Roll 'Em!

Without dynamic moving shots, videos can look, well, old-fashioned. Hand-holding is fine, but without a Steadicam, the results lack the creamy smoothness of dolly shots. Professional dollies (like the Microdolly Hollywood system) are affordable for small enterprises, but you can also make fluid moving shots with just about anything that rolls on wheels.

Camera Carts

The classic guerrilla dollies are wheelchairs and shopping carts. Shopping carts are usually no good, because, face it, you have to steal one to use it. Furthermore, after banging around in a supermarket parking lot, the cart wheels are rarely good enough for smooth moves. The four swiveling wheels are tough to control on any kind of slant and one of the four is sure to rattle. Let's just forget about shopping carts, but it does illustrate an important point: potential dollies are everywhere.

Another option is an industrial cart. They're great because they're sturdy, have push bars and large, often pneumatic wheels for smooth rolling. Some examples of industrial cards include food service carts, library carts, factory parts carts, warehouse carts; a great many commercial environments have suitable rolling stock just waiting for you to use.

If you're an entry-level professional, you might want to invest in a cart of your own. When not rolling along making shots, they're invaluable for hauling equipment around a location. When buying a cart, look for these essentials:

• Collapsibility: unless you're working out of a maxivan, you'll need to fold it for travel.
• Strength: fold-up equipment must be stronger, to maintain rigidity.
• Versatility: look for a model with a removable top shelf/platform, so you can stand on the lower one as you shoot.
• Two-wheel steer: Swivel-front and fixed-rear casters make controlling the unit much easier.

While industrial carts are almost always better than shopping carts, they do have small hard wheels that work best only on really smooth surfaces. Even with a large cart, a tripod may be impractical, so bone up on your hand-holding techniques. Skate, snow and surf boards might be other options, but they can definitely be dangerous, to you and your camc…