Steadicam Carmount Question

W

Wade Ferrari

Member
Hey guys so I tend not to post a whole lot on here and stick mainly to reading the forums a ton, but now I am totally baffled by something. About 6 months ago I bought a used Steadicam Video SK rig and the seller had mentioned it came with a car rig. This was my first steadicam (I had flown Flyers, Pilots, and Ultra2's previous to this) and I had never worked with a car mount for a steadicam before. So I show up to look over the steadicam and buy it, he hands me this blue thing and says, "this is the car mount. I dont know how it works or how to use it, but the guy I bought it off of said it was a car mount." the thing doesn't look like it could possibly attach to a steadicam arm or sled or a car for that matter in anyway so I disregarded it and threw it in my closet.

Fast Forward to now. I was on steadicam.com looking around and I happen to look up car mounts and see almost the exact same thing as mine for sale for $995.00.

The one on steadicam.com can be found here:

http://www.steadicam.com/displayproduct.html?tablename=steadicam&itemnum=078-7410-02

The picture of mine is here:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5970860&id=551318978

It looks like mine is missing that charcoal/gun metal piece from the one on steadicam.com but I still don't understand how this sucker works at all. Anyone have any advice, thoughts, or places that I could begin trying to figure this out. When I researched steadicam car rigs I didn't really get any how-to's or much information at all.

Cheers,
Wade
 
Hey Wade,

Your picture isn't visible to me. If you could make it so that everyone could see it, or perhaps attach it to the post here, either I or someone could probably give you some more help.

Thanks!
 
Looks like it's in rough shape, but complete. The picture on the Steadicam site is, in fact, inaccurate. It has on it a socket block for full-sized rigs, which the SK and ProVid did not use. Instead, they used the straight vertical pin, like on your vest and the vehicle mount. It does have a nut on it, to keep the arm from popping off, so you'd need to remove that, put the arm on top of it, and then put the nut back on.

The mount actually separates into two pieces, for different kinds of use. In a professional camera car, you'd find speed rail, a type of aluminum pipe, which you could mount to. For rigs like that, or any other time you have a round vertical piece to mount to, you remove the base of the vehicle mount using the two large screws. Then, just use the U-Bolt around the speed rail or other pipe, and snug it down very tight. Since most cars don't have nice large aluminum pipes on their backs (don't we wish!), you do have the base to work with for mounting. The slots on it allow you to screw it to a large piece of plywood, which you can then mount into the bed of a pickup truck, the back of a van, etc... You would then sit, either straddling the vehicle mount or off to one side, and operate the rig.

One big disclaimer here - remember that at the speeds cars move at, and the distance your rig will be out from the vehicle mount, things get very dangerous very fast. Don't attempt any of this until you've had someone professional show you, unless you're willing to risk loss of your camera, your rig, or more importantly, your life. Filming from cars is one of the top killers in the film industry, and it's doubly dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Just be warned.

Happy flying!


Oh, one thing, you might want to clean up the rust by using an oiled rag or paper towel, and see if the bolts and pins are in decent condition. If they're not, before you try flying anything on the mount, replace anything that seems flaky. Remember, safety first!
 
Thanks for the response Tom! Wow it all makes a WHOLE LOT more sense now! haha I don't really have intentions of using this anytime soon mainly because I've never done car work before and would be horrified to do it on my own. I'm definitely going to replace the bolts and clean up some of the rust on the base. Possibly try to use it down the road or maybe attempt to sell it. Who knows!
 
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