Camera Car

I (Samuel) have been making things from scratch for years. I've always been curious, hands on, and willing to figure a solution for things. The problem in this case was the entry cost to building out a system for camera rigs on a vehicle, and the challenge was to do it on a tight budget with no prior experience. The project started with Jeremy Clarkson's famous quote, "How hard can it be?". 

It turned out to harder than I thought :D

My goal was to turn all this rigging into a somewhat polished kit for my own ease of use. Planning this portion out was a defining challenge for this project, but one I knew was worth tackling. I studied a lot of the current offerings on the market, and opted to get close to the excellent kit MotoCrane sells.

I'm proud to say that this SpeedRail based kit can theoretically rig up 80% of vehicles available with a tow hitch receiver and front bumper tow hook eyelet. Add in some heavy duty suction cups and appropriate adapters, and it'll work on almost anything, two or three times cheaper than other pro kits do it.

I've worked on cars for a while now, but in the last five years, I really took that hobby to the next level. Pulling a drive-train out, wiring up external accessories, making some DIY parts, those are all accomplishable things that I've done at home by learning and trying.

Why is this important? It all goes back to the image from the camera rig hanging off the car. Having a deep understanding of automotive topics and camera equipment & tuning allows me to get the most out of a camera car setup. Suspension and chassis dynamics play a big roll in the end result, and the same can be said for vibration control. If you want the best result possible, you have to understand a bit of everything...