Anyone have tried and succeeded in great footage with a rubber track dolly?

[Frank_L]

I am not a Red One owner, but I would like to know if anyone tried a rubber track dolly where the track can be altered as you want as it is made out of rubber...

Thank you in advance.

 

[Clint Lealos]

I've used the Kessler flex track dolly before on some TV shows. It is exactly what you described, and it worked great! There is a bit of a learning curve with it, but once you got it figured out the shots are smooth and quick to set up with a tiny crew. Good Luck

 

[Andy Jarosz]

I've found the Kessler flex track works when you only have to roll it once or twice and have time to re-adjust in between. If you need to do a move repeatedly, like if you're doing a live TV shoot, then it's much more of a pain then a convenience.

 

[Frank_L]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[Justin Chin]

If you have the spacers with it and a heavy dolly it can work well. I've used Flex track on a gravel driveway, no spacers, (resting on a furni) with my Losmandy dolly (220+ Pounds alone), a jib and 80 pounds of weights with a F900 on a beefy Ronford head. Worked great.

Flex track can be finicky. Using spacers is important for repeated moves.

 

[Brian F Kobylarz]

I have some of the Losmandy flex track that I use with their Porta-Glide sleds. I also have some Shotmaker I-Beam track and a good quantity of the Matthews precision steel track (straight and circles).

So comparing, flex track is no substitute for standard track, but it does bring a degree of flexibility to some shoots.
For example, if you need to move the dolly in tight quarters along a non-standard curve or perform a repeatable dance floor move - flex track is excellent. If you need a long run, or are creating a custom circle, you can splice ends without a noticable bump by cutting the rubber on a diagonal before gluing - then sanding to remove excess glue.

Heed the earlier advice in this thread: make use of the spacers - the more the better since spacing of the two sides needs to remain constant - variations are noticable (more so with sled type floating wheels).
At the same time, whatever floor you place it on needs to be very flat because even the smallest dip becomes exaggerated. In a pinch, I used some unistrut under the rubber track and it worked beautifully on straight runs.

I would not promote flex track as a primary solution, too many limitations - and setup time is a factor - but it does have it's place.