Cable Cam Build Process


The joy of building with your hands

It’s quite hard to put into words how fun building something with your hands is. To be able to have an idea and see it through from start to finish is pretty cool. Then, to be able to have this tangible object and see its real world application is even cooler.

From my recent mountain biking short film ‘Outbound’, there is one downhill tracking shot of Finn (the rider) where it feels like you are riding alongside him. Though, to achieve this feeling, we had to actually get the camera to move at a similar speed.

So, how?

A cable cam.

We secured a rope to two trees and fixed onto the rope was the contraption that you see below called a cable cam. In multiple mountain biking films I had seen the use of a cable cam to get these tracking shots of the rider, which accentuated this fast paced, high intensity movement, a physical and metaphorical parallel to the movement of the rider.

Built for well under $100, it’s made up of two fixed pulley wheels, some cut solid timber, two metal plates and a steel cable cut into smaller pieces, all bolted together. After a few weeks of building the rig, I attached the gimbal (camera stabiliser) with the camera to the bottom plate via one screw.

Thanks to the help of my brother and some mates, we did test runs in the backyard and the local forest. It was pretty scary seeing an expensive camera only attached by one screw fly through the air at speed, but this gave us time to solve the problems that we faced.

  • Where exactly are we going to film this scene?

  • How are we going to tension the rope with a 3kg camera gimbal?

  • How are we going to track the rider all the way down?

  • How are we going to stop to stop the camera at the end of the line?

17 takes later, this was the shot used for the film. Many, many hours put in for a 2 second scene… but so worth it. To see the shot turn out after many attempts and a tedious build was super satisfying.

Projects undertaken digitally are cool, like graphic design or video editing but the experience of building something with your hands seems unmatched sometimes. It’s super satisfying and rewarding. It’s this tangible process that involves an idea, problem solving and a bunch of creativity.

Thanks for reading and watching :)

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