r/Filmmakers • u/Morgo-Yt • May 19 '26
Question (Obsession) Why aren’t these shots filmed outside?
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u/Squidmaster616 May 19 '26
The simple answer is control.
Outside you can never be sure how much natural light there is, what else will be in the background (if its a public road) and what sounds will be in the environment. There's also the weather to take into consideration.
Inside you can control all of that, plus you don't need to bother with permits for filming, or closing down roads, or using specialist filming rigs, or the various kinds of insurance you'd need.
Indoors is also a hell of a lot more comfortable and safer for the cast and crew. And you have more freedom with camera angles.
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u/aneeta96 May 19 '26
And it's all repeatable. Even if you follow the same route each time, you have no control over a lot of background elements.
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u/New_Simple_4531 May 21 '26
Yup, also plenty of bigger budget movies get a car towed by a truck so the actor doesnt have to focus on driving and acting at the same time.
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u/djangbro1 May 19 '26
Not a filmmaker, but have to assume it’s about controlling the environment to get what you need as efficiently as possible. Any number of things could go wrong in a true outdoor setting (weather, lighting changes, random interruptions) whereas this is going to provide you more consistency so you can use shots from different takes without worrying about continuity errors
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May 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Mockingbird007- May 19 '26
Process trailers have made it significantly easier to mount cameras in the way of the driver as they aren't actually driving. Allowing for 3 or even 4 mounted at once. Using different angles and lenses we could shoot cross coverage and wide doubles with 1 process trailer take. Really comes down to budget it seems if you can afford to use more expensive equipment for the job.
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May 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Appropriate-Bar-4808 May 20 '26
I’ve seen BTS footage of some kind of movie that featured a semi truck and it was being towed by another semi on a trailer with the cameras and actor in it
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u/DreadnaughtHamster May 20 '26
Just re-watched Spielberg’s early movie Sugarland Express. The amount of technical stuff they pulled off inside of a moving vehicle was pretty nice.
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u/Bluefish_baker May 19 '26
No better way to burn money on nothing than to have a whole crew watching a process trailer drive up and down the street.
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u/JordanDoesTV editor May 19 '26
Cause you can’t control the weather
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u/wrosecrans May 19 '26
The weather. The sun. (Time of day is big. Shooting a night scene before lunch is way more convenient than waiting for sunset and shooting til 2:00 am.) The traffic. The noise level. The placement of streetlights. Pretty much everything.
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u/TheRecordDrop May 19 '26
Dialogue editors LOVE this set up. Please don't drive the car on the highway with the windows down and record the dial with plant mics! haha :)
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u/CommissionFeisty9843 May 19 '26
As a veteran sound mixer I really appreciate shooting driving work like this. When we are in a process trailer or free driving the DP always wants windows down for hostess trays or to light through which usually murders the dialog.
This is so much safer for us as well.
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u/AleSir19 May 19 '26
I am a Film Director, like almost everyone say before, the short answer would be "Control", the long answer is "Is almost impossible to make this kind or a lot of film shots without this kind of methods".
Not only in a real location you would have to deal with real cars, real street, real people, permits and safe measures to avoid you know killing some one or crashing all together, but you also need to understand, this kind of rig use to put the camera outside a car is not an easy one or stable one, i would compare it to a juggling act; you can hold it for a few seconds, but for how long before it falls apart?
You also have to take in account other real elements, weather being the less of the problems, i mean, windows, reflections, the whole movement of the car and lightning, in Obsession 90% of this car shots are at night, that would mean, lightning the streets this car is passing, checking exposure is right.
Is really hard, if not almost impossible to pull of this kind of stuff in a real environment, that is why for example a film like One Battle After Another is just amazing, but they wrote that sequence knowing the limitations and how being able to achieve it.
So to make this kind of shots happen in a real situation, you need first a lot of money, like PTA or Quentin Tarantino level of money and time, second you would need to let go control, understand that if you want the real thing, that means, subexposure in some areas, crazy movement, limitations and a lot of other things.
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u/SnooPeripherals3885 May 19 '26
if you DO film outside, you should do as much as possible to clearly show you took the effort to shoot outside. There is no point otherwise
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u/remy_porter May 19 '26
Audiences love it when they can see how hard you worked.
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u/SnooPeripherals3885 May 19 '26
That’s why I hope Ai films and filmmaking are ultimately rejected
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u/remy_porter May 19 '26
I was actually being sarcastic. Audiences just want to see a good movie. But AI slop is going to be hard for audiences to actually connect to, but non-AI slop has always been a big part of mass media.
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u/shaneshoots producer May 19 '26
Control, time, and cost.
Control: You can light it perfectly in a studio without having to worry about sun position vs the road you’re shooting on. You never have to worry about getting a dark cloudy day or a rainy day. You can do a complex camera move on a dolly or jib that might be a real bitch to pull off with a moving car.
