EMW

Other stuff: boom poles, systems, tracks, matrix rigs.. yup yup.

I found a pretty cheap rig that acts like a zip line. Pretty much i bought a dog trolley (100' of steel wire with plastic coating that has a little pulley so that a dog can be leached and still run around) for $10 then i modified it to fit my camera below the pulley. It helps me get clean shots of people running and such. and is't almost soundless so you can't hear it in the movie.

Dang, some people come up with ze coolest stuff! I need to get back to the machine shot and invent something.

A friend of a friend of mine owns a pvc dolly but that's about as creative as we get. Another friend of mine is getting a perfectly balanced jib arm engineered by the physics department at a local research university, that is going to be sweet when it's done.

$40 TRACK DOLLY

Well, I looked around at several designs, and they all seemed to be rather straightforward. However, there was alot of nonsense (IMO) about using these angles and 8 skateboard wheels. I came up with another way to do this, and it'll cost ya $40!

(Actually $37 with tax).

You need to get two poles (I got 2 poles for fences - 10 feet long at $9.50 each. Then, purchase a 2'X2' piece of floor board. This can be found in the floor section of your local Lowe's or Home Depot. It will be a few boards put together with a corrugated-type sheet of plastic on the bottom. About $6 here. Next up, wheels. I already had these at home - but you'll need 4. They're the general office chair wheels, you know, the plastic ones that look like 2 discs with a space between them - they'll need a metal base on top so you can connect them to the dolly. These run from 4 to 5 dollars per pair. Finally, a couple 2x4s (I had these too).

What you do is take this all home, then flip the flooring board so the wood is facing up. Mark off areas to screw the 4 wheels on - you'll want a uniform length from the edges for all, so no torquing will occur. Screw in the screws, so that the wheels are attached. After you have the wheels in place, you've got your dolly platform ready!

Next, get those 2x4s. You'll want to measure the diameter of the 2 poles, then drill in 2 holes in both 2x4s, an equal distance between both holes (The same distance that the wheels are apart on your dolly platform.) After you have your holes drilled in the 2x4s, you can slide in the 2 poles, then you can place the dolly platform on top - you should be good to go!

It's a simple thing to build - maybe an hour if you're good with tools.



With the casters, there is no hesitation when changing direction whatsoever.

As the wheel is "grooved" in a way,
they grip the tube, so that they cannot swivel - thus it has the effect of locked down wheels with no swivel and no hesitation.

I choose metal pipes, mainly because of length. As the dolly track is 10 feet long, there is much less bending because of camera weight, than if PVC was used. As the camera and the tripod add up to over 10 pounds, metal was the way to go. I'm sure it could be done with PVC if you were using a lightweight tripod and camera...another benefit of the metal is that it can be greased if the wheels don't work properly...It's all up to you!


As you can tell, silky smooth movement. It's best if you have one person pushing the platform(I found it works best when pushed with another small slab of wood) and one person to operate the tripod. As you might see, it's rather difficult to push and use the tripod.

However, this is a great project, easy to build, and it can be disassembled quickly for movement to your next scene!

And it was a success, I have had several people online see this, follow the instructions, and make one of their own

Tutorial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhT4V6e-30o

Test
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB-7Fk0jX1k

On yeah, I bet that is fast to set up and really slick to use. The metal not bending would also be a huge plus. The ten foot barrier would be a big problem though. Most of the shots I do crawl more than ten feet. I et you could get some inner connectors, (not sure what the technical term is) and extend the range indefinitely. You can also use a small cart of any kind as a trackless dolly for indoor shots. For carpet you may need some plywood but well lubed wheels on a small hose or furniture cart usually do the trick.

It also helps to attach a handle so that the tractor dude can stand in a more natural position and make a smoother shot.

Does anyone here use steady cams? I came up with my own steady cam rig that I use to make nice clean motion shots. It's not very good so I'm working on design 2.0.

Does anyone have any plans for free, so that i can start building up my equipment collection for my summer movie??

Does anyone have any plans for free

Specify "plans". Pretty much any plans for any DIY piece of equipment can be found for free with a Google search.

This is my camera, the Panasonic SDR-D7 SD video camera, uses flash drive...

Works great for me so far.