motion control advice

M

Mike Dominic

Member
Hello. For a music video I'm looking to do a 90 degree dolly or slider shot around an actor, in (roughly) a 10' radius. The move needs to take about 90 seconds, which seems way too slow to push manually. Does anyone know of a motion control rig that can accomplish this? Most of the ones I have seen are straight tracks with limited length. If anyone has any advice or experience that would be great!

Thanks,
Mike
 
If you've got a lot of budget, call your local rental place and they'll have all sorts of cool gadgets and gizmos and curved tracks and dollies and motors that you can rent.
If you don't have a lot of budget, you're going to need to get creative. If you have any DIY skills you could rig something up that has a pivot point at about the talents feet, is 10' long with a wheeled platform on the other end. Now that you've got the arc, you just need a way to move it smoothly for 90 seconds. You can do a lot with bicycle parts!
I actually enjoy the challenge of making a complicated shot come to life without a budget. A couple years ago I created this intro for a snowboard movie with little more than some plywood, a tape measure, and a flashlight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIhLE2JNCQ
The scene called for stop motion with full motion control, mixed with live footage and a budget of $50. Easy!
 
A straight track motion control rig can do this. If it does not have a crane arm that can retract, the track is placed at the midpoint of the arc facing the talent (ends of the track are pointed to the talent, not sideways to the talent). It dollies back as the arc starts from camera right to camera left (assuming clockwise arc) and dollys forward as the arc passes the midpoint. The arm swings the camera from camera right to camera left as the dolly moves out and back in. The camera makes a pan from left to right.
 
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Like Andrius above, I too was wondering about making something to pivot the camera around the actor - could be as simple as a 10' length of wood attached to a tripod dolly at one end and the other end a pivot bolted to the floor under the actor? It could be moved by pulling evenly on a rope (or more consistently via a motor, although sound could then be a issue).

But a silent motorised dolly on a curved track would be the pro option.
 
I have an 8' kessler and have noodled the idea of ceiling-mounting it with the nodal point just fore of the talent. But it's a lot of weight to hang, and couldn't be safely counterbalanced, so it would need some sort of wheels and support at the camera end. And even the 8-footer isn't much of an arc (some of that length is on the other side of the tripod).

Looking at all the curved track DIY on the web, bowing PVC pipe with straps, etc… but a couple summers back, I replaced the water mains to my house with 1" PEX (2 mains, 2 sidewalks to dig under and a 60' trench, sucked the ass of a dead donkey). Laid the leftovers on my driveway and I think, for a non-riding dolly, it would be easy to screw the stuff down to plywood battens marked for various radii. Lightweight and 100' is about $60 + shipping as I recall.

it's on my test list...
 
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