Rigging on the back of a car

[danny bishop]

Hello I'm shooting a feature down in southern Italy and through out the 9weeks we need various days where we want to be able to rig the Steadicam on the back of a pick up for shots of Vespas people running usual stuff.

 

Financially it's not possible to bring something from Rome so we need to rig scaffold tubes and a Garfield mount off the back to shoot from.

 

I just wondered if anyone could offer any advice on rigging and also any pictures of similar rigs and how you rigged on the fly for this kind of shooting.

 

Any help would be appreciated many thanks

[Brant S. Fagan SOC]

While there are many ways to make this work, the simplest one is to take a piece of lumber, say 2"x12," and about 6'-8' long, weigh it down with sandbags, and mount a high-hat to the outboard end so the Rig clears the rear bumper, and you're ready to go! I'll post some pics later when I return to the home computer.

[Mark Karavite]

I've done a very similar rig to what Brant is describing. I had a key grip place a larger piece of plywood down, which didn't move at all. He bagged down the plywood & screwed a hi hat to it, then we put a short offset out the back to get the rig away from the back of the truck. It was very comfortable operating. Two safety factors:

1 - wear a safety harness or belt so you can't go out the back door or fly forwards if the driver has to hit the brakes quickly

2 - pick the best driver on the set, usually the key grip or a teamster with driving experience.

 

Be safe,

Mark

[danny bishop]

thanks Brant / Mark, you know what I have had grip do the high hat option in the past but it moved about, however, we didnt have the ply.....

 

pics would be appreciated many thanks...

 

have a good weekend

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

1 - wear a safety harness or belt so you can't go out the back door or fly forwards if the driver has to hit the brakes quickly

 

Ummm brakes are no issue, you're going to the front of the car., it's acceleration that throws you out the back. You move just like the sled reacts to acceleration

 

I've done this rig a bunch of times and find a van to be the best. Run the 2"x12" out the back door and use apple boxes and wedges under the two middle rows of the vans seats to wedge the board down and rachet straps to wrapped around the board and fixed to the seats width wise. Use your garfield on a high hat and you're golden

[RonBaldwin]

I just run in don juan

[Dan Ayers]

Heh, Heh, Ron said "Run".

[Frederic Sturm]

Hi,

 

recently we prepared our existing camera car for hardmount work.

Before we build anything more permanent, I wanted to try with a mockup, and the

attached picture is what came out. Works like a charm.

 

Its basically 2 metal lighting stand extensions, the horizontal one attached

to the chassis with a few superclamps and the vertical one mounted to the

tow-bar with a big hose clamp.

 

Even this kind of DIY setup is really stable (no probems with the "crazy monkey test" ^_^ ).

And the really good thing is, you have something to lean against, and stabilize your

body, both during acceleration and braking, and also in turns, which I always like since

the stability transfers into my shots. Also, you can place your feet on the tow-bar.

 

Since you have a pickup, which has a similar back, and probably have stuff like that

around on set, maybe some of these ideas might be helpful?

 

For more permanent work I'll prefer something more professionally built, but for a

one-time shoot it works great! Results of a test-shoot looked pretty good.

[danny bishop]

Thanks for that... those rigs look great and its really usefull to see them. I will show them to the grip we can scratch our heads and see what we come up with. Thanks to all that have helped me here

 

DAnny

[RonBaldwin]

Hi,

 

recently we prepared our existing camera car for hardmount work.

Before we build anything more permanent, I wanted to try with a mockup, and the

attached picture is what came out. Works like a charm.

 

Its basically 2 metal lighting stand extensions, the horizontal one attached

to the chassis with a few superclamps and the vertical one mounted to the

tow-bar with a big hose clamp.

 

Even this kind of DIY setup is really stable (no probems with the "crazy monkey test" ^_^ ).

And the really good thing is, you have something to lean against, and stabilize your

body, both during acceleration and braking, and also in turns, which I always like since

the stability transfers into my shots. Also, you can place your feet on the tow-bar.

 

Since you have a pickup, which has a similar back, and probably have stuff like that

around on set, maybe some of these ideas might be helpful?

 

For more permanent work I'll prefer something more professionally built, but for a

one-time shoot it works great! Results of a test-shoot looked pretty good.

 

 

nice trucks!!

[Sanjay Sami]

Hey Frederick,

I may have got this wrong, but it looks like the upright post is being clamped up top with a Mafer clamp ?

I am not a big fan of those clamps for anything but lightweight static rigging.

I would suggest scaffold clamps for anything with the kind of load that a car mount with steadicam is going to place on it.

 

Regards

Sanjay

 

Edit : Just read your full post - I am happy you got good results this time with your rig ... but I would strongly recommend you to do it differently the next time. It may have passed the monkey test, but those clamps are really a bad choice for vehicle rigs. Use scaffold tubes and clamps. It is MUCH safer.

[Ken Nguyen]

Hey Frederick,

I may have got this wrong, but it looks like the upright post is being clamped up top with a Mafer clamp ?

I am not a big fan of those clamps for anything but lightweight static rigging.

I would suggest scaffold clamps for anything with the kind of load that a car mount with steadicam is going to place on it.

 

Regards

Sanjay

 

Edit : Just read your full post - I am happy you got good results this time with your rig ... but I would strongly recommend you to do it differently the next time. It may have passed the monkey test, but those clamps are really a bad choice for vehicle rigs. Use scaffold tubes and clamps. It is MUCH safer.

Sanjay is right.

No Mafer clamp.

For safety please use 2" pipe and Cheeseboroughs clamps.

 

Fly safe,

 

Ken Nguyen.

[Frederic Sturm]

Hey Ron,

 

thanks =) It serves us well since 1986, has had some upgrades, but without much of any electronics it's reliable as hell - wherever you put it, from hot days in the city, to coldest alpine winter to sandy desert :)

 

 

 

Hey Sanjay, hey Ken,

 

 

you are right 100%, and I am totally of your opinion. Yet that's why I said it's a mockup, and "For more permanent work I'll prefer something more professionally built". I built it out of what first fell into my hands in our storage, and its not more than a proof of concept for this very type of car. I would not recommend a setup like this for longer periods of work, and would like to add, that while driving, we had it secured with steel ropes in case the clamps wouldn't hold. Maybe I should have put even more emphasis on that point, so nobody copies this 1:1 and gets a nasty surprise sometime. So thanks!

 

 

The only reason I showed it is, Its built from what we had around in storage and might give danny some Ideas, since he needs to come up with something with what he's got at hand. But again, yes, if you use parts you consider sub-standard and have the slightest doubt they will hold up against the extreme stresses while driving, either switch to something more sturdy or at least build in a failsafe!!

[RobinThwaites]

Frederic

 

What Sanjay said! Nice to see it on a Land Rover.

 

Robin