Re: overhead shot on beach/lighting in a tunnel

I LOVE stuff like this.

Another way to do the beach shot is two sturdy vertical poles and a rope across them. Camera at center of rope hanging from a pulley or pair of pulleys as earlier suggested. Two grips hold the poles, and slowly tilt them apart from each other in a V shape to bring tension on the rope and lift the camera, which will stay centered on the rope if both poles move the same distance in the same time. You can do that by just practice, or lay out markers by the poles to hit with their shadows, likea sundial. Think of a volleyball net that's slumping in the center, and you get the idea. This may be more portable and create fewer shadow probs than a pair of ladders, and gets you a real pull-back instead of a zoom-simulated pull back. If you vary the amount of pull on either pole end, you also can make the camera do a translation move in the horizontal plane towards one pole or the other at the same time, like, a trucking move off the cover of the book next to her, to her face, then upwards....