A couple of months ago, I got the itch to build a rolling dolly. “What the heck is that?” you ask. It is basically a mini railroad track for a camera to slide along back and forth, so you can get some rolling shots. Why not just buy one? Well as you may or may not know I am not rich and famous quite yet, so I can’t just go out and buy one. Plus, I thought it would be fun to build one of these and test my handy-man skills (DISCLAIMER: I am not an engineer, LOL). I am not going to go through a step-by-step tutorial of how I did this, because I feel that it is basic enough for most people to figure out and make on their own. Additionally, I tried to use what I had on hand so I didn’t have to spend money buying a bunch of things. I also wanted to post some pictures of this thing because a friend asked me to blog about it (this one’s for you Jeremy).
The first place I looked was my garage and found some old 2×3 pieces of wood that I used for my track. I cut each piece into segments about 2 feet in length. I then cut two “V” shapes on one of the long sides of each piece to serve as divots for the PVC pipes to rest in and prevent them from rolling around (pictures below). Next, I asked my friends, family, and coworkers for a spare piece of plywood that would be big enough to make a base where I could place a tripod and camera. I was able to grab a spare piece of plywood from my job, so that was easy.
After that, I went looking for wheels. I decided to go to a store that sold used sports gear, Play it Again Sports, and found a pair of rollerblades for $20. I cut out the wheels, cleaned them (mostly with a rag and generic brand WD-40), and then mounted them on four “L” brackets that I bought at Home Depot for about $2 ($0.50/each). Once I saw how the wheels were going to fit and how far apart they were going to be, I went back to Home Depot (it’s literally walking distance from my house) and bought two PVC pipes (1.5 inch diameter), which were 10 feet long for about $6 ($3/each). I am “guesstimating’ the prices here because I threw away the receipt, but in total I spent less than $30 to build this thing. I must say that the dolly shots look super smooth thanks to my 3-year-old son, who took the painstaking task of testing it; he loved having his own railroad in the house.
So far, I have only used the dolly a handful of times and I am planning on using it again this weekend for a couple of shoots, but it definitely adds a tremendous amount of production value to any shoot, so I would definitely recommend it to any filmmaker. Oh, and you may be wondering: “How smooth does it it roll?” It’s silky smooth! Check out a few pictures below (sorry about the quality, they were taken with my phone). If you would like to see a few of the shots check out this 2 minute video that I made for my school.
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Sebastian Maselli 