Killer Camera Rigs That You Can Build: How to Build Your Own Camera Cranes, Car Mounts, Stabilizers, Dollies, and More! [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I admit, I got bit by the video bug when the Canon 5d Mark II came out two years ago. I also learned how important camera support is for professional-looking video. But have you seen how much these rigs can cost?? One small handheld cage for your HDDSLR can cost over $1000! Nuts. I've often thought there must be a way to build what you need. And there is! This book has almost all of the rigs you'd want to build. Now, mind you, the first section is about dollies (the real movie-set kind where you are building and laying short "train tracks" and moving camera and cameraman on the dolly itself!). Don't let that turn you away, because the next section has some brilliant handheld rigs that will absolutely work for HDDSLRs. Plus you may want to have a bigger dolly or crane in the future, lol! Then the last section of the book has some specialty items, like a suction cup mounting system to attach your camera to your car, etc. I can't wait to try some of these! Be prepared that the two most common things you will be buying (besides glue and nuts & bolts) are aluminum tubing and... Rollerblade wheels! Brilliant, I bet the tracking on the rigs the author has created are smooth as can be.

The author goes to great lengths to clearly spell out what you need material and tool-wise, and then CLEARLY explains each step of the way. He also makes it clear that you don't need any expensive tools, even referencing Norm on the New Yankee Workshop who builds a coffee table with a multi-thousand-dollar laser-guided cutting system. Nope, for these video rigs you just need a power saw, drill, ratchet set and glue.

OK, what did I NOT like? Only two minor gripes... one is, I wish there was a set of plans to build a small slider like a GlideTrack, that mounts on a tripod for your DSLR (although I have found plans on the net, search "zaza slider"). And two, sometimes the photos of the construction are a bit dark. Not horribly so, just a side effect of offset printing. This isn't a showstopper at all, just sharing it FYI.

All in all, if you're an up and coming or established Indy filmmaker, you have smaller budgets, period. Therefore you are going to eat this book alive, building good usable working video support rigs (he even includes a stand-up stabilizer for handheld work!) that are very easy to afford, as long as sawdust and glue and bolts are OK in your world. Just please wear your safety glasses!

UPDATE, 10/7/2010: Amazon sells a DIY slider! It's the DryLin® W16-A Linear Motion System for Camera Sliders. I got it this week and it's great. See my review on it (submitted today, should be visible by 10/9).

If you're marooned on a desert island, but wanting to make your film epic, or stranded in the heartland away from Hollywood rental houses, or just working on a shoestring of a shoestring budget, then "Killer Camera Rigs That You Can Build" is for you.

"Killer Camera Rigs That You Can Build" is an amazing book. Amazing in how useful, ingenious and economical many of these Do It Yourself solutions are, and amazing that someone would have actually have built all this stuff. Of course, necessity is the mother of invention, and the usefulness of these how to plans, and the economic rationale for resorting to them, may be as much a matter of geography -- how far away you are from Hollywood -- as it is of how tight your budget is. The film producti0n equipment rental houses in Hollywood are an ocean of just slightly to way out of date, or fashion, gear that they are often willing to rent very cheaply, rather than have it gather dust. Elsewhere, the over supply of equipment may be much less, or zero, and you're put back on your own resources to solve problems involving cranes, dollies, mounts, tracks and so forth.

This book really nails it on the core functionality of most camera movement equipment, and how to simulate it cheaply, especially if you're building it for just one shot or one production. You can save a lot of money when equipment doesn't have to have a twenty years service life.

The one caveat to all this is that much of the equipment shown seems designed for videographers, or for film makers working with light cameras, like super-16. Some of these rigs would take a Panaflex or old Ari BL, for example, but many might not. All that said, this is a fun and useful book of great ideas and solutions, that's worth a look for any film director, production manager or producer wanting to know what their options are to cut costs and still get the job done. RECOMMENDED.

A few years back, my friend and I attempted to build our own Dolly out of skateboard wheels, PVC pipe, and scrap lumber. Athough we did a fairly decent job, in the end it was an unwieldy beast that weighed far too much and kept losing all of its (non-locking) nuts & bolts. How I wish we had a book like this back then.

As of 2010 you have a lot of options to buy "pro-sumer" rigs at places like B&H. However, even their basic PVC Dolly kits start at around $700. And the only real advantage it has over what my friend and I built is precision mechanics; it won't break down so easily. But still you will only have a basic Dolly Rig with limited track. You are going to need a lot more than that to shoot a Hollywood-style production. This book will enable you to build that same functional piece of equipment and many more with a solid investment of time, money, and space. For some starting filmmakers working under any kind of budget, and who want their reel to look like Sam Raimi or the Coen Brothers -- this will undoubtedly be a tempting thing to devote their time to.

On the other hand, maybe you are not that kind of filmmaker at all. Rigs will not necessarilly tell your story any better. Maybe you just need one or two dolly shots that you can carefully plan out -- in which case you can rent or improvise. Or let's say you already have a relatively well-paying job which enables you to spend several thousand dollars on a select few excellent pieces of equipment to use in a production. They will probably be more attractive and durable than some of these you construct yourself, particularly if you are not already skilled as or interested in becoming an amateur machinist.

What will you need in the way of tools, equipment, and know-how to build this stuff? The short answer: the more the better. You'll have to buy power tools, drill bits, locking pliers, combination squares, adhesives, and many other small items. Realistically this could run you hundreds of dollars and dozens of trips to Home Depot and other local hardware stores. Many of the larger projects require things like a drill press. Most of us do not have one of those. But my guess is that if you are capable of running any kind of camera the construction will be do-able -- with the proper amount of time, effort, and caution put into their fabrication.

Dan Selakovich's book provides the details that will make or break a piece of equipment. And you do not want a malfunctioning rig when shooting day arrives. "Killer Camera Rigs" is filled with 2,000 no-frills pictures that take you through every step of the process in creating mounts, pedestals, and a variety of cranes & dollies. There are some really inventive materials and set-ups. One low-angle rig makes use of a wooden billiards rack and an aluminum cane, another the foot rest of a drafting chair. The latter is to create the much-ballyhooed "Figgis Rig" which otherwise will cost you a bit of change.

One criticism I have is that hiring somebody proficient in illustration would have been nice to provide some crisp diagrams and schematics. The photos are okay but are uniformly quite dull. I also find that despite the cloying "film noir" names of each rig, there is little discussion of their overall purpose other than to imitate shots from classic films. Unfortunately, this superficial and casual tone is the norm these days in most how-to books. It's not of paramount importance in this sort of text, but readers must understand conceptually why they should or should not devote their energy to a certain project, in my opinion.

With many of these projects, you will not be able to replace pro rigs that cost thousands of dollars and were built to protect Arriflex or Panavision cameras worth tens of thousands of dollars. For instance, the basic car mount is meant only for slow moving shots and the camera used in the pictures is a lightweight Sony Handycam. I'd be very hesitant to put a Red camera on four suction cups and hitting the accelerator. So approach each individual project with skepticism and keep in mind the weight of your camera and the stress under which the mounts will be placed.

Although I do not agree with some of the testimonials that "to make great shots you need great equipment", it certainly gives you many more options if a few rigs are integrated into your tool kit. Rigs will give your shots a lot a fluidity, variation, and enable the integration of other techniques to constantly provide your audience with different visual cues. Although you can certainly shoot a film entirely on tripods and handheld, you probably want to spice it up just a bit if possible. And for anyone shooting music videos or anything of the sort, rigs such as these are absolutely essential; spoiled audiences almost demand wall-to-wall movement.