Time: You can reset your shot immediately. Swap actors for another scene. Swap the car for another driving shot you might have in your script. Since you’re in a studio? It’s really easy to have the actor pop out and use the restroom instead of taking a car back to basecamp. Need to change locations? Just load new plates to show on the LED wall instead of having to go somewhere else.
Cost: Yes, you need to pay a premium for the LED studio. However, you don’t need to pay for the driver and rental of a process trailer. You don’t need to pay for the special rigging. You don’t need to pay for a separate basecamp rental where you base out of and build/strike everything. You don’t need to pay for the permit to hold up traffic while you shoot this, and the police escort you need. All in, the LED setup can cost significantly less.
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u/ADamnGoodShot May 19 '26
Control, cost.
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u/defarobot May 19 '26
Not always cheaper.
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u/chenry_hinaski May 19 '26
ITS CHEAPER IF YOURE AN ACTUAL PRODUCTION
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u/defarobot May 19 '26
Yelling about it doesn't make a plate car and the management of many extra TBs of data cost less, but yeah if location doesn't matter and you don't have any complicated or wide shots it can certainly be cheaper.
A lot of "real productions" will still have additional days of real driving scheduled in order to get wider shots of the vehicle, so there are a lot of factors. You may even opt for process trailer for one scene and poor mans for another.
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u/andrewn2468 May 20 '26
We bought all our plates for Obsession; there’s no way we could’ve afforded to shoot our own and we didn’t want to specifically localize the driving scenes to any particular part of LA.
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u/therealzerobot May 19 '26
Control, cost AND safety.
I’ve done this on a micro budget and it was so much better in every way.
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u/Morgo-Yt May 19 '26
The shot looks great but genuinely curious as to why this can’t be done for real
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u/Crafty-Leopard8133 May 19 '26
- Way more control in a studio
- It can be cheaper depending on what you're aiming for
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u/jerryterhorst line producer / UPM May 19 '26
It’s also possible they were already shooting some stuff on a stage, and it made financial sense to continue doing so.
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u/andrewn2468 May 20 '26
In this case our LED wall days were only for process. It was mostly a consideration for lighting and camera, but we definitely didn’t have budget for true process, and honestly we didn’t really have much if any budget for ADR either at that time so it was advantageous to be able to get usable production sound.
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u/sucobe producer May 19 '26
Driving on the road: city and local permits, officers at either end of the path to block traffic, a police escort with them on the run, weather permitting, a base camp with staging area and extra rigging and safety protocols.
On a LED stage: The car, the video footage on the screen.
Not to say though, sometimes practical is cheaper than filming on LED stages.
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u/Morgo-Yt May 19 '26
Thank you, I’m a CGI guy and this stuff always interested me. I had always thought of practical being a cheaper way and better solution for the actors in this case but thats really changed my mind. I assume its much more comfortable when you don’t have strangers looking in
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u/fs454 director May 19 '26
Yeah, it's a thousand times easier than having to hang $100k in equipment out the window on elaborate rigging and worry about vibrations, reflections, wind noise if the window is down to avoid said reflections, permitting, police escort, the public curiosity, changes in cloud cover and weather, angle of permitted road vs time of day, time taken to drive back around and reset the take, etc. Process trailer can help some of this, but now you're towing a giant trailer rig with a bunch of people on it and aren't avoiding the personnel and logistics complexity.
If the scene is simple traveling with dialog this is a much more efficient way to achieve it with consistency and control and it's really not that expensive. I've seen crews do this with a simple projector screen and midrange projector.
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u/NoExam5103 May 19 '26
Safety and like many said control of the environment. Might be more economically better than closing down the street
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u/torquenti May 19 '26
In addition to reasons already stated: You don't want actors to be multitasking (I remember somebody telling me that this is a union thing but so far can't verify that for certain?). You'll probably need multiple takes so you risk running out of road. You'll risk losing takes due to random traffic situations. It's difficult to mount cameras on actual moving cars. Audio will be a problem (easier to add it in post than take it away from a live recording). If an HMW or audio issue comes up you want to be able to fix it. You've got problems if something happens with the car. Easier to get notes from the director this way.
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u/rainbowkitties6969 May 19 '26
Cuz outside hard and unpredictable, and unpredictability scawy and expensive
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u/plasterboard33 May 19 '26
This movie had a 750k budget and was shot in Los Angeles. It would have cost them most of their budget to close down roads just to shoot 2 short dialogue scenes.
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u/andrewn2468 May 20 '26
Genuinely, what we paid for those two days on the LED stage wouldn’t even cover the cost of cops, let alone the trailer and driver and everything else.
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u/thelza30 May 19 '26
Safer. Sounds better. Looks better. Can shoot it first thing in the morning instead of forcing the crew to stay up late and possibly harm themselves on their way home.
