I recently built this DIY 180 orbit rig from available camera accessories. To make shots like this. You might think why not just use a turntable, well I don’t like the look of only the product spinning while the background is static. While moving the camera around the subject gives a much more dynamic look in its entirety.
How to build your own DIY orbiting camera rig with a twist
Sometimes, you just need a spinning camera that orbits around your subject for a video. There are many really fancy, expensive, customised and automated rigs out there that will let you do this costing a whole lot of money. But sometimes, you just want to go the DIY route with grip gear that you possibly already own.
The folks at Threefold needed a way to shoot a cool shot idea to film a promo for a planner called Evertide. So they built an orbiting rig just out of a bunch of grip gear they already had laying around. The twist, in this case, though, is that instead of spinning around a subject horizontally like we may be used to, it rotates on the vertical plane, going up and over the subject.
How to build a massive DIY orbital spinning camera rig
Making cameras move in ways that are different can be a challenge, especially as cameras and all their associated bits seem to keep getting bigger and heavier. In a recent short film release, Skywatch, filmmaker Jason Levy needed to produce a camera rig which orbited around an object in a scene, early on in the film. There was no commercial solution available, so he made his own.
It’s called the Spin Rig and we’ve seen similar such rigs before, although mostly on a much smaller scale or designed for lighter weight cameras like GoPros. The Spin Rig, however, is much more substantial. If you don’t want spoilers, watch the short film first (it’s at the bottom of this post).
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!