Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

I want to hang my RED One at 90 degrees from horizontal. . . any ideas???

Stephen Pruitt

Stephen Pruitt

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 14, 2007
Messages
3,309
Reaction score
40
Points
48
Website
www.thetreemotionpicture.com
Hi all. . .

I'm wanting to hang one of my REDs over a desk and fly it out over a room from above, always keeping the camera at 90 degrees from horizontal. Are there any accessories that will allow me to do this easily?

Basically, I just want the camera to hang straight down. How would you do this?

Thanks much. . . and Happy New Year.

Stephen
 
Some "Hot Heads" allow for any amount of tilt you want and can be remotely controled. A less espensive way would be to mount a tilt plate on a small crane or jib arm. Any decent grip can rig something up for you.
 
If you are talking about shooting strait down you might try a jib on rails. I did a 30 sec spot for a radio station with the double float cruising under the jib. You would need the rails but I don't see any problem as long as you have high enough ceilings.

Good luck
 
Yeah, a jib will work for a set shot, but I'm needing the ability to work into a very small space with a tracking shot. I was thinking that some sort of a ladder dolly might work, but I'm not sure if that would really do it or not.

Thanks much.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Yeah, a jib will work for a set shot, but I'm needing the ability to work into a very small space with a tracking shot. I was thinking that some sort of a ladder dolly might work, but I'm not sure if that would really do it or not.

Thanks much.

Stephen
Click to expand...

Mayby mount a jib arm on a doorway dolly. That way you could track, rise and fall, tilt and pan!
 
A "tilt plate" is a very small item that will allow you to get the angle your looking for. As for tracking yes a ladder dolly or some special rig that allows you to track off truss or even standard grid pipe. Technocrane would be the expensive option.
 
Depending on how high you want to be, it could be as simple as a dolly with a ubangi and a tilt plate. How high do you want to be, how wide - whats the shot?

Nick
 
What the heck is a ubangi??? Pardon my ignorance.

I was wondering if something could be hung inside a CamTram or some other ladder dolly that would allow me to shoot underneath it (assuming I was using 2x4 timbers. . . yeah, I know I can't fly underneath a ladder :-)

Thanks.

Stephen
 
Yes, please.

Stephen
 
Ubangi Offsets
http://www.willyswidgets.com/pr_mntrise.html

It sounds to me like you want to do a little cable cam type deal. I've seen it done very well on low budget stuff. Can you rig hard points in the walls? Do you need to operate during the shot?

A good rigging grip could hook you up pretty fast. Call your local G&E house and ask for a recommendation for a Key grip.

Cheers,

Nick
 
Yes, you can do this with a CamTram and a right angle plate.

The CamTram allows you to use any pair of parallel beams to support it. I would suggest some pipe such as speed rail for added strength and piece of mind, especially if you're floating the rig over talent. The CamTram can use any tripod head in Mitchell plate, 150mm ball, 100mm ball or even 75mm ball. For this rig I would suggest a Mitchell mount head. Actually, if the camera is locked (no rotational pan during the shot while looking straight down) then I would suggest no tripod head at all in order to keep down the weight. Instead, use a right angle plate (aka L-bracket), which is far simpler and lighter than an adjustable tilt wedge. The L-bracket has holes drilled in both sides and can be hung via 3/8" bolts from the CamTram, which also has many threaded holes in the chassis for various such rigs. I would suggest mounting a dovetail plate to the L-bracket and then attaching the RED to this so that you have greater freedom to adjust the depth, although you may be able to get away with the camera straight to the plate. Don't forget to tie safety ropes to the whole contraption lest tragedy strikes. There are some points on the frame of the CamTram where you can attach a rope or pulley. I suggest a line connected on both the front & back -- that way one person can pull the rig while the other applies constant resistance so that the movement is smooth.

Abel can rent you all the pieces for this rig. Let me know if you need more assistance.

A Ubangi is a common term for an offset plate for a dolly. It is basically a large metal plate with Mitchell mounts on either end and sometimes the center. The ends of the plate are rounded around the Mitchell plates. This outline vaguely resembles the plates that Ubangi warriors put into their lower lips to extremely extend them, hence the nickname. There are lots of these that float around the industry, at least in the US. A small heavy duty light stand is referred to as a Lawn Dart while a short C-Stand is known as a Gary Coleman. There's a stand that's even smaller that's come to be known as an Emmanuel Lewis, which is probably getting fairly esoteric a reference in 2009. My personal favorites are the AC nicknames for T-stops on the lens. An 8-11 split is a Fellini (from 8 1/2) and an 11-16 split is a Polanski (from his statutory rape conviction of a 13 year old girl). More recently a T2 has become known as a Cameron.

There's plenty more of these, but they start getting a lot more rude than the Polanski.
 
Hi there, Mitch. . . thanks for the email. Do you guys sell an L-bracket? That really does sound like a very simple and easy way to do this. The trouble, of course, is that it has to be REALLY long on the camera portion of the "L" so that a RED One can actually be mounted. The RED is not what I'd call a short camera. I'd guess it would have to be at least 10" long on the long side. . . and that would mean the battery would have to ride on the top of the ladder dolly!

Gotta love those terms. . . I guess you can tell I'm not originally from this world.

:-)

Stephen
 
We have some for rent you're welcome to use. If you really wish to purchase, we could arrange it but I'd actually suggest you have something custom made. I had just such an item made for my own jib setup more than a decade ago by Willy's Widgets. He did it custom to my specs (in that case, fitting perfectly around my Aaton rig) and he came back with a number of suggestions and improvements to my original design idea. Turnaround was fairly quick and the price was quite reasonable.

willyswidgets.com

He refers to them as Angle Plates and has a bunch of standard sizes but he's always ready to make something custom. Tell Bill I sent you.
 
This type of set up could probably be rigged in any number of ways. From on-the-cheap to insanely expensive.

Recently we did a similar type of a shot where a camera had to go down the center of a poker table with people sitting on either side gambling and towards a subject sitting at the end of the table. The camera had to be free to pan left and right at will as well.

We used some C-stands rigged with super-clamps to hold up two 2X4's and steel pipe. Which essentially became track for an inverted Wally-Dolly with the RED hung via nylon climbers webbing and bungee cables. That way the weight of the camera itself actually helps reduce shake and vibration - and that it's basically suspended from a dolly it can track and pan at the same time smoothly. The motion was extremely smooth and fluid. Just what was called for on the shot.

I'll see if I can find a shot of the rig and post it. I've explained it... but the credit for this ingenious rig in the 11th hour goes to our DP... Roman Baska. :)
 
I was painting a friends barn awhile back and noticed the u-channel and roller assemby that opened and closed the big door looked like it could serve as some kind of camera tracking unit. They sell them complete at any grange (for those of you living in the sticks) or at larger building and home improvement centers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top