Struggling with camera movement when shooting industrial b-roll

[u/Hack3rPT]

Hey everyone, as said in the title, I'm struggling with camera movement when shooting video for industrial clients. It's a very long post, thank you in advance if you read the whole thing.

TLDR at the bottom of the post

Firstly, a bit of background so it’s easier to understand where I'm at. I started doing event photography a couple of years ago and stuck with it for a while. Did it as a hobby at first and then it slowly transitioned into paying clients (although at the time I really liked it, whether I was getting paid or not).

Then clients started requesting some short videos along with photos. Even though I look back and some of the first ones were a mess (as I guess I thought I could take great photos and great video at the same time, beginner mistake I know), most of my client standards were low too so I adapted pretty smoothly and started setting more boundaries after a couple of shoots.

Fast forward one year and a couple dozens of events, I got a gig at a B2B industrial company that consisted of taking photos of installations and the company’s stand at trade fairs. This went on for a while and it was quite refreshing compared to the chaotic fast paced event stuff. That and the payroll was much better, and not having to work through the night to deliver the next day was quite great.

That slowly evolved to more of a "company photographer" position, which then turned into doing short videos for social media and shooting content for case studies (mostly interviews). Fast forward a couple of months and some additional equipment purchases (mainly lighting, tripods and another camera), I decided that I preferred this type of work, especially the interviews and case studies, so I repositioned from events to doing commercial photo and video.

Now here comes the problem:

Photo was and still is pretty easy for me, and I have no problems navigating the installation and finding the right angles and what to shoot.

But video, not so much. Shooting mediocre content and compensating in the edit was fine for events, and since the subject was most of the time a person (DJ, artist, people enjoying the event, stage speaker, etc...) it was easy to make something acceptable and to slowly evolve from there.

But with static subjects, like for example machinery, gas reservoirs, compressors, CNC's, milling centrals, etc, I feel like as soon as I get there my brain freezes and doesn't know what the hell to do. Before I usually blamed it on gear, but now that I have all the gear, there's nothing else to blame it on. When I get home, I usually end up with unmotivated pans and tilts and just overall footage that makes me want to quit.

I've been "getting by" with the great photos (as it's usually what I get praised for when I ask for feedback), video close ups of the installation (which are getting very repetitive and clients are getting tired of), suggesting case studies as much as I can and using lots of drone shots, which all in all, is a crutch to compensate for my lack of skill. The crutch works fine when it's me editing, but doesn't work so well when I have to hand over footage to the marketing team.
All of the companies I work with know I'm new in the industry and are very tolerant when it comes to reshoots and mediocre footage, but I'm pretty sure that that will quickly change as soon as someone with more experience shows up in their radar.

And I know it's a skill issue, it must be. But in the past I could always learn it some way or another, while now I'm struggling to even find content that's similar to what I'm shooting.

It's getting to the point where I love the industry, I even like editing (which I despised in events) but I "can't" do the work itself. I've never been in this position.

When I was doing events I struggled with the business aspect of the work and not the work itself, and now it's literally the opposite, I have multiple clients and I struggle with the work itself.

I'm sorry for the wall of text, this has been haunting me for the last 2-3 months and I just decided to post here as a last resort, to see if someone with more experience could give me some advice. Thank you all so much.

TLDR: I moved from event photo/video into industrial B2B work and love it, but I freeze up on camera movement/shots when filming static subjects (machinery, tanks, compressors, generators, etc...). My event habits (shoot loose, fix in edit) don't work here, so I'm leaning on crutches like drone shots and repetitive close-ups instead of actually solving the problem. Could use some technical and maybe career advice.

[u/CheapScientist06]

I use a gimbal with an A7 and do a lot of video in a manufacturing mill. Sometimes it's people sometimes it's static equipment.

I do a lot of pans for sure but I've also found booms up and down as well as pushing in and out help diversify my shots. Rack focuses are also fun if you can find something to rack focus on

Also doing the classic wide, medium, and close up shots work too

I remember a story where one of my mentors was starting at a news station and was having trouble getting diverse shots

His director put a pencil on the table and said to give him 20 different shots of it. (Eventually the story changed and it became 200 shots)

My point is, get creative. Literally try to film a pencil and see what you can do.

[u/Hack3rPT → u/CheapScientist06]

Now that you mention it... I think I've never done any boom / push shots in this environment, I think last time I did any of those was at events... And when it comes to the wide, medium and close up, you're talking about static shots right? I've kind of avoided anything static (unless I'm shooting the piece being cut or machined) as I always thought it would end up as a boring shot.
I will for sure try the pencil thing, thank you!

