Super Cheap Alternative to Railing

[Jeremiah Kuehne]

Sounds like you want to make some inexpensive rails. Check McMaster Carr http://www.mcmaster.com/# and http://www.mcmaster.com/#order-history/=etkxk0, the heavy wall aluminum tube 3/4" od is 19.05 mm, so it works in 19mm rod holders that often come up on ebay. Add some 19mm handles and you are good to go. If there were a cheaper and reliable way I would let you know as I'm the ultimate cheap guy. I try to build as much accessory stuff as I can. Apprentice at a machine shop, sweep the floors or do whatever it takes to learn how to build this stuff because you will need to know this in the future, it is just part of cinematography.

Looks like a lot of possibilities there. The second link was broken..what was it of? My grandpa is an engineer and he's got a whole machine shop set up..unfortunately he's in Michigan and I'm in Minnesota otherwise I'd be over there all the time making stuff.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Guys, be easy.

Jeremiah indicated he's not getting a camera right now, he was just curious. It may sound silly, knowing what we know about how it would work in practice, but I suspect there will be a lot of DIYers joining the forum because Scarlet will be at the ceiling of what they can afford and accessories will be tough for some to go all out on. So people will think of various ways to do things, some of which will work, and some definitely won't. I applaud anyone who searches for ways to do things that are more affordable for them and allows them to build their own gadgetry for their cameras.

But I do think this one will be difficult to implement Jeremiah. There are other ways to do support your camera in a DIY manner, so have at it. As long as you don't break any cameras, there's no harm in trying.

Mabe Im wrong but I come from the postproduction end of the world where any available solution is worth a try. Then being at shoots I find grip and camera operators and such are quite limited in their minds... One example, on a commercial shoot our camera could not reach in close enough because we had only rather long rods one the camera head for the crane (they where sticking out into the miniature that we where shooting. So I ask the camera crew if we cant solve it with a angle cutter.... then they look at me as I'm a crazy person, because to them you can not just cut camera equipment apart... To me it's simple math, the long rod was holding back our production running with few K USD a minute... buying a new rod the next day would cost around 60 USD, still the team refused to just cut the rods in half...

To me thats a normal scenario. Where getting the job done is coming second to taking care of the gear and handle it nicely.
So now hawing all our own gear, people think that Im kidding when I say that we always carry a angle cutter, Saw and sledge hammer to the shoots...

Any way, last week we shot in Lithuania and after some convincing I manged to have the Local Line Producer to step aside... She was talking about extra insurance and you can not do this and you can not do that... but in the end I got the Grip guys to build a ducktape wire cam. It worked like a charm and we had an Alexa move from a-b where b was about 35meters away and elevated about 10meters... and the move was done in less than 6seconds... that would normally be about 10k USD operation if used professional gear now it was done with grip bits and three pieces of wood for stabilization. And yes, the shot came out just as the doctor ordered (I cant post the result here since the work is not aired just yet)... So I think creative thinking is not bad. I think most new great camera inventions was not bought over the counter, on the contrary, they where very often tested and created in the famous duct tape laboratory..

duct tape wire cam: http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/film/IMG_1373.MOV

 

[Jeremiah Kuehne]

Björn, that's awesome! The more that I look into the DIY rigs, the more I'm starting to think that trying crazy things to get the right shot isn't a terrible thing. I think it adds a lot of production value having such unique shots. Cinematography is all about creativity and problem solving, both of which are traits a good DIYer has. And for those of us on a budget, creativity is often times all that we have.

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Looks like a lot of possibilities there. The second link was broken..what was it of? My grandpa is an engineer and he's got a whole machine shop set up..unfortunately he's in Michigan and I'm in Minnesota otherwise I'd be over there all the time making stuff.

try going to the mcmaster site and do a search for this part, 1968T841

I have built so many rigs over the years I can't even remember them all. A couple of years ago I built 8 giant fake security cam housings for reds which were on hot heads. The hot heads had to be pretty real as the weight of a built up red with big zooms on them can be around 50 pounds. A lot of times if you want the shot you have to build the rig or hire someone else to.

