Tony's Motorized Slider (behind the scenes)

This project like many others reiterates the adage that necessity is the mother of invention. I needed to solve a problem.  As a solitary filmmaker, I fill all the roles, director, cinematographer, screenwriter and so on. I am also the talent and that creates a major problem.  It is difficult to control camera movement while on camera!

I particularly like the shots from a camera mounted on a slider, especially reveal shots. For my birthday my wife had given me a very nice slider. I used it with my Samsung S7 and liked how smooth it was and the shots I was able to take with it. BUT, I was not in any of the camera shots because I had been operating the slider.
An easy solution would have been to have purchased a motorized slider for several hundred dollars. The cost was prohibitive for me. 

When I first got the idea to motorize the slider I looked for a motor in my spare parts bin with no luck. An inexpensive rechargeable drill would provide the motor. But I would have to disassemble the power tool to adapt it to a task for which it was not designed. With a hacksaw I cut the plastic case apart. I used a hacksaw because it had fine teeth and cut carefully to avoid cutting any wires. Since the reduction gears used the plastic body for a gear case they fell out and I had to put them back in.  It was sort of like putting together a puzzle. The battery pack, switch, and charging circuitry were cut free of the motor. 

In order for the motor to move the slider I had to mount to the slider track. I had to fabricate a bracket of wood to match the curvature of the drill motor body to the slider rails. Initially I intended mount it with screws to the slider. But I would need to drill and tap holes in the slider. I don't have a drill press or taps.  So...I resorted to wire ties although I would lose 6 inches in slider length. I scrapped the drill  momentary "on"  and reverse rocker switch. A simple continuity check with a multimeter determined where to insert a switch from my junk bin. An old 35mm film canister was used as a switch enclosure. Some old multi conductor phone wire was used to wire the remote switch.  The phone wire also provided the wire needed to locate the battery at the opposite end of the slider. I located the heavy parts of the system at opposite ends of the slider to balance the weight in case it was installed on a tripod. One final item had to be added. I had a problem. How to attach the movable slide to the drill motor. I could have used monofilament fishing line. Or maybe cotton string. The fishing line was too stiff. The string was not durable enough. But dental floss was strong, flat, and waxed.  It was attached to the movable part of the slider and the motor. I have used dental floss in other repair projects. Everything worked as expected and at a price I could afford. One caveat about the operation of the slider: it is extremely noisy!

I am a believer in close enough technology and this is a good example.

HOW TO TELL A STORY WTH MOVING IMAGES

One rule I live by in moviemaking is the need for motion. There must be movement in the frame. If there is no movement it had just as well be print media!

With fiction stories there are usually actors to be directed creating movement of some kind. But in nonfiction stories sometimes known as documentaries there are normally no actors to direct. I usually make documentaries about past events. And moving images are used to illustrate a narrative.

Recently, I produced a video entitled "Skymaster Down". This was a story about an ill fated flight  of a marijauna smuggler's  aircraft   in 1979. I had a particular interest in this event which occurred near where I was born and grew up and there was an air of mystery about the crash. 

When writing a story whether a video script or blog post the first thing that must be done is research. Fortunately, I’m one of those people who enjoys digging up facts. And I have the insatiable curiosity of a ten-year-old boy. Where to start the search for information  is the most immediate question to answer.

In  my case I started with the date of the crash. Once I found the exact date of the crash I could look at local newspaper accounts. A person in the research section of a public library near the crash site was most helpful.  Not only did he find the newspaper articles I was looking for but remembered the event and had visited the crash site. He was able to point out discrepancies between the newspaper photograph and what he actually saw. While in the area I visited the crash site. Needless to say, it was hardly recognizable after some thirty years of reclamation by mother nature.  But I did shoot some onsite footage for the video.

After speaking to a relative about my project, he told me that a distant cousin had been duck hunting in the area of the crash when it occurred. Needless to say, I interviewed him via telephone. A few people were reluctant to talk about the crash and there was considerable speculation about local involvement with the smugglers. After gleaning all the information I could find about the crash, I turned my attention to the aircraft.The internet was an invaluable asset for determining aircraft specifications. Things such as range, speed, cargo hauling ability and crew requirements helped me better understand what had caused the crash. I was also able to speak with an Air force veteran who had actually piloted such aircraft. The reports of the National Transportation Safety Board were helpful in providing data about the crash site and the registry of the Federal Aviation Administration provided the history of the aircraft. Court records of lawsuits of the plane's owners provided even more details. 

Once I had all the information organized I set about writing the script. I would record the story and use photos, video, and whatever necessary to illustrate the story. The normal speaking rate of a newscaster is 145 words per minute.  My 1,000 word script would take about  about seven minutes to record. With pauses in speaking it would be a bit longer.

The only bid of live video I had was that of me near the crash site. For the balance of the video I would be doing a voice over. The only additional video I had was some stock footage of a similar aircraft in flight and a police car with lights flashing and siren blasting. The images seen with a narrator speaking off camera are called “B-roll”. I had less than a minute of video. My problem was how to tell an interesting story with very little video. 

I created a couple of animations. One of the plane’s crashing and another of the plane’s flight path from South America to South Carolina. A replica of the Columbian newspaper and a key fob were created as props. These props were used in reenactments. However, the majority of the B-roll was video of my cutting newspaper articles from the local paper and pasting them in a scrapbook. The articles being cut from the newspapers coincided with the narration.

The method worked fairly well and the video has nearly two thousand views.The methods of storytelling in video are varied and in many ways dictated by the subject and the creative choice of the producer..