Wheelchair Dollies....images???

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DVX100Shooter

Veteran
Anybody have or know where some images of some wheelchair dollies are posted? I am just trying to see how I would mount a camera to it if I went that route. I tried googling it but didn't really come up with the kind of images I was hoping for.
 
Yeah, I thought the whole idea with the 'wheelchair dolly' was that the camera person sat in the wheelchair holding the camera, while being pushed along by someone else?
 
I keep on and on naturally thinking of this as a fun and probably pretty smooth way of shooting long movements, especially shots following the actors walking distance. Plus, I've always wanted to have a wheelchair so that I can ride around stores in one and freak people out. One thing I always worry about is ground perspective though, I haven't done any tests to see exactly how big of a perspective change that a lower height of a couple feet would make on an actor's face or so, but I keep on being scared of shooting things from any perspective higher or lower than my natural eye height; bad mentality I guess, but I like shooting things how I'm used to seeing them, after all. I guess having the camera sit on a much higher brace would cut it, but that seems like it would be hard to keep steady, like balancing a plate on top of a stick. =/
 
I've put a piece of plywood on the arms and strapped a tripod with the feet resting on small bags of pinto beans (poor man's cinesaddle) to absorb shock with pretty good results.
 
My new favorite method is to use inline skates and my "steadypod". I can have an assistant push me to get forward shots, or pull my by a sweatshirt around my waist for backwards shots. The best part is that the camera is at a natural level. We can also do foot chases at high speed.
 
Here is a picture of the use of a Wheelchair dolly on a film by Jean-Luc Godard.... It looks like "Breathless" ("À bout de souffle"). The camera being used is a Eclair Cameflex... check out the lights.

godard-dolly-grip1.jpg
 
They have this on a dolly, but it would be a nice way to rig a camera to a wheelchair also.
Fast forward to 4:10


Frank
 
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