I've read that tin foil stuck to the bottom of a tripod can get it moving and sliding with great ease.

Have anyone tried it? If it works it'll be such a great dolly replacement!

LOL. Whomever told you that was wearing a tin foil hat.

No!

Add a little olive oil, some rosemary a clove of garlic and
that tin foil can be use to make excellent chicken.

But seriously folks...

Jeremy, if you own a tripod and can find some tin foil you
can try this method personally and report back to us on
how well it works. Are you up to the experiment and the
report?

Try it on an asphalt road, a cement sidewalk, a cobblestone
street, a field of grass and a dirt footpath. Then go indoors
and try it on carpet, tile (like in a bathroom or kitchen) and
hardwood floors.

I look forward to hearing your report. If you can, shoot footage
and upload it so we can all see how this works.

Or try those Super Slider things LOL. Seriously though, just imagine the tripod hits a pebble or just catches from friction (if you can even get it to slide) and there goes the camera! Crash!

depending on where you want a dolly shot, use a box or some kind of pod on a car and just stableize the unit so it doesn't fall off as the car is rolling ( very very slowly)

depending on where you want a dolly shot, use a box or some kind of pod on a car and just stableize the unit so it doesn't fall off as the car is rolling ( very very slowly)


That's a liability suit waiting to happen.

Search "skateboard dolly" in google. Done. ;)

If you can, shoot footage
and upload it so we can all see how this works.
Oh yes, please :D

Been a silent member here for a little while, but this demanded a contribution...I can't see any way that would work.

If you want a cheap dolly, run to the nearest hardware store and find one of Rubbermaid's heavy duty work carts. They're 60 bucks and, aside from a tripod, are one of your best cinematography investments. They're heavy enough that they don't shudder when you're moving them and fold up for easy transport.

I never found a guideline about posting images, so here's a link to what the cart looks like. It doesn't look like much, but believe me, it works.

http://www.pcnametag.com/images/frubl_l.jpg

:welcome: MADDstudios

@ OP

This sounds like a prank. I think one of your friends wants to tape you doing this hidden camera style.

LOL. on wooden flooring/tiles it might work.
ofc it wont for most outdoors.

LOL. on wooden flooring/tiles it might work.
ofc it wont for most outdoors.
Come on man. Tin foil under tripod legs, and trying to push it?? Forget it! This is like asking if you can boom a camera with a piece of string.

ah i see why.
im using a lighter camera and tripod.

When you can afford to upgrade from tin foil this would be the next step: www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/322199-REG/Velbon_DL11_DL_11_Lightweight_Compact_Dolly.html

LOL. on wooden flooring/tiles it might work.
ofc it wont for most outdoors.
So are you going to try it? I'd love to know if this works

That's a liability suit waiting to happen.

How? All you do is push the car while it's in nutrual.

I thought the cheapest dolly ever was a stolen shopping cart. ; )

Scott

How? All you do is push the car while it's in nutrual.



The liability suit would be against the person giving advice after some random moron tries to push the limits and get's hurt.


That's when mommy and daddy are gonna go looking for answers. "Where did you get this stupid idea", says Mommy.

"Someone on the internet told me to do it", says dumbass

"Show me where", says daddy.

Now it's time to find somebody to sue....that's modern America. Fact.

Has anything like that ever happened?

I have no idea. I was just making a statement based on advice given on fishing and mushroom growing forums that I frequent.

Tell hundreds of people to do something one way and you're bound to get a jackbag who is gonna base his retarded approach that will essentially be someones demise or amputation on a legitimately good idea.

As much as Americans love a good lawsuit, I would say that it has happened.

just out of couriousity, doesnt the GlideCam thing have the same function as the dolly? :)

lol
I was already entertained by the tin foil gag but that "glidecam thing" line got another out loud laugh.

I must be missing the "Glidecam" joke. I thought they were legit:

http://www.glidecam.com/products.php

Should I be putting different terms in Google?

Re: Tin Foil - NO. No matter the surface or the weight, it's just going to fail. Either a soft fail and you just get crappy dolly work, or a hard FAIL and the camera falls over and breaks.

Skateboard
Wheelchair
Hell, get a furniture dolly or other misc cart from Harbor Freight.

For that matter - Handles of choice + Platform + Angle Iron + Skate Wheels + PVC pipe == uber cheap DIY dolly, with straight track sections. Lightweight and fairly effective.