 

[Jeremiah Kuehne]

A lot of times if you want the shot you have to build the rig or hire someone else to.

Yes! This makes me feel less crazy! And yes, I looked up the part. Lots of stuff on there that could come in handy. I'm definitely going to try to befriend a machinist.

 

[David W. Jones]

My thoughts... And I know many will think this is crazy talk, but in my opinion cameras have become the disposable item in the shooting equation. As quickly as technology is changing, many of us have purchased several cameras in the last 5 years.

To me it makes more sense to purchase support items that will last a lifetime, and be useable with any future camera purchase. High quality tripod/head, base plate/rails, lenses, audio support gear.

I know everybody has a budget they must work within, but I would question the purchase of a camera which needed to be duct taped together to be used because of budgetary restraints.

All the Best!

Dave

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

My thoughts... And I know many will think this is crazy talk, but in my opinion cameras have become the disposable item in the shooting equation. As quickly as technology is changing, many of us have purchased several cameras in the last 5 years.

To me it makes more sense to purchase support items that will last a lifetime, and be useable with any future camera purchase. High quality tripod/head, base plate/rails, lenses, audio support gear.

I know everybody has a budget they must work within, but I would question the purchase of a camera which needed to be duct taped together to be used because of budgetary restraints.

All the Best!

Dave

I mostly agree with this. I have one issue.

I don't think cameras are disposable - certainly not yet.

Another thing many are not considering is how Epic and Scarlet are basically "wish list" cameras. If you buy an Epic M today ... it will be some time, and a technology revolution before you need to own another camera as a professional image maker.

Let me put that differently.

What if you were given the ability to, in 1999, buy a $45,000 camera system that recorded 10 bit RAW 1920x1080p at between 1 and 120 fps, including NTSC 29.97 and 59.94. Or you could record 720p at up to 300fps. The camera has an ISO equivalent range of between 50 and 1600 ISO, and generated very acceptable images at 200 ISO. It used 16mm PL mount film lenses.

You could still make a huge pile of money shooting that camera today. In fact that mythical camera is comparable to the Arri Alexa, and is superior to the Panasonic HPX-3700 Varicam, both of which sell for about the same price adjusted for inflation.

Along a similar vein ... imagine in 1999, a $10999 camera that recorded 1440x1080p 10 bit camera that shot up to 25fps, or could window to 720p 48fps. Again, it used 16mm PL lenses.

That's comparable, and in fact superior to a Sony F3 which retails for the same price today adjusted for inflation, and its also comparable to the just announced Canon C300 just announce at near $20000.

Now let's look at the market in 1999. Most materials were delivered in standard definition. Film was finished at 2K ... which is nearly indistinguishable from 1080p - but most films were seen on DVD. HD was on the horizon. Some rich people had it, but it was still 6 years before it was common.

The current market is incredibly similar.

Most materials were delivered in high definition. Film was finished at 2K ... which is nearly indistinguishable from 1080p - but most films were seen on DVD or BluRay. 4K is on the horizon. Some rich people have it, but it's still going to bel 6 years before it is common.

Red is offering you both of those business opportunities TODAY.

OK ... so that was a digression. The point I am trying to make is that a lot of people have been on the camera upgrade mill because they are buying too low in the technology chain. Red is offering fantastic systems at a fantastic price - systems with longevity- because they offer something further up the technology chain.

A Scarlet is likely to last many users 5-8 years. An Epic could very reasonably be in service for a decade.

So ... get all quality camera grip because it gets you the shot safely and cheaply.

 

[Dan Kanes]

While Duct Tape and Bubble gum are the preferred materials of MacGyver, some of us garage engineering types tend to prefer wood, or metal. wood is a great entry level material for making your own parts and accessorizing. Pros might make fun of you - but really its good because it is:

easily workable
affordable
widely available

See what this guy and his family did:

http://athan.se/diy-shoulder-rig/

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

I still think this is silly. Not the brightest moment.

