Dolly and track question

UncleBenji1977

UncleBenji1977

Well-known member
Just got my dolly in from Glideshot yesterday. The indoor test shots I did are flawless, and I couldn't be happier about them. Outdoors was another story. I'm running the dolly on two pieces of 1" PVC. They are both 10 feet long. Anyway, my outdoor shots are really bumpy. I know there are ways to remedy this, so I'm looking for everyones favorite methods. I'm particularly interested in the most simple/inexpensive method. Thanks!
 
Blocks of wood with V cuts that have a screw that goes into the bottom of the pvc. Simple to make. If your using PVC though you will need more as its more flexible.
 
UncleBenji1977 said:
You mean just use wedges?
Click to expand...
No, more like a railroad tie (i.e crosses under both tracks). You would then use wedges to level out the tie. With pvc outdoors you will need them about every foot if you have someone on the dolly as the track will tend to sag. I tried pvc, but ended up putting that in my storage for use on my rent houses. I went the steel fence rail route, with custom connecters.
 
I second the "top rail" for chain link fencing. It works like a champ. The sections slip into each other nice and snug.

I don't have any pics of this, but home depot and other places that sell lumber normally have 2X4's laying around the plywood area (they are about 4ft long). The 2X4's are used to protect the plywood and OSB sheets from the banding strips during transit. The 2X4's have a channel cut down the center for the metal banding. The top rail sits in the channel nicely. Because the rail is metal, it sags much less than PVC and won't need as much support for outdoor dolly shots on rough ground. The images below show the rail being used without the 2x4's, which has worked fine for me indoors.

I haven't really seen a need to do this, but you could connect two lengths of the the channeled 2x4 at a set distance apart to have some train track style dolly track. The channeled 2x4's are free too. It always confuses the cashier though and they have to call and page people to the front to sort it all out, but I have yet to pay for them.

dolly.jpg


top_rail_open.jpg


top_rail_closed.jpg


Here is a clip of the track in action:

http://www.snodart.com/snodpublic/dolly.mov

There is some compression "jitter", but the dolly moves nice and smooth over the connections. Keep in mind that this is with rollerblade wheels, so different wheels might change the outcome.

The track, even without the 2x4's works smoothly enough that I can use my jib from the dolly deck.

jib_dolly.jpg
 
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