Anyone here built his DIY- Skater Dolly?

Post by **MovieMaker** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:58 am

Hi fellow filmmakers,
after seeing some homemade skater dollies on the net IÃ‚Â´m wondering if some of you filmshooting members have also built one?

I started building one several weeks ago and am currently in the finishing stages - and canÃ‚Â´t wait to use it with my Canon DS8 and the 100D for an upcoming project. After hours and hours of work I hope IÃ‚Â´ll get the same results without spending over Euro 4.500,- (for the original one from P+S).

Any pictures? Or even footage?

MovieMaker

This is what IÃ‚Â´m talking about:
http://www.pstechnik.de/en/skater.php

Post by **mattias** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:27 pm

looks easy enough to build, but the cost of a tripod head might be prohibitive. and doesn't it have somewhat limited use? i'd rather build a small dolly to run on a ladder, or a bigger one with inflatable wheels that doesn't require tracks and you can put your tripod on. oh wait, those are so cheap to rent that i'll probably never bother.

/matt

Post by **wado1942** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:07 pm

Yeah but you could play street hockey with the skater. A puck's eye view of a hockey game woud be pretty cool. You'd have to get a pretty tough camera you don't mind breaking though.

Post by **RenÃƒÂ©** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:11 pm

I've built one with a friend. You can see it in use in two shots in a short film we've made:
http://www.oscarverpoort.nl/_site/_films/schatje_bb.wmv

It's truly amazing what you can do with it. Of course it needs a flat base, but the pivoting it can do is really nice. I even made a little application for it to calculate the angle of the wheels, when you give the distance to the desired axis.

I'll post some pictures of the device as soon as I find them again.

RenÃƒÂ©.

Post by **RET80** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:36 pm

Yes I have made many dollies from different sources. I have made one with a wheel chair (great, easy to maneuver and cheap at second hand stores) I have also a simple tripod with swivel wheels (inflatable so that it doesn't get bouncy or jerky when moving around rough surfaces). It had a triangular base with slots to put the legs of the tripod on. The frame was made entirely out of PVC. All the parts necessary to make the apparatus were bought at Home Depot. As for the wheel chair, all I did was get a mini tripod and mounted it securely to the seat of the wheel chair.

Post by **wado1942** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:18 pm

Good short. Not to enthused about some of the editing but even with my VERY crude understanding of German I could follow the story pretty easily.

Post by **RenÃƒÂ©** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 11:34 pm

wado1942 wrote:Good short. Not to enthused about some of the editing but even with my VERY crude understanding of German I could follow the story pretty easily.

Thanks, wado1942.
I agree with you now on the editing. I shot this last year with a friend of mine. It got him accepted at the Amsterdam film school.

Anyway, here's a picture of our finished skater dolly:

BTW:
We used this manual as a guideline:
http://tedramasola.9k.com/custom2.html

Post by **MovieMaker** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:43 am

Looks pretty nice RenÃƒÂ©!

And mattias, I also built recently a small dolly with inflatable tires and even had some old tracks from a Panther- but the whole thing is still quite heavy and you need a second person to operate it.

This weekend I do the finishing touches on my Skater and have also already bought a small laserpointer for the adjusting device (cause I donÃ‚Â´t trust my scales). Will take some pictures and show them to you next week.

Did also some short tests with my XL1 and IÃ‚Â´m really impressed by the simplicity of this device - with professional results and next to no rigging time. But I wouldnÃ‚Â´t spend 4.500,- on the original - though for a movie production this is still affordable.

CanÃ‚Â´t wait to see some results on the big screen projected at home. :lol:

MovieMaker