Iris rods are pretty cheap.

I have only a few hundred dollars in camera grip today for my 7D. My 15mm Element Technica aluminum iris rods may just be the most expensive individual components of that system.

For the record, Element Technica iris rods, which I chose because I think they are the best 15mm aluminum rods, cost $65 each for 18" rods, $50 each for 12" rods and $32 each for 6" rods.

http://www.elementtechnica.com/products/show/cam-support

(I chose aluminium for its particular combination of weight, strength and ease of use. I find carbon rods more delicate and harder to insert properly. The nickel plating on the ET rods is excellent.)

So, even if I have a pair of rods at each of those lengths, I am still looking at less than $300 total.

$300 to support $10000 of camera properly.

Oh wait ... I already pointed out that depending on how you plan on using the camera you may well be able to get by with nothing but a tripod. Just screw the Scarlet right into your tripod's provided mounting plate.

Most tripod heads provide the screws you need to attach an Epic/Scarlet. Many of the rest only require you to buy a few screws.

Finally .... if you really think you have a good idea for supporting your camera that is cheap then I agree with Dan Kanes : try using wood.

I promise not to laugh at that.

Wood is a great material. I don't think it will hold up to the rigors of regular use on set, but if you made it once, you can make it again.

Better yet, if you do come up with something novel and useful, wood is a fantastic prototyping material. You can take a finished wooden piece to a machinist and have them make it out of metal, and at a quality that actually will stand up to on set use over time.

Its certainly not stupid to try and come up with new ideas for getting stuff done on set - including simple stuff.

Camera grip is expensive, and often over engineered.

Looking at Red's plates and such for they are fantastic examples of machining. I love them. The thing is that they optimize a task I'm going to do 5-6 times a day at most at great expense. Of course ... when you need to move fast because the meter is running to the tune of $1000's per minute ... it makes sense.

Manfrotto makes cheap gear that accomplishes many of the same things. It's not as carefully thought out, and sometimes it will slow you down unnecessarily, but its cheap and offers great utility.

Also ... don't think you are trapped into using Red's grip in general! You can get great bits from ET, Cinevate, Red Rock, Zacuto and tons of other places.

Understand what you are buying before you run off and start spending cash.

That means to me, getting on a set and using the gear. If you have never used the gear you want to buy - or something reasonably similar - then you have to ask if you need it.

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Mabe Im wrong but I come from the postproduction end of the world where any available solution is worth a try. Then being at shoots I find grip and camera operators and such are quite limited in their minds... One example, on a commercial shoot our camera could not reach in close enough because we had only rather long rods one the camera head for the crane (they where sticking out into the miniature that we where shooting. So I ask the camera crew if we cant solve it with a angle cutter.... then they look at me as I'm a crazy person, because to them you can not just cut camera equipment apart... To me it's simple math, the long rod was holding back our production running with few K USD a minute... buying a new rod the next day would cost around 60 USD, still the team refused to just cut the rods in half...

Yes you are wrong Björn. You are also incredibly irresponsible. Read on.

You know what I don't see in your explanation? The part where you considered the danger of having a cut iris rod flying around your set. It would probably have had sharp edges, and may even have come to a point. What if it hit someone?

Sure you could cut the iris rod, but then you would have had to spend time to make it safe - including eliminating sharp edges. Did you bring a grinder on set?

You know what else I don't see mentioned? The part where you offered them fair compensation.

Did you?

Did you offer to buy the rod for them? How about renting their kit for however long it took to get a replacement?

Because that's standard. You want to break my gear for your job, fine ... you pay to replace it, and you pay to rent the kit until the replacement is in my hands and the kit is operational again.

If I cut an iris rod ... my rig may not be usable until its replaced ... and I may lose rentals as a result.

In this case ... it is easy to imagine that they had a feature booked the next day, and your "cut the iris rod" idea was going to cost them 12 days of kit rental, plus the part, plus the hit to their reputation in town.

If you didn't start by thinking of all that, instead of your dumb shot, then you are irresponsible.

