This Low-Budget Filmmaker Uses DIY Engineering to Get Hollywood Effects

If you ever wanted to recreate some of your favorite movie shots but didn’t have the Hollywood budget for a high-end camera, then be glad you live in the 20^th century. Almost all cameras these days, be they on the higher or lower end, have a good photo and video-taking capabilities. Even if you don’t know how to use the various filters and features of your phone or camera, you can still make a bad video look good in post thanks to the power of computer editing.

Just take a look at YouTuber Karen Cheng, who stretches her creativity by using a bunch of Insta360 cameras and clever tricks to create some mesmerizing shots you might see in an Inception-like film:

Every scene Cheng captures has a Hollywood-esque vibe to them but in reality, she’s just using the 360 cameras (and her friends) to their fullest extent:

The fight scene is done by strapping a camera on a person and wheeling them back on a chair.

The dolly zoom has the drinkers moving in once the camera pans out, while the zoom effects both to and from the source are added in post-production.

The rotating stairwell shot uses the Insta360’s gyro and optical stabilization features to stay stable. By attaching the camera to a fishing rod and lowering it down, you get a shot that is hypnotizing as it is practical.

This shot with the waves crashing down from above is made by taking a 360 pan of a walk on the beach, zooming it out, and adding effects using an iPhone app. You can even see the person holding the selfie stick in the final video!

Lastly, the “drone’ shot you see isn’t actually from a real, expensive drone. It’s just a 360 camera on a 10-foot pole that gets raised up before diving down through a hole. Once it’s through, it gets passed to another person and re-raised on the other side. As for the pans and other camera effects, these are added in post thanks to the 360 camera feature.

It’s amazing how many shots you can pull with just a few cameras, a little imagination, and good friends who are willing to help you dangle a camera over a hotel stairwell for the perfect shot.

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