Preparing for Filming - Dolly for tracking shots

After my group and I completed our storyboard for our music video, I realised that we plan on using a lot of tracking shots throughout the video. Due to the lack of resources for our music video I decided to find out how we can make a dolly that we can use whilst filming for our tracking shots. There are two ways in which we can make a dolly for the camera and they are:

• Skateboards
• Prams

These are two very simple ways in which we can fashion a dolly, they are both ideal because they have wheels as there is no way that we can create a track to carry the camera along for the tracking shots. Both are very viable options however, if we decide to use skateboards for the dolly then we would need to balance a tripod on top of the skateboard to get it high enough for to make the shot.

However with a pram we would not need a tripod as the camera could lean against the end of the pram and be level enough (on an angle) to make the shot. Also with a pram we could have the camera man push the pram to follow the actor but with a skateboard we would need to find the right amount of power to push the skateboard with for it to follow the actor as long as we want the camera too.

This video shows how we can use a skateboard as a DIY dolly. We can use both methods for different types of tracking shots, using a skateboard can help us film tracking shots at a lower angle and if we can angle the shot right can also help us film low angle shots.