To me thats a normal scenario. Where getting the job done is coming second to taking care of the gear and handle it nicely.

No. The job comes after my gear. The only thing that comes before my gear is the people on set: their safety is paramount.

Assure me that my gear will be taken care of, and we can deal.

That means you have to pay for the gear and the loss of income.

So now hawing all our own gear, people think that Im kidding when I say that we always carry a angle cutter, Saw and sledge hammer to the shoots...

Its your gear. So its cool.

See, I might cut an iris rod in a situation like you mention on my shoot with my iris rod.

Because the gear is mine, and all the associated problems are mine.

Any way, last week we shot in Lithuania and after some convincing I manged to have the Local Line Producer to step aside... She was talking about extra insurance and you can not do this and you can not do that... but in the end I got the Grip guys to build a ducktape wire cam. It worked like a charm and we had an Alexa move from a-b where b was about 35meters away and elevated about 10meters... and the move was done in less than 6seconds... that would normally be about 10k USD operation if used professional gear now it was done with grip bits and three pieces of wood for stabilization. And yes, the shot came out just as the doctor ordered (I cant post the result here since the work is not aired just yet)... So I think creative thinking is not bad. I think most new great camera inventions was not bought over the counter, on the contrary, they where very often tested and created in the famous duct tape laboratory..

duct tape wire cam: http://www.syndicate.se/Files/~usr/film/IMG_1373.MOV

I like this duct tape wire cam ... but your line producer was 100% right.

You were very very lucky.

You have to stop and ask what happens if something goes wrong. What if the camera had fallen out of the mount? Well, are you ready to pay $60000 for the replacement of the Alexa, and if that was a Master Prime then tack on another $30000, and pay for the rental on the entire kit until the replacement is in place? You know that Alexa's rent like crazy and Arri is backordered several months both on lenses and cameras ... you could easily have cost the production $250000 with that contraption.

Imagine if it had fallen out of the mount and hit somebody. You'd be responsible for their medical bills, their lost wages while they recovered. Maybe you're lucky and your country has nationalized healthcare unlike the United States - you remain responsible for their lost wages.

What if instead of hurting someone, your "smart solution" killed someone? Not only would the production be liable for all the damages - you might be criminally liable as well!

Do you know that if these things happened that whatever insurance you have would not pay, because of the improvised equipment? Did you read your policy? I bet your line producer did.

You are irresponsible.

Now hopefully you can read that and understand that you were wrong - very wrong.

You can just try stuff in post, because there is no danger in a digital post production environment. If you are doing your job half right, you aren't even at risk of data loss.

On set you can actually kill people. Catch a clue.

You don't see the grip department shoving into the edit suite to tell you how to store and manage data do you?

Now that I've lambasted you a bit, let me ask why several sizes of iris rod were not on set?

As I pointed out elsewhere you can buy lots of different sizes. One company at least (Zacuto) sells Iris rods that can be extended by screwing together different parts. I hate using those ... but I'm considering adding a couple into my kit for flexibility.

Seeing how you think, I'm going to guess that the camera department wanted several sizes of iris rod, which is standard for a miniature shoot, but you said it was unnecessary. Maybe I'm wrong ... maybe you just hired people with very low rates - rates that are low because their experience and gear packages leave something to be desired.

Also, if the rods are too long, you can usually adjust them by moving them forwards or backwards. Maybe that wasn't practical that day ... but it should have been suggested at least - and accounted for in your story of "grip and camera operators and such are quite limited in their minds."

There are not a lot of people who can do a lot of things well Mr. Benckert. Even if it turns out you are one such person, let me caution you to take your time learning before you start applying your own brand of "common sense" on set.

 

[Kyle Gentz]

just please, spend the extra $10 and use roll of Gaffer. I cant imagine the residue duct tape would leave on the Scarlet.

Im glad some one said this, lulz!

 

[Kyle Gentz]

Yes you are wrong Björn. You are also incredibly irresponsible. Read on.

