Look, accidents happen. Unfortunately, the worst happened to a $30,000 RED Epic while shooting on a bowling alley. A dumb idea? Or was it planned?
You’re shooting in a bowling alley and you want a sweet shot of a bowling ball coming right at the camera. There’s no way around it: it’s going to have to be a close call. Stand over the alley, hope you don’t slip, and hope the ball doesn’t hit you. This is the risk that Austrian production company MXR took.
The impact of the bowling ball actually resulted in the EF-to-F-mount lens adaptor snapping off, which spared the actual lens mount on the camera. Thank God for that! According to MXR, both the camera and the lens are intact. That can’t be said for the bowling ball, which must have a glaring chip in it.
So we shot this commercial at a bowling site and we wanted to get a big shot of the bowling ball approaching the camera....
Posted by MXR Productions on Friday, 18 November 2016
Now, is it real? It’s difficult to tell. The obvious reasons to doubt the video’s authenticity is that the camera operator is holding the lens up before it crashes down. Also, the very fact that somebody is filming the camera operator is suspicious (and they have a close-up of the camera, at that).
However, for a cheap gag, I’m not sure how they’d have gotten the piece of the bowling ball to fly up in the air like that. That may be the cause to believe it wasn’t a stunt.
Whatever you feel, I’m sure this video will be up there with some of the other cringe-inducing, terrifying accidents that we talk about, here.
[Via MXR on Facebook]
I don't understand why you would need a Red for this application. There are so many other less expensive devices that can be used to capture 4K without risking so much money.
I thought fake initially but the two chips that fly off the ball look pretty convincing and the operator looks like he's holding the lens to pull focus. At first I thought the chips could easily have been done in post, and they could have but when you look at the initial impact the first chip comes off the ball and ricochets off of the front of the camera then fly's up and back down. I don't believe they would have put that little detail in there during post just to sell this shot.
I searched for this on youtube and found.. well... this gem..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdHAJU9i6JQ
He's "holding" the lens because he's (trying to) pulling focus. It's not weird at all. And I think the shock is real. Still, if the lens fell like that, it's probably because it wasn't properly locked on. But it is should be fine, as the camera. REDs are built like tanks.
Judging by where the ball his the camera body, I seriously doubt that the lens mount would suffer at all.
Another cheapskate trying to get insta-famous by a fake video.
Thats what I'm thinking. No way this is real. There is NO WAY a lens would pop off that easy. I understand the pulling focus but I'm sure the lens wasn't seeding in the camera
Pure clickbait, and I fell for it even though I knew going in that I didn't give a shit. Thanks again, boredom + internet.