Disclaimer:

I feel it necessary to point out that I am an end user only, and I have no affiliation with Indie Snap and I paid full price for the product I am reviewing.

The Quest:

I recently began an exaustive search for a low cost, light weight dolly solution. My dolly needs were very specific. I shoot many of my own projects solo. I wanted a dolly that was light weight, easy to set up, and could be operated by one person.

In an ideal world I would just have a Mathews or Chapman and a slew of grips to build and level elaborate track systems and help me execute flawless dolly moves all while my always on AC pulls perfect focus. Then my dreams are quickly dashed upon the rocks of time and budget.

Nevertheless, as all indi film makers, I am not pleased to just toss out the story telling tools of our bottomless pocket film heroes. So I began my search for a dolly I could set up and use as a one man crew.

I had in the past used the Indie-Dolly. (http://www.indiedolly.com/) This simple dolly came with 12 feet of aluminum track and a triangle shaped skater style dolly that fastened to a tripod. I used this on many shoots and had great results. It is a very solid product, but also features a solid price point. At the time of this writing the Indie Dolly sells for approximately $1500. This is not a bad price, but I was looking for a solution under $1000.

Searching the DVXUSER boards brought me to Indie Snap. Indie Snap was well known on the boards for their matte boxes, but had just released dolly that seemed to be what I was searching for. I ordered the Dolly and these are my observations of the new system.

Shipping:

The Indie Snap products are made in Canada, and shipping across the border was not without incident. My dolly was delayed and even misplaced while in transit. I will say that Todd at Indie Snap was very helpful in trying to solve the problem and track down the missing package, but behold my dolly arrived.

The Dolly:

The Dolly has a simple no frills design. It is basically a standard tripod style dolly modified with three sets of the skater type wheels set at an angle for dolly track.

The hardware that attaches the ripod is simple, but smart. It would work well with many different tripods.

It is a bit on the light duty side. One of this systems greatest strengths could be considered by many to be its greatest weakness. It is very light-weight. This is not the dolly to throw your fully rigged Panavision camera on. But it is what it is, and for many applications could be a great asset. I have packed this dolly AND TRACK in a suitcase for travel. Which brings us to perhaps the best part of this dolly system...

The Track:

The track for this dolly system is, for my best guess, isome form of industrial rubber hose. The hose is strong, but very flexible. Again, an over weight camera rig could cause a problem, but my fully rigged DVX100 with Letus, rails, lens, mattebox, wireless mic receivers, did not present a problem. The track can be configured in a straight run or curved and also comes with straight channel pieces to help lay track into a straight run.

In my experience I found them to bee unnecessary, but they are included. The track has no joints to roll over so the dolly is very smooth, however, no joints means that your track is only so long. At current time of this writing there is no way to join two runs of Indi Flex Track. Indie Snap does sell two different lengths, so if you need a longer run there options available. Overall this is a well thought cost effective solutions that can add great production value to your film making arsenal.

Summary:

I have to say that I am very pleased with this purchase. The best analogy I can fashion for this system is the Leaterman Multi Tool. This Dolly system to me is like the Leatherman, or Swiss my knife. It is small, convenient, and easy to take along. Also like the multi tool. there are more rugged solutions and perhaps better tools, but for the price and convenience it will get many jobs done. This is certainly not the last dolly you will ever buy, but it is so easy and portable this very well could be the dolly you always have with you. If mine dissapeared I would order another one immediately.