During the filming of the first couple of episodes of Sixty Second Shop we used a regular film camera tripod to hold our (tiny) Handycam. It quickly became apparent that the tripod was slowing us down. We do a lot of quick shots —  at eye level, another overhead, then at the floor, and everywhere in between. For each shot Evelyn had to adjust the height of the tripod, lift the whole thing around, etc. Plus, the darn thing has a habit of creaking, which is okay for a photo camera, but no good for video.

One project I’ve been working on is a “steadicam” setup. This is a gimbaled hand-held camera setup which, long story short, stabilizes the camera so you don’t get that hand-held jitter. Unfortunately, I don’t have any bearings on hand, so I haven’t been able to make one. (I need to do some second-hand store searches. Roller blade wheels are great sources for inexpensive bearings, and they are easy to work with.)

Either way, most of our work is short fixed shots, not much “follow Ron around” filming. So a tripod makes more sense. While looking around the shop I saw something — and then I remembered: Booms. I could make a camera boom — something that would put the camera on a long articulated arm, and have a movable base. That would be perfect.

The “something” that I had laying around was part of spring-loaded lamp — something that would become the heart of my Cheap Camera Boom.

The unit is in four parts:

• The “head” where the camera gets mounted.
• The articulated arm. This was from an old lamp.
• The upright and base support, made out of scrap lumber.
• The rolling base.

If you have watched my video on rolling tool buckets, you may recognize the rolling base:

It’s the 12″ x 12″ rolling cart that I use for my 5 gallon tool bucket. It has big smooth 4″ casters, so it rolls very cleanly across the concrete floor.

For the foundation, I used a piece of scrap 2 x 8. To this I screwed a 20″ long 2 x 2 post using two 2″ “L” brackets. I then clamped this foundation assembly to my cart boards. I did this because this is not going to be the permanent use of this cart — we’ll only use this setup when filming. If you are making a more permanent boom, make a dedicated cart.

At the top of the 2 x 2 post I mounted (with two long screws) the original arm’s mounting (a piece of plastic with some 1/2″ holes in it). If I didn’t have that bracket, I would have just drilled a 1/2″ x 2″ hole into the top of the post. I then slid the arm into its bracket:

This is a standard, lightweight, spring-loaded arm that you see with some work lights, or magnifying lights. I had a ‘junk’ one in the shop, so used it. Look in second-hand stores for a cheap one. I used this arm, instead of making my own, because it did exactly what I needed without having to build something. The huge benefit of this pre-built version is that the mechanics have been worked out for me. The arm will always keep its “head” at the same angle — so you can move it up and down and the camera will stay level. This is critical.

Important Note: Most of these arms are NOT very strong. This one is able to hold a SMALL HandyCam, but it will not hold anything very big. Our camera weighs about 14 ounces. The entire head assembly and camera can’t weigh more than a pound. If yours does, you’ll need to find a heavy duty version of the arm, or build your own.

Now that I had the arm mounted to the upright and base, it was time to figure out how to attach the camera to the arm. This is where the “head” assembly comes in:

First, I bolted another 2″ “L” bracket to the arm. Note that you MUST have a spacer in between the two metal pieces of the arm, otherwise you’ll crush metal and it won’t move smoothly. If you look closely, you can see a small black spacer toward the bottom center of the above photo.

Initially I was going to mount a small piece of wood to the “L” bracket (I originally had two brackets). The trouble was that the wood, with a wooden handle, plus the camera, were too heavy. When you mounted all that on the end, it wouldn’t stay in place. So I needed something lighter.

My solution? Pieces from an Erector set. (I have to give Evelyn credit here: She picked up a bag of pieces at a second-hand shop, just in case we’d need them. This was that day.)

Luckily, most consumer cameras use standard 1/4″  mounting. This means you can get yourself a simple 1/4-20 (coarse thread) bolt, and make a mount. That’s what I did. Those two black pads on the top are rubber “feet” that help protect the camera, and give it a nice tight fit.

To mount the camera, you tilt the head up, and screw from underneath.

I put a couple of nuts on that 1/4″ bolt for two reason: (a) My bolt was too long, and (b) it give me more space to finger tighten the bolt to the camera.

In the above photo, here are the bolts: On the far left bottom, that’s the bolt/nut that holds the knob. Then there is a bolt that holds this Erector assembly to the “L” bracket. On the top piece, there is a long bolt/nuts that I used as a “stop”. This keeps the head level in a “rest” position. Next to it is the 1/4″ bolt that mounts the camera itself. There are two nuts up to its head, to make it easier to turn. In the background is the long bolt/washer/nut assembly which holds the top and bottom pieces of Erector together. I originally had two of these (front and back), but Evelyn needs to tilt the camera down a lot, so I kept only the front one. It should be tight enough so that things don’t fall apart, but loose enough so you can tilt.

Here’s the camera mounted to the head:

As a final touch, I bolted a spare Router knob to the head area. This allows Evelyn to move the whole unit up/down easily. You can forgo the knob, or use whatever you have on hand. For tilting, you use your thumb to push the camera rear up, so that the camera tilts down. The camera is very small and light, so this operation isn’t a big pain. However, I’m planning an upgrade to the head which would allow you to lock the tilt. For our shots, of about 10-15 seconds tops, it’s workable for now.

The whole unit seems to work pretty well. It will dive down to about 20″ off the ground, and extend up to about 62″ high. If I mount the base a little differently, I could probably get down to about 12″ off the ground. For our use, the range is right where we need it (from eye level to workbench). Having the camera on wheels is also nice, since it’s easier to move the whole unit around the shop.

Now that I’ve built this scavenged version, I’m thinking of making a “proper” boom, with a steady head assembly, and more range. Time to go hunting for cheap bearings.