None of these will get the smooth, precise motion of laying real track and getting an experienced dolly grip to drive - but there are hundreds of no/low budget, legit options that involve one important factor...











.... wheels.

I have a glidecam and I think it works great. I don't get the joke either.

that "glidecam thing" line got another out loud laugh.

I must be missing the "Glidecam" joke.

I don't get the joke either.


The dude's askin' a legit question. :)

If one were to sum up steady-cams & dollies as "devices that stabilise a camera as it moves", then yah... they can sound very similar. 'Cos they both do that.

They do it differently, though.

To the OP, I'm just going to stick with Robert Rodriguez's method of using a wheelchair. Particularly a stolen wheelchair from a nearby hospital. Not that I'm glorifying theft, but that's just me.

I built my own dolly with my dad, followed this guys' instructions:

http://www.jorenclark.com/studentfilms/dolly/dolly.html

Works very nicely, I think I spent under $100.

lol
I was already entertained by the tin foil gag but that "glidecam thing" line got another out loud laugh.

Yeah I am kind of confused by this as well. Maybe im missing somthing but from my experiences both the glidecam and those relativly cheap dollys work just great

you know, now that i think about it i bet if you put some plastic wrap down where you wanted the dolly to go, then put tin foil on the bottom of the tripod, and greased it with something, and were really, really careful.... it just might work.

To the folks who are confused;

A dolly is some sort of trolley that rolls along. Usually, but not always, it runs on tracks.

A glidecam (or steadicam) is something you carry. It does not touch the ground and so you unlimited where you can go.

Both should provide smooth seamless tracking shots.

I think the only place this would work would be a linoleum flooring...and yet...I think it would be better to put a blanket under the tripod because it would be quieter than tin foil.

There's no perfect substitute for a dolly than a real dolly with track...unless you build one well with skateboard wheels and such. Or you could rent one.

you know, now that i think about it i bet if you put some plastic wrap down where you wanted the dolly to go, then put tin foil on the bottom of the tripod, and greased it with something, and were really, really careful.... it just might work.
LOL... I've seen it all now. Foil, plastic wrap, and lube = dolly. Wow.

Top 100 replies of '09

#100 When you can afford to upgrade from tin foil..

:rofl:

:lol:Just get little tiny skis on the bottom of each tripod leg then lay down a bunch of little fish where you want to slide the dolly. You know how slippery fish are and besides who doesnt love little tiny skis?

I'm just going to stick with Robert Rodriguez's method of using a wheelchair.

Robert Rodriguez, what a legend. Might have to try that one!

i wanna do the test

Oh hell..

Take a trip to home depot, menards, lowes, or whatever your local home improvement center is, and build one.

You can easily build a nice dolly and have a good 15-30 feet of track for under $100...

http://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/detail.asp?sid=144&sortby=&page=1&rpid=0&rvid=0&swid=0&searchid=92304

hey everyone yesterday I actually tried the cheapest dolly ever and wanted to share the results with you. I will be hopefully posting the video of my results later , but have found other ways to dolly the tripod as well. Anyway without further ado i did 3 tests 1 on lamenant flooring, 2 on concrete driveway , and 3 on patio My results show that this is much more of a indoor method working pretty smoothy along the laminant flooring , however the sliding of the tin foil across the floor is very noticable so seperate sound would be needed for this to work. when i tried it on the patio and driveway the same result occured the tin foil became chipped away at and made for a horribly unsteady and undesirable shot , also the audio on both trys were horrible . now i did test a few of my own theroies using heavy duty clothing seemed to work great on lament . So in my opinion wheels may not be a must for a sucessful dolly i have found that socks are also a plausible method . well thats all for now i will most likely post my video results tonight

rock on

Spend some money and buy something nice - a dolly is one of those things you can use with a variety of cameras and doesn't really go bad, but can make all the difference in your production - however - there is nothing worse than a bad dolly shot. If you're going to use a BS method, be prepaired to do a thousand takes... unless you don't really care what the footage looks like...?

In that case, just go handheld :) and you could either buy, or use an image stabalizing plugin for whatever it is you're editing on - FCP has one built in

I just today found this link.
http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2010/01/ivar-loves-dolly.html
Making a dolly out 30$ worth of stuff from IKEA. Pretty neat results.

Actually, when I was making a short film at my school we needed a tracking shot so we put a piece of paper under a tripod and slid it across the table. It worked wonders.

However this only works on a very flat surface.