How can I mount my Red on "bent" rails (bent as rollercoaster bent :I..)?

[Peter Karlsson]

I've got a project coming up that involves alot of tricky stuff.

We're going to do a shot where the camera starts 7m in the air pointing right down at the floor and at 3.5-4m it starts to pitch upwards, and at 1.8m it is facing straight horizontally. (think of an airplane diving towards the ground and then at the last moment it straights itself out).

Now, I need to do this shot over and over again (lots of greenscreen passes, that needs to add up), and have exactly the same camera movement. However I don't need the same timing. So moving the camera over a span of time of 5s or 10s doesn't matter, as I re-time everything to fit in the end. Its mostly static elements, so only the path of the camera is important.

Our solution right now is using a Milo. But the only Milo available is at the other end of Sweden the day we need it. So either we need to bring one in from another country, or try something else... And the only thing that comes to my mind is to build a "rollercoaster" type of dolly, were the camera hangs on rails.

Does anyone know of a rail system that lets me do it?? Or have any other suggestions on how to make this happen?

/regards Peter K * CG Sweden

 

[Andrew McCarrick]

http://www.spydercam.com/info-moto.html

Don't know how much it would cost you though.

 

[Peter Karlsson]

Thank you Andrew! Looks sweet, but it sure looks like it will cost us a fortune bringing one of the systems into Sweden. I'll give them a call though. Any other options, are welcome of course!

 

[Vigen Vartanov]

Milo is better solution . I don not thing that flycam , or Speder can do motion control move. But also problem with Milo can me 7 meters .

 

[M Hsu]

is the camera fixed or does it need to pan or tilt during the pass. If it's fixed it's an entirely different problem than if it pans and tilts while moving.

 

[Peter Karlsson]

The camera is fixed! No need to be able to tilt/pan/bank.

 

[M Hsu]

sounds like you could do it by building a large pivoting arm that swings down.

 

[Charles Angus]

sounds like you could do it by building a large pivoting arm that swings down.

Second that.

 

[Peter Karlsson]

Thanks guys! If there is no rails that I can use, I guess a pivot arm will be best option. I wanted it to go straight down the first 3m, then pitch upwards the last 1.5-2m, but maybe I need to extend the pitching movement for the full 5m.

 

[M Hsu]

Thanks guys! If there is no rails that I can use, I guess a pivot arm will be best option. I wanted it to go straight down the first 3m, then pitch upwards the last 1.5-2m, but maybe I need to extend the pitching movement for the full 5m.

that's not impossible either.

especially if you don't need it go really fast... you can support the pivot arm on something that will descend 3 meters first while holding the camera straight out and then release the camera when the pivot arm bottoms out.

you could shoot it in 2 passes, all just descends and then all just pivots.

OR

you have the camera descend some sort of rail straight down and when it gets to the end of the rail, the pivot arm swings the entire contraption (camera and rail) forward.

It would be tricky at best, but it would be doable, if you're handy with building stuff.