Totally unfamiliar situations. Need advice
 

It started with a good looking, shapely brunette and ended with me agreeing to doing video of a fundraising event: People rappelling down the side of a 23 story building. Never done this and I would like some advice as to how to approach this. Looking for 2-3 min of finished product to put on a website. I have some ideas as to some of the shots (Over the edge to street level, shooting up as they come down, vista from rooftops around city). If any more blood flows to the wrong head, I may end up hanging halfway in a harness as the participants move past me.
Any ideas that might be of assistance? And yes, I thought about not talking to pretty women, but that seems to be a non-starter for me.
Oh, yeah, one last thing: I'm using a JVC HM100.

I'd give one of the climbers a small consumer camera, even a flip, and let them shoot POV. You shoot the climber as you described. The POV quality can be poor and it will still intercut just fine.

get a Go Pro Helmet cam, and get a get an tele adapter / lens for your JVC from Century or such like and as Marc says shoot using your JVC and get POV with the Go Pro.

Are they able to do it a couple of times? Shoot from the bottom and from the top and make it look like a 3 cam shoot.

Jon

I did one of these years ago, (back in Hi8 days) and before the era of cheap mini-cams.

One thing I did find was that I could get a really good establishing shot (from a good quarter mile away) panning across the city and then zooming in to show the abseiler coming down the side of the building - all I needed was someone with the same colour T-shirt and helmet as the person I was video-ing and you couldn't tell the difference from afar. I also cut it in once or twice as a wider shot during the descent, to break up the sequence.

It still ended up being a lot of shots of people's bums coming down the side of a building though.

Today, I would try to beg/borrow a couple more cameras if possible, even if they are locked off, clamped to a lampost or something or on a tripod for locked off wide shots, and one on top with a wide angle to show them going over the edge. It might make the sequence more interesting.

One thought, if it's on a building with balconies (like a hotel), you could maybe get onto one and catch a few of the victims going past as well. Or get some shots from inside of them zipping past office windows.

If it's in Maryland I rappel down the building with them for you if your not comfortable with it :) I might even do it for free for the cool factor. I have all the climbing gear.....

But I do like the go pro idea to.

If this is the only problem you have from talking to pretty women, you are very lucky or still very young.

Ken
who does not speak.

Tracy,

If I were closer I would come do the repelling for you!!! I love repelling and do it easily one handed.

While repelling is not hard!!!! I would not go over a tall building my first day. I could tell you a near disaster first day on a small 200 foot cliff!!!

Now, if you can set for a shallow depth of field ( full telephoto/ Nd filtered/ polizer and wide open aperature) you could get them over the side of a building where you could be in a fire escape or out an adjacent window and get some action footage that you could cut in even if it is not off the original building.

Also if there is a window cleaning trallis then you could clip on and shoot from the side.

Definitely you should have some action and point of view shots to cut in!!

wish I was there to do this weith you!!! you are lucky to have the job, it will be a blast!!!

Tracy .. Step up from the GoPro ..talk to Dave at Delaware Skydiving DE, Maryland Skydiving MD, Virginia Skydiving VA, Baltimore Skydiving, Washington DC Skydiving, Northeast Skydiving - Skydive Delmarva, Delaware Skydiving Center ..there's plenty of jumpers from Annapolis/DC who have really decent helmet cams. I'm sure you could hook up with one. You might even consider a base jumper in the mix..

Mike's idea for multi-cams is really smart; how many takes 'you going to get? Sounds like fun .. 'cept for the height!!!

Jim