Dolly help for upcoming shoot.

Miguel Bunster · February 6, 2005

Hi,

I nee some guidance in the following issue. I have some shots on my upcoming short film that require the following.

Theater shot.

The camera travels above the audience heads and ends at the screen. The camera should be about 5 feet tall but need to be at the center of the rows. That will make the horizontal distance between dolly wheels and camera about 6-7 feet. At the end the camera should rise up to 6 feet aprox. Or more if possible but not much more. I can?t lay down track.

Hallway shot.

I must track in wide angle behind a character for some 50 feet. The floor is in an old building and looks pretty even but not perfect. So I thought maybe of some dolly with suspension that could compensate the bumps. I will see the floor.

Is there any small dolly that has this characteristics: Suspension, a jib arm that would rise up to 6-8 feet and that?s is able to use an extension to get the camera horizontally from the dolly base as far as 6-8 feet as well? The camera I am using is not heavy at all. Is a DV camera about 20 pounds.

Ideally the dolly has to be small not a huge crane or anything so I can fit it in my budget as well as in my truck.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Many Thanks!

Miguel

Adam Frisch FSF · February 6, 2005

Well, here in Britain people are not very fond of the Super Panther dollies - they all prefer PeeWee or Fisher here. And for most jobs they are better. But I kinda grew up on Panthers back home in Sweden, and they do have som advantages. First, they're light. You can also go chinese on them by pulling in the wheels, making them true narrow doorway dollies - something that's impossible with Fisher's. They can also shoot and dolly in every direction, something the Fisher's can't - if you want the arm sticking out sideways on the Fisher, you have to put the whole dolly sideways on the tracks on top of small corny skateboard wheels. And the electrical rising column is second to none when it comes to smootheness and slow stops.

I'd say rent a Panther for this.