Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1953)

LET'S BUILD A CARPOD! 265 YOU'LL have to ask the AAA, not the ACL, how many millions of miles Mr. and Mrs. America drove this past summer. We wouldn't know. But you won't have to ask either of them to know, if Mr. and Mrs. A were movie makers, that sooner or later they took some hand-held shots from their moving car. Nor, if you too have tried it, will you have to ask arayone whether these hand-held horrors were any good. Let's face it: they were not! The answer, as any experienced filmer will tell you, is to mount your car-borne camera on some sort of support which is directly integrated with the car itself. And the more directly integrated, the better will be your results. For, after all, your 2 ton automobile has far more inertia than your body ever could have. And it's inertia that turns the trick. A tripod, with its shortened legs set up in the frontseat space, offers one method of good filming from a moving car. But, after using this system off and on for years, I decided last summer that it was always inconvenient and occasionally cumbrous. For with it you now have to brace and steady the tripod itself, in place of the camera which it is supposed to support. Thus, I concluded that a carpod, self-supporting and self-bracing, was the only real answer. The design which you see pictured on this page was the result. In its simplest analysis (see Figs. 1 and 2) the unit is comprised of two wooden uprights, one wooden crosspiece at their lower ends, one wooden platform or shelf to accept your tripod head at their upper ends, two wooden angle braces supporting this shelf, and two metal straps to tie the unit directly to the car body. This tie-in (to take last things first for a moment) proved to be the easiest part of the operation. For we found in our car that the hinge for the glove compartment door was held in place by three % inch screws. It was a simple matter, therefore, to remove two of these and to replace them with similar screws which were enough longer to accept GEORGE MERZ, FACL the indicated washers and wing nuts (see Fig. 2). With this clone, the ends of the metal straps were then slotted (see Fig. 1) rather than drilled. For with drilled holes it would be necessary to remove completely the nuts and washers each time the carpod was used; with the slotted strap ends, a slight turn-back of each wing nut is all that is required. But, as suggested above, we get ahead of our story. You cannot, obviously, install a carpod as just described until you have assembled a carpod to install. So let's turn back to the beginning . . . The most critical factor in assembling your unit is exact levelness. For if the upper shelf is not level (at least from side to side), your camera mounted on it will not be level and it will never record for you a true horizon. Thus, begin by placing your car during the assembly operation over a spot (your garage floor, perhaps) that is truly horizontal. You are now ready to fabricate the stand. Start with two pieces of dressed wood for the uprights. Mine were 1 by 2 inches in size and were longer before trimming than they could ever need to be to support the camera platform. Align these two uprights % of an inch outside of the center line of the dashboard screws, hold them plumb and make ready to fashion and attach the bottom cross-piece from another strip of 1 by 2 inch wood. You probably will notice at this point (as I did) that the floor of your car slopes downward slightly from its center point. Your bottom cross-piece should follow that slope, which will mean in turn that the right (or outer) leg of your carpod must of necessity be slightly longer than the left one if, in the end product, the top platform is to be exactly level with the ground. After you have fastened the [Continued on page 275] Convenience, a quick setup and satin-smooth shooting are yours with this easy-to-make camera mount FIG. 1: All essential units of carpod save basal cross-piece are seen above. FIG. 2: Cross-piece and easy method of strapping camera stand to car are pictured herewith. FIG. 3: Even with camera in place, note here and at left the ample leg room for movie maker.