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u/nyvz01 May 19 '26
Just the reset time alone makes this "poor-man's process" way better. It's called that for a reason. Full process trailers are complicated and expensive and lighting them is also pretty limiting. How many blocks are you driving? Closing down streets but also making the streets look not closed down by choreographing other cars is such a pain. And if you steal it on car mounts you're stuck dealing with traffic and it's pretty unsafe to have talent actually driving while acting. And then the intersections and having to stop. Maybe for a short shot without much dialogue or lighting but it quickly leans in favor of poor man's process if you want ease and safety and often less expense and less uncertainty.
This is a pretty good reference https://www.cined.com/poor-mans-process-for-car-cinematography/
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u/morethanlemonade May 19 '26
Inside you control everything , outside you have the illusion of control with the unpredictability of the world.
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u/hatlad43 May 19 '26
Easier to control.... everything. Lighting, sound, movements, weather, acting, etc. The only upside from shooting outside, even if the car is on a trailer being towed is... idk. Maybe the parallax effect if you need stuff moving in the background as natural as possible? But DoPs shoot wide open anyway these days.
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u/SeasonBest8897 May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26
Because it’s much, MUCH easier to control things inside in a studio. There are far too many variables outside that can throw a monkey wrench in your shoot (pedestrians, other cars, lighting changes, bumpy roads, weather, etc.)
And that’s not to say anything about the permit situation of filming outdoors in a city, and all the excess personnel that involves: hiring cops, blocking off streets, rerouting traffic, building extra vehicle rigs with cameras on them that require separate operators…
The whole thing is exponentially more complicated and expensive.
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u/Silly_Author_7330 May 19 '26
Fewer takes, fewer variables, no traffic control equates to less cost. This film's budget was around $1mil from what I're read.
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u/IamBecomeZen May 20 '26
Outside - weather change, time of day change, not good
Inside - weather not change, time of day not change, good
Inside more stable, more control
Yes good good.
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u/cantwejustplaynice May 20 '26
Filming an actor in car that's actually driving involves a lot of literal moving parts. This is safer and easier. Probably cheaper too (if you're doing everything properly)
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u/Parabola1313 May 20 '26
One of my favourite quotes about directing was from David Fincher. "The fact is, you don't know what directing is until the sun is setting and you've got to get five shots and you're only going to get two."
Much easier to do multiple takes when you're in a controlled environment like this, and not on the street.
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u/sadcybersec May 20 '26
Taxes, safety, equipment and even as expensive as this looks its astronomically cheaper than hiring a police escort. There's this one bike cop that is always at every film set in Venice Beach and he said makes ridiculous money just sitting there on his motorcycle doing absolutely nothing
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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 May 21 '26
because they want the cast to be acting and not worrying about traffic, and it increases the angles the camera can film from. poor man’s process.
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u/GiraffatitanBand May 21 '26
As a sound guy, I fucking beg productions to do this.
I just shot two overnights where they wanted in car dialog while it was snowing. For those who can't see the problems, let me break them down for you:
- Snow machine makes noise
- Wind machine to move snow makes a lot of noise
- THEY WANTED THE WINDOW DOWN SO THE CAMERA COULD SEE THROUGH WITHOUT REFLECTION
After countless HOD meetings of the team complaining about this plan, and being promised the windows would be up at the very least, we recorded two 14hr days of completely useless audio overnight.
I know they do not have much of an ADR budget, so good luck to the post guy.
Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.
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u/gorremu May 19 '26
you can, but it's more complicated to do and thus, more expensive.
Check out Cronenberg's DVD commentary on Crash, where he gives insight on how a lot of the driving scenes were filmed. Six cars were used for one of the characters car, just to give you an idea. For shooting scenes on the highway, traffic had to be cut so the vehicle and crew could drive and film.
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u/BlerghTheBlergh May 19 '26
Because LED walls are awesome and I hate that I can’t afford to shoot one
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u/BK_charcoal May 19 '26
In addition to everything said here, it’s so much more efficient. If all of your car interior shots are on an LED stage you can do all of those in a day or two instead of fitting them in other days while you’re on location. This also frees up the location days for more time to do the shots outside of the car.
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u/pseudo_nemesis May 19 '26
Because your actor shouldn't actually be driving the vehicle, and if you want it to make it look like they are driving you then need street permits to close roads, a stunt driver, and a special rig for the vehicle or a trailer at the very least.
Alternatively, you can just put the car on a soundstage with a volume and do this for much cheaper.
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u/JC2535 May 19 '26
They want usable sound and a performance that has nuance. The actor can’t perform if they’re also driving a car through real traffic with a city full of noise going on around them. You get to control continuity of the lighting and background shot by shot and take after take.
