty diagrams or theoretical advice.
This is the exact approach I use to design and shoot vehicle scenes on real commercial productions.
- Never Before Discussed System. I have shared a wide variety of techniques on the podcast and previous courses but this system has never been publicly shared until now.
- A Firm Foundation. You will learn why a system is important and we go over how I use the leverage a system provides to my advantage so you can do the same.?
- Instant Access. There are 8 unique modules with over 60 lessons (over 7 hours), from why a system is important to watching every decision on set as we deploy the plans.
- Lifetime Access There is an enormous amount of content in this course. You have lifetime access to the material so you are free to consume it at your own pace.
Across eight distinct course stages, you’ll learn all about:
- Planning your Angles: Make better decisions earlier on in the porcess to set the production up for success.
- Evaluate the Trade-offs: Learn the choices that every cinematographer faces regardless of the story or the narrative. Answer those questions and you will find your style.
- Select the Right Gear & Schedule Properly: Each coverage path has its own strengths and weaknesses and knowing what your options are will make sure you are providing the highest value to the team around you.
- Increase Adaptability and Collaboration: The larger the rolodex of options you know and are confident in being able to pull off the more felixble you can be on the day to adapt to changing conditions.
You can spend years developing your own playbook for every scene, set up and location possible or you can enrol in this course today and immediately gain access to all my knowledge so you can get busy improving your results.
This course is designed for DPs prepping for commercials, music videos, or narrative projects involving vehicles in any way.
It is for up and coming cinematographers that what to level up their coverage workflow and better understand the visual logic of car scenes. The content is designed to help anyone that has ever lost time or creative control trying to reign in a vehicle set up.
There is no fluff.
No filler.
Just repeatable steps and decision trees that you can implement immediately.
The fastest way to improve on set is to practice and know what you want before you are on set. This course provides you with the structure and knowledge to do just that.
- Visualize and test coverage paths early on in the process.
- Drastically improve your ability to communicate with the director and crew.
- Make better and more reliable decisions under pressure.
- Avoid costly mistakes and wasted time.
This is your opportunity to add a powerful, real-world strategy to your cinematography toolkit that will help improve your results throughout your entire career as a DP.
I look forward to seeing you in the course.