When it comes to camera support, I'm a bit of a name-brand snob. Not necessarily because there's one brand that's better than the other, but because most of the home-built stuff just looks . . . cheap. Dollies in particular are a stickler for me. There's nothing wrong with using a wheelchair, but there's not a whole lot of room for improvement, and you've still got the human sitting in the chair. A dolly with a tripod takes the human element out from under the camera, and just lets you control the movement.
Now, you can't legitimately expect someone to pay $2,000 for a Matthews dolly (plus $800 for track and $800 for hot buttons) unless they've got serious financial backing. And even renting it for more than a couple of days will drive up a budget pretty quickly. And I look at a dolly and think, "you know, it's just a board with wheels. How hard could it be to build?" But you're paying for quality, and there's a lot of design and construction that you're not having to do yourself, and do you really want to trust your image to "less-than-good" materials?
That's where Killer Camera Rigs comes in. Divided into four sections of different types of camera support, this book has detailed, step-by-step instructions for building cranes, dollies, and several different stabilizers. It has pictures all throughout, of both steps and materials. Best of all, there are options for making each project "groovy"—advanced tips on how to improve the quality of your rigs with simple tricks. And for a fraction of the cost of buying (or even renting) the equipment, you can have your own version of the Matthews dolly or a camera crane.
I have worked as a shopmaster, engineer, and carpenter for several years in different jobs, so comprehension of this book was pretty easy for me. But honestly, Mr. Selakovich has written this for the lowest common denominator. The steps are very easy to follow, and often have tips and small explanations as to the "why" of what you're doing. And this book is covered in pictures. Every step has at least one picture, sometimes as many as five, illustrating the process, the location, or even just different angles of what you're supposed to be doing. The parts you need are clearly pictured, and I felt like I understood that everything I was getting had a purpose or place. If I would change one thing, it would be the layout of some of those pictures—occasionally, the flow of information didn't quite match (a sequence of pictures might be vertical, or in a backwards L shape, without clearly defining where to start.)
This book is chock full of information hidden in the steps. You could learn a lot about the construction of this stuff just by looking at the pictures, but reading the steps is very important, too. There is quite a bit of advice that can be applied to a lot of projects.
This book has plans for several different types of dollies and tracks, for varying levels of budget and skill; three types of handheld stabilizers (a rough Glidecam, a fig rig, and the "pooper scooper" cam) as well as a Zacuto/Red Rock-style shoulder rig (though not nearly as clean looking); three different cranes; and finally, a very good "advanced grip kit" (car mount, beefy tripod & spreader, and sandbags). The number of projects you get in this book is well worth the cost.
Killer Camera Rigs was an interesting read, because as soon as I started looking at the pictures and reading the steps, I immediately started thinking "I can do this!" and wanted to put the book down and go right to Lowe's. As I said before, I'm a bit of snob with equipment, but something about the way Mr. Selakovich writes and presents the information made the DIY aspect of things seem much more feasible, and I was encouraged by the "Make It Groovy" sections for each project. They're simple finishing things, but I honestly didn't think about how to make those things look nice, because I'd never tried it before.
The best part about this book is that it gets me thinking—I already have ideas on how to adapt several of the plans for other ways of doing them (like rotating dolly wheels for a section of curved track). The pictures and everything are a great springboard for doing your own adaptations, and Mr. Selakovich even includes his email address, so if you create something you're proud of, or have ideas for improving the designs, you can contact him directly.
I have three projects from this book I built in the first week of February, and I am planning on building at least two more before spring is through. I will probably have this book for a long time, and I think it will even give me new ideas the next few times I look at it.
Upfront investment in this book is $45; the materials for the dolly I built cost me in the area of $60, and took me a couple of days to put together, so a total upfront investment (in just one project, mind you,) was $105. As I live in Lexington, KY, I checked the cost to rent a dolly. Closest place was 87 miles away in Louisville. The cost to rent a dolly from Kentucky Grip & Lighting in Louisville is $110 for a day, not to mention the cost of pickup and drop-off. So for the cost of renting a professional dolly for one day, you now have a dolly you can use for however long, as well as plans for lots of other equipment.
As far as dollies go, too, the important consideration is track. An eight-foot section of Matthews track is $15 a day to rent ($827.50 to buy, in case you were interested,) and if you run out of track, you're done. Killer Camera Rigs includes three different setups for track, involving PVC (lower budgets) and aluminum (higher budgets) and giving you the option of as much track as you can buy. The options for expansion here are awesome, and it's a great idea to have options. Plus, with PVC, you can go out and buy more if you need it.
If there's one thing Killer Camera Rigs has done for me, it has started me thinking outside of the box. Not that I had loads of name-brand equipment lying around, but having been in school (and therefore having access to a lot of it) made me think that I needed lots of it to make the stories I wanted to. And yes, some of it's nice, and some things really are worth the money (after a new lens, the Vinten Vision Blue and a decent set of sticks in my priority purchase).
But there's a lot of basic things that are easy to make, and that I could customize beyond what's out there. For instance, my favorite piece of equipment I had in college was the Cine-Kinetic Porta-Jib, a mini-jib that I used on almost every project until it got stolen (from me . . . it's a long story). The best part was the modularity of it, which made it easy to move and somewhat adjustable. In fact, with a couple of adjustments, it could be a 36" boom or a 72" boom, which drastically changed the movements I could get out of it. In Killer Camera Rigs, the "Double Indemnity Crane" is a similar modular jib, so I'm currently trying to figure out ways to make it work best for me. That's what I'm taking away from this book—the ability to make things the way I want to.
Killer Camera Rigs You Can Build is a great idea if you are really looking to create more flexibility for your story-telling, and you will start thinking differently about your DIY filmmaking.
