Simple Cinematography Trick: The Flip Shot

In this video tutorial, learn how to perform an interesting video shot without expensive rigging or accessories. Stock music website Premuimbeat has an a whole collection of videos on their Vimeo page with information on cinematography, motion graphics, and lighting, all for helping out the budding video shooter or editor.

There are other ways to get a similar effect, but this one was great in that it didn't require any special DIY built rigs, or additional accessories. By adjusting the angle of the quick release plate, and setting the tripod on its side, the effect is fairly easy to accomplish. You can read more on the Premiumbeat blog post about this shot, which only needed a few sandbags and an apple box to pull of.

Thinking of these kind of camera tricks, a recent popular film comes to mind, where they employed a slightly different style of a flip shot throughout. It was used to drive a number of match edits, and was also used as a device to show connection between different ideas and locations. Here's the trailer for that film, Into The Mind, and look at :53 and 1:22 for examples of their flip shot.

While some shots could have been done easily with a GoPro on a pole, the more controlled shots were perhaps done by with a setup similar to the flip shot detailed here, but with the camera on the end of a slider or other extended plate? Instead of rotating from its center point on a tripod head, you can see parallax which tells us that the camera is actually traveling around a circumference on a circular path. I have not seen any behind the scenes content for Into The Mind, so if you have some insight on their setup, please share it below.