Let the Good Shots Roll! (page 2)

Nothing says "major production" like the sight of a dolly festooned with camera, lights, operator and focus-puller, gliding majestically along on rails smooth enough for a high-speed train. The types of dollies that you can use vary so much that some can be packed in a couple of canvas bags (track and all) while others need a truck with a lift-gate to carry. Even so, dollies come in two basic flavors: floor models and track models. Floor types roll on pneumatic tires that are smooth and silent. They are versatile because they can be readily steered. A crab dolly can turn all four wheels up to 90 degrees and change direction completely in the middle of a shot.

Track dollies use flanged wheels that mate to proprietary rails. On the one hand, they take much longer to set up because you have to build them like toy train layouts. On the other hand, they permit ice-rink smoothness across all kinds of lumpy terrain outdoors. The tracks also make it easy to repeat moves (for additional takes) with micrometer precision.

Why use a dolly rather than a stabilizer rig? First, dollies are well suited to longer takes that include passages without movement. Secondly, a dolly can make a push in (or pull out) so slowly that the audience never notices it. This is a great technique for intensifying a performance. Though the process is invisible, the performer grows gradually larger and more important in the frame.

On the down side, dollies are expensive to buy or rent and are time-consuming to prepare for shooting. They also require larger crews to operate and plenty of rehearsal time.

What about the wheeled three-armed spreaders that turn tripods into dollies? Unless they're exceptionally expensive and heavy, they're too jerky for moving shots, even on studio floors. In reality, they're just convenient ways to move tripods from one setup to the next and the wheels are not used during shooting.

Look at footage from a rock concert or an awards show and you'll see camera booms in all their glory, sweeping above the action, not to mention around, below and through it. These shots all use a boom, jib or crane of one kind or another. The most common type of camera boom balances the camera on one end with counter-weights on the other, and the entire arm rests on a pedestal. The operator can, while watching a monitor, pan, tilt, focus and zoom the camera by remote control. In sophisticated models, the camera and the boom both pan and tilt synchronously, all while the boom cranes up and down. Mount it on a dolly and you really have some serious movement choices.

The most gee-whiz models can cost you up to six figures, but shorter, simpler types can be surprisingly affordable. Because they're clumsy and time-consuming to transport and prep, booms are generally reserved for more ambitious productions or for studios in which they can remain set up. They can also weigh quite a lot and take up a significant amount of space as well.

Should you consider a camera boom? Yes, if you make music videos or commercials that require hot-dog camera moves. They're also heaven-sent when you have to shoot in (and over) crowds. Even if the camera doesn't fly all over the place, just hoisting it six feet above everybody else while panning and tilting to follow the action can deliver shots from the perfect point of view. We have colleagues who get jobs just because the word is out on the street that they own a boom. Have you ever seen a local car commercial that didn't use a boom? Besides, operating a boom-mounted camera is more fun than playing computer games.

Contributing Editor Jim Stinson is the author of the book Video Communication and Production.

Because it's not a separate accessory, we haven't included optical or electronic lens stabilization. Lens stabilization can work astonishingly well, as long as you remember a few simple rules:

• Keep the lens at the wide-angle end of its zoom.
• Handhold as carefully as if you did not have image stabilization.
• Turn off stabilization when working on a tripod to minimize false corrections during pans and tilts.

You should, however, experiment with the stabilization enabled while on a tripod. Some units work very well that way, even smoothing out small glitches in the tripod movements.

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