Craig,
Having covered races it’s tough to do on a one camera shoot particularly if you’re locked into one location for safety reasons and or it’s where you’ve been assigned. When you’re in one spot you’ve only got a couple of things you can do to get good shots. The most difficult thing to contend with is you’ll quickly run through those couple of things pretty quick and your coverage will get monotonous.
When you can, change camera positions and as often as you can. When it comes to covering a race with one camera and no jib, to make your coverage more interesting you have to shoot with ‘screen direction’ in mind. Action going from L – R, R – L and Neutral shots will be your workhorses. You can vary it up by getting high and low angles, but to get the screen direction changes you need you’re going to have to move.
To get that R – L change, you’ll have to get on the opposite side of the road. That can be tough particularly like in your video’s case the safety lines were taped off. Not to mention crossing the road in the middle of the race is a bad idea. However, maybe you can get permission from one of the pit crews or the race staff to be in the pit area. Not only will you be able to get that screen direction change, but a lot of interesting footage of the car crews working during the race.
To get your Neutral shots you have to move to a point on the road or track where the car looks to be coming straight at you. For this to work, you’ll have to let the car enter and leave the frame without you panning for it. Oh and throw an appropriate music track under your nat sound to liven it up. Just a few suggestions. Other than that, it’s obvious you’ve got a good eye for the work.
.
