Crank 2 - High Voltage, the sequel to the 2006 film Crank, about an assassin played by Jason Statham who learns his rival has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops, is being shot entirely with consumer level Canon video cameras.Primarily being shot hand held with a $3,500 XH-A1 that is mounted onto a Manfrotto Fig Rig (see photo above featuring Amy Smart and Corey Haim) , which was invented by director Mike Figgis while making his 2000 film Timecode. For point of view, car mounted, and crash cams, they are using the less expensive HF10's which records to removable SDHC memory cards. Reportedly they will be using up to 12 of these $1,000 cameras with plans of destroying most of them during the filming process.
Directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have said that the Canon XH-A1 and Canon HF10 will be used as “moving the camera in outrageous ways and being able to destroy cameras without blinking an eye is more important to us than, you know, sort of having this filmic image” says Taylor. Nevedine says “With the cameras we’re using we literally can point and shoot and we have the same image quality that we had on Crank 1“.
With camcorders though won’t it look pretty crappy? “It doesn’t look like Cloverfield. It’s not supposed to look like home video. It’s going to look like a movie, but it’s going to look like a movie you’ve never seen before.“
Crank 1, was previously shot with the Sony F950 that carries a price tag of well over $100,000. So it's refreshing to see that the directors have decided to take an entirely different approach.
Just goes to show you that you don't need a really expensive camera to make a Hollywood movie. All you need is a hot actress with a really short dress.
