Halfpipe
Also known as: pipe, superpipe
A U-shaped channel ridden wall to wall, where the action happens at two known points and the filming positions are obvious.
Updated
What it means
A halfpipe is a predictable feature. Two walls, a transition between them, and a rider crossing from one to the other, which means everything happens at a place somebody can set a Fixed-camera recording next to.
That predictability is unusual and valuable. A filmer knows exactly where the air will happen, which is the opposite of most terrain and makes the pipe the easiest thing to cover properly.
The scale is the thing a camera loses. A rider several metres above the lip reads as a modest hop on a wide lens, and conveying the height is the whole difficulty.
How it works in practice
Filming from the deck at the lip is the standard position. Level with the top of the wall shows how far above it a rider gets, which a view from the flat bottom never does.
A Low-angle shot inside the pipe is the other one. A camera on the transition looking up as somebody passes overhead gives scale that no position outside can produce.
Repetition makes multi-angle coverage easy. A rider taking ten runs lets a filmer move between positions, which is what makes Cutting on action across angles possible here.
What to watch out for
Snow and concrete both blow out. A white pipe fills the frame with brightness, and a camera metering on it underexposes the rider, so Spot metering or a deliberate compensation is needed.
The wide lens flattens the walls. A pipe that is intimidating in person looks like a shallow ditch from most positions, and only an angle level with the lip corrects that impression.
Ten runs produce ten similar clips. The same trick from the same position repeats, and Duplicate shot detection keeps one, which is correct and means moving the camera between runs instead.
How RawClip handles it
Airs out of a pipe score well on motion and are easy to place against a beat, since the rhythm of a run is regular. Repeated runs from one position are reduced to the best, which rewards changing position rather than filming more laps.