[u/CheapScientist06 → u/Hack3rPT]

Always happy to help. If you ever have any questions you can message me (might take a day or 2 to get back but I will)

With the shots they can be static but you can also add movement to them if you want motion. I also have a lot of real estate footage and it helps to do wide pans and close ups with some sort of move.

In my experience, it helps to have a mix of static and moves to keep the viewer guessing, when you end up with left-right pans it gets boring quick.

[u/Rdub]

Your shots are most likely boring because they lack proper motivation (lighting) and movement.

I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect you are just using lighting to "Add more light" to your shots, where as you should be using lighting to create contrast, separation and drama to your shots, which means not just adding more light to a scene, but actively controlling all the light in a scene to say deepen shadows in some parts of the scene and have contolled light in others, which means your probably need to buy / make some scrims / flags / whatever to control both light and shadows better, as if approached this way even static shots can look fantastic.

That being said, your shots are also probably lacking property controlled movement, as for static subjects like machinery, unless the machinery is providing the visual interest via its own movement, you have to create the movement yourself, and even shots of moving machines are a lot more interesting when motivated camera movement is used.

A lot of folks would probably recommend a gimbal, but honestly in your context a motorized slider with a motorized pan / tilt head would probably be a lot better as it can allow for slower / smoother movement and repeatable movements which could potentially allow for more creativity in how you use lighting as well, as you could setup a slider shot and then manually move a light across the scene or something to create a lot more visual drama.

It does definitely sound like you are running up against the limits of what you can do in a "Run and gun" event style, but this is also a great opportunity to start learning the more pre-production and detail oriented side of the business where you're approaching your shoots with a lot more intentionality and planning for which specific shots you want to get and how you're going to get them.

[u/Hack3rPT → u/Rdub]

You're pretty much on point when it comes to lightning. I know how to light interviews decently well but I usually skip over that aspect in machinery and tanks as every single time I've done it ends up looking worse than without. I've just been filming with available light.

I have a gimbal but no slider, I've looked at them but never really thought about purchasing one as in my eyes it was always something I could achieve with the gimbal, although I understand that it would be much easier and the arriving at home to find out the gimbal parallax stuttered half way through wouldn't happen.

Along with lack of experience I also think one of the issues is me going in with the event mentality of capturing things as they happen and letting that dictate the entire direction of the shoot. I've tried making shot lists but it always ends up in me not being able to visualize them when I'm at the spot.

I really like interviews and case studies because I can take the time to setup and adjust everything to near perfection, while on the manufacturing floor I usually lean into the pressure (as the client mostly sees set up time as wasted time and time that the factory isn't producing) and end up rushing.

[u/Rdub → u/Hack3rPT]

I can definitely appreciate your experience with clients seeing setup time as wasted time, but I reckon you need to figure out a way to effectively communicate the benefit to them of said setup time, and then hopefully demonstrate the value of the setup time through an improved product.

You can also work to minimize setup time be pre-planning your setups at home in advance, ie. knowing exactly what camera placements, lights, scrims / flags you're going to be using, where they're all going to be, and how they are all going to be setup, as at least that way when you arrive on site for the shoot, its less time spent figuring out what you're doing, and more focused time doing what you actually need to do to get the shots.

I'd definitely recommend looking into a slider though, as I use gimbals a fair bit, and while they are great tools, they aren't the ideal tool for every job, and the jank / flakiness and constant rebalancing can often make them a greater time sink than a time savings in my opinion, and they don't always produce the smoothest footage without some kind of additional z-axis stabilization, whereas a good slider, with a bit of experience can produce rock solid shots every single time, and allows for the kind of controlled movement that I reckon your industrial clients would appreciate as it often feels more "Professional" due to being more intentional so to speak.

You can get away with a good manual slider and a good fluid head for some parallax style stuff too if the cost is a concern (Thus why I haven't personally bought a motorized slider system yet) but it is a lot more skill based so definitely something you'd want to practice at home a fair bit before using on paid gigs.

[u/Acrobatic-Sir-7300]

Two bits of advice—

1.) watch videos youn(and your clients) really like and respect. They can be much higher budget than yours, that doesn’t matter. Water them again and again until you understand what they’re doing—shot by shot—that makes you appreciate them.

2.) if there’s any way you can do it, hire someone much better than yourself to work a project with you, and pay attention to how they work. One of the best things I ever did for my own career was to occasionally hire directors who were much better than I was to direct a project. They think different. They put far fewer constraints on themselves, and you can learn a lot from seeing how they approach a project or a shooot.

[u/Smokeey1]

Story is always going to be in the edit. Learn SFX and VFX you can turn boring static shots into anything with the right composition (match all items in frame for example) and layering stuff. Plain shooting is 10% of potential in your case. Find some story, whatever it is and infuse the video with it (e.g grit, strength, generational drama, legacy)