You know what I don't see in your explanation? The part where you considered the danger of having a cut iris rod flying around your set. It would probably have had sharp edges, and may even have come to a point. What if it hit someone?

Sure you could cut the iris rod, but then you would have had to spend time to make it safe - including eliminating sharp edges. Did you bring a grinder on set?

You know what else I don't see mentioned? The part where you offered them fair compensation.

Did you?

Did you offer to buy the rod for them? How about renting their kit for however long it took to get a replacement?

Because that's standard. You want to break my gear for your job, fine ... you pay to replace it, and you pay to rent the kit until the replacement is in my hands and the kit is operational again.

If I cut an iris rod ... my rig may not be usable until its replaced ... and I may lose rentals as a result.

In this case ... it is easy to imagine that they had a feature booked the next day, and your "cut the iris rod" idea was going to cost them 12 days of kit rental, plus the part, plus the hit to their reputation in town.

If you didn't start by thinking of all that, instead of your dumb shot, then you are irresponsible.



No. The job comes after my gear. The only thing that comes before my gear is the people on set: their safety is paramount.

Assure me that my gear will be taken care of, and we can deal.

That means you have to pay for the gear and the loss of income.



Its your gear. So its cool.

See, I might cut an iris rod in a situation like you mention on my shoot with my iris rod.

Because the gear is mine, and all the associated problems are mine.



I like this duct tape wire cam ... but your line producer was 100% right.

You were very very lucky.

You have to stop and ask what happens if something goes wrong. What if the camera had fallen out of the mount? Well, are you ready to pay $60000 for the replacement of the Alexa, and if that was a Master Prime then tack on another $30000, and pay for the rental on the entire kit until the replacement is in place? You know that Alexa's rent like crazy and Arri is backordered several months both on lenses and cameras ... you could easily have cost the production $250000 with that contraption.

Imagine if it had fallen out of the mount and hit somebody. You'd be responsible for their medical bills, their lost wages while they recovered. Maybe you're lucky and your country has nationalized healthcare unlike the United States - you remain responsible for their lost wages.

What if instead of hurting someone, your "smart solution" killed someone? Not only would the production be liable for all the damages - you might be criminally liable as well!

Do you know that if these things happened that whatever insurance you have would not pay, because of the improvised equipment? Did you read your policy? I bet your line producer did.

You are irresponsible.

Now hopefully you can read that and understand that you were wrong - very wrong.

You can just try stuff in post, because there is no danger in a digital post production environment. If you are doing your job half right, you aren't even at risk of data loss.

On set you can actually kill people. Catch a clue.

You don't see the grip department shoving into the edit suite to tell you how to store and manage data do you?

Now that I've lambasted you a bit, let me ask why several sizes of iris rod were not on set?

As I pointed out elsewhere you can buy lots of different sizes. One company at least (Zacuto) sells Iris rods that can be extended by screwing together different parts. I hate using those ... but I'm considering adding a couple into my kit for flexibility.

Seeing how you think, I'm going to guess that the camera department wanted several sizes of iris rod, which is standard for a miniature shoot, but you said it was unnecessary. Maybe I'm wrong ... maybe you just hired people with very low rates - rates that are low because their experience and gear packages leave something to be desired.

Also, if the rods are too long, you can usually adjust them by moving them forwards or backwards. Maybe that wasn't practical that day ... but it should have been suggested at least - and accounted for in your story of "grip and camera operators and such are quite limited in their minds."

There are not a lot of people who can do a lot of things well Mr. Benckert. Even if it turns out you are one such person, let me caution you to take your time learning before you start applying your own brand of "common sense" on set.

I have to concur with Alexander.

 

[conrad gaunt]

a good plumbing supplier should be a good place to grab some light weight "diy" rods, not sure its pc on a pro set, but find a good canvas tape, Ive found some that is more fabric than anything else, it doesn;t tear without teeth or knife

 

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Allstar has really really nice rods that are cheap.

http://allstar-cine.myweb.hinet.net/html/red_accessories/Allstar_rod.htm