Moldable rubber rails for traveling

FernandoAndre

FernandoAndre

Anyone knows this equipment and can tell me if it really works? It promises do works even in considerable irregular surfaces, made of solid rubber to be adjustable to any desired path. It comes with a dolly and you can connect your tripod above.

A site with the product and some low quality pictures:
http://www.shoppingmas.com/travellings-sliders/travelling-dolly-profissional.html

I will shoot a scene where I need a circular traveling motion but the ground is not smooth (however it's not SO irregular too).

Thanks for any advice.
 
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I really like those flex track setups, and am planning to get one for myself someday. They are great when you are looking for a dolly that doesn't need to go in a straight line. Although even with this setup, the ground can make a difference in how smooth the dolly runs. With bumpy irregular ground, you may still have to use plywood or something like that under the flex track.
 
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Thank you guys.

It really works, though not as easy as I thought, since it is also necessary to operate the tripod head to travel in the curve. In my imagination, I was thinking that the camera naturally would point in toward the center of the curve.

But anyway, a nice solution.
 
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IMO, they're a pretty horrible solution.

If you've got no other way of doing it, then sure they're workable I suppose - but I've never worked with a single person who's used these when they can use anything else, it's more of that if these are the only tracks they can use, then I guess they'll have to do.

The Spider Dolly platform is great, and allows you to operate whilst have a dolly grip pushing you.

I've seen people send runners to the hardware store to buy PVC pipe to lay the platform on, rather than use the 'flexi' rubber tracks that come with it.

But, YMMV
 
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Jax is correct with recommending a steadicam. I didn't mention it, because you asked a out the flex track. For less then your states budget (just a little more then 1/2), you can get a steadicam of one model or another. Handling one is definitely and art form and takes a lot of practice. Put their pretty awesome. You can get just the steadicam unit for around $500, depending on make and model. For extended shots, many recomend the vest and arm, but you don't have to have them.
 
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Hmm, I see. . But trying to understand how a cheap Steadi equipment can equate itself to a rails system. Most stabilizers gears for less than $1.000 are gimbal bearing based, which means you can't correctly control the rotation of the axis. You can just walk away and pray to it don't move. For a circular walk, it's a crucial problem.

Hard decision.
 
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All steadicams are based around a gimbal. Using a steadicam properly involves guiding the rig - you can't just let go and hope that it stays smooth, or that it goes in the direction you want it to.

Steadicam is a two-handed operation..
 
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If you have a scene where you want perfectly smooth travel in a full circle around someone, you would want to use a dolly. Yes, a steadicam would work, but it's so hard to nail down steadicamming. It's very hard to control a steadicam perfectly. Whereas using a dolly is pretty straightforward. The rubber tracks work and they work pretty well!
 
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