Dolly Thoughts

[Jarrett P. Morgan]

about a year and a half ago I built a slider that has seen quite a bit of use and works very well (I can put it on 5ft or 10ft poles). On smaller productions it works well, but on larger ones I am wishing I had something closer to a "real" dolly. I understand that I can build a doorway dolly with skateboard wheels and it will work well; throw the tripod up there and get some PVC and it will work well. I want to try for something a bit beefier that an operator (and prefereably an AC as well) can ride and operate the camera. I have been doing some research into hydraulics and thinking about a way to emulate the center column on a spider dolly or the jib action of a Fisher or chapman.

Anyone had any luck building a dolly with a hydraulic center column?

or anyone want to share any thoughts?

 

[Elvis Deane]

A year later, and I'm thinking of a similar thing. After renting a PeeWee last week and seeing the great results with their hydraulic arm, I was wondering how I could improve the wooden doorway dolly I built from Long Valley Equipment parts.

I came across this while looking at hydraulic bits and pieces.
http://www.ergosource.com/retrofit-...-systems-c-21_63-l-en.html?page=1&language=en

Perhaps using a single leg with a 16" extension would do the trick for a hydraulic mast. The quarter 20 screw in the bottom for the foot would be a way to mount some sort of bowl to place a head in. It's quite a bit of dough to spend on a long shot though.

 

[morgan_moore]

about a year and a half ago I built a slider that has seen quite a bit of use and works very well (I can put it on 5ft or 10ft poles). On smaller productions it works well, but on larger ones I am wishing I had something closer to a "real" dolly. I understand that I can build a doorway dolly with skateboard wheels and it will work well; throw the tripod up there and get some PVC and it will work well. I want to try for something a bit beefier that an operator (and prefereably an AC as well) can ride and operate the camera. I have been doing some research into hydraulics and thinking about a way to emulate the center column on a spider dolly or the jib action of a Fisher or chapman.

Anyone had any luck building a dolly with a hydraulic center column?

or anyone want to share any thoughts?

Some thoughts, you've got to break your problem apart.

A 12 skate wheel dolly should be able to certainly support an operator, maybe an A/C too - four skate wheels are stong enough to carry a single person.. doing stunts

As for the boom function.

I think you need to break this into two design criteria..

-easy adjustment of camera?

or

-ability to boom while rolling

The second being harder

FYI miller libec and others make centre column hydro 'pedestal' sticks

I think these could be modded with less agro than doing the boom version from scratch.

The other boom in shot solution is to have a small crane on the dolly (which is less likely to tip with an op onboard design) this will require a counter mass, typically three times the mass of your camera/head or more

Frank/Postmaster has such - personally I think it is too heavy for my needs, but it obviously fits his needs/crew size and he has a nice set of extra wheels to enable movement (between shots)

S

 

[Michael Carter]

The OP didn't seem to be talking about crane/boom shots - the hydraulic column is just for adjustable camera support from a single point vs. the 3 points of tripod sticks, if I'm reading this correctly.

My DIY dolly has 16 roller blade wheels (4 groups of 4 wheels) and supports an operator just fine. It will run on a smooth floor or on pipe tracks - I've been using PVC but I can get speedrail at cost - I've been storing the PVC over the rafters in my garage and it's getting a little curvy in the Texas heat.

A center pedestal would be quite awesome, but the ones I've seen are remarkably pricey. If you don't need to be going up/down in the middle of a shot, I'd assume you could make a fairly robust one from hardware parts and a tapped lock knob. On my setup I just live with the fact that I have to work a chair or stool in between the sticks.

FWIW - I have used an 8' Kessler on a dolly; it can have some sway. I ended up buying the "5' tip" which shortens the camera end of the crane, it was about $150 but a good investment for Kessler owners. You don't get as much reach, but you need far less counterweight and it can be handy for shots where you want some height change.