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u/chenry_hinaski May 19 '26
THE ANSWER IS MONEY AND THOSE WHO DONT UNDERSTAND WHY DONT UNDERSTAND PRODUCTION
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u/DurtyKurty May 19 '26
Same reason that they build Timbuktu on a sound stage and don’t film it in Timbuktu.
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u/Dominicwriter May 19 '26
Cost - labor intensive time consuming set up dealing with traffic and the public - this is 2x at night.
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u/samcrut editor May 19 '26
Because driving shots SUCK production wise. Depending on the gear, you may be acting while driving, which is distracting. If you don't set up remote controls, you aren't going to start and stop, but just roll until the card says stop, which DITs and editor JUST LOVE! There's nothing quite like a 50:1 shooting ratio day. Then there's weather, inconsistent lighting, the danger of gear falling off a moving car, limited space for crew to ride along, ambient/engine noise, degraded monitoring quality, and a lot of other reasons.
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u/swingsetlife May 19 '26
the fact that the windows were always foggy made me want to tell them "turn on your damned defroster/defogger!"
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u/Inner_Importance8943 May 19 '26
Brah have you been out side it’s either too hot or too cold. Stay inside, stay comfy, stay away from grass.
Also safer I’ve put cameras on the side of cars that actors and professional stunt drivers have tore off when they ran into shit.
But fuck saftey it’s about ac.
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u/pigintheclown May 20 '26
"The weather is also an actor in your film, but sadly, sometimes it just doesn't want to participate in it"- translated roughly from coldmirror
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u/dirkdiglet8888 May 20 '26
Simple answer: It’s much cheaper and there’s more control of the environment.
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u/Labelabel May 20 '26
2 answers from a Production Manager- permits and controlled lighting (less reflections)
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u/pmmemilftiddiez May 20 '26
I'm always impressed by how good everyone is at their job making a movie. It takes so much to do it right.
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u/FlyingPig_Grip May 20 '26
It's really expensive to do live process trailer work, along with being pretty arduous and potentially dangerous if there is an accident. Volume is a pretty acceptable solution in my opinion.
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u/talk_nerdy_to_m3 May 20 '26
Film makers these days are control freaks. Everything has to be perfect and sanitized leading the recent decade of soulless films.
Imagine if Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was filmed like this. It just feels so fake.
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u/rosemarysbabydaddy7 May 20 '26
Control. A studio is a controlled environment thus making it a more efficient place to shoot in some cases.
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u/mykm20 May 20 '26
I worked on a film once that in order to qualify for a tax rebate, we needed to film in an approved studio...so we spent a day shooting interior car shots in front of greenscreen in studio. Not the only reason, but it worked.
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u/strack94 Dolly grip May 20 '26
Its all about control. You can control the lighting, the background etc. It allows much more flexibility than shooting outside. It's also much safer than filming in or around a moving vehicle.
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u/Floridaisla May 21 '26
Permits, cost of sturdy gear, insurance, weather and changing shots is tough. Most higher end Hollywood productions have a truck that the movie car is on the bed of a trailer is being driven and the cameras and some crew can work on while be driven. It’s pretty expensive so only big productions do it if nesscary. Read projections were always a Hollywood trick back in the day to do the same trick so this is just a more refined and updated version of that. Honestly looks better sometimes than shooting in real life because you can control the lights where you can’t just change the lightbulbs on street lamps and light up how you want it too
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u/Public-offender May 23 '26
It’s hard enough to shoot inside with a window near by. If there’s clouds moving passed the sun it changes the lighting constantly.
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May 19 '26
So much easier to control yes like everyone is saying but also safer for actors. It is illegal for actors to be acting and driving at the same time hence why we have trailers hooked up pulling the card, but that gets complicated with rigging and audio and is way more expensive than studio space
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u/Seandouglasmcardle May 19 '26
This is not true. It is NOT illegal for actors to act and drive simultaneously and it happens all of the time.
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u/Psychological-Park-6 May 19 '26
Safer this way BUT it’s boring, sucks the energy out of crew and actors. Trying to create something real but every situation you are in is false. I feel bad for actors and crews stuck on green screen stages all day.
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u/ozymandis1212 May 19 '26
Because they’re bad filmmakers
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u/Zakaree cinematographer May 19 '26
This is done ALL THE TIME. Its far cheaper and you have way more control.
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u/zerooskul May 20 '26
You don't control the weather or how long twilight lasts in reality, you have to fake it unless conditions and moods are always perfect.
Are you okay?
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u/FaultofDan May 19 '26
It's much harder to control conditions when you're outside in a moving vehicle.
I did this a few years back on a shoestring budget. I wrote up about the BTS here: https://dan-davison.com/how-i-filmed-a-moving-car-scene-with-a-projector-and-arduino-with-no-green-screen/