Skycrane
 

I just got off a 6 day shoot that I needed a jib for so I bought one of the Skycrane juniors for and damn, it was sweet.

I was going to build my own jib but I am so glad I didn't, it's a total pro piece of equipment. The unit breaks down into two 'arm' pieces and have a machined support piece that slides into each end and is bolted down and I doubt I would have been that smart.

The unit fit right onto my bogen tripod and worked smooth as silk with my XL1s. One nice thing that I didnt' think of but the guy who runs the company did is that the XL1S is lens heavy (especially since I was using an adapter and non-standard lenses) and they make a plate that fits the arm so you can mount the camera back a bit.

One of the coolest things about it was being able to mount it onto the Chapman peewee we had and was able to dolly in, lower and rotate down over a bed where the one character was lying. The director went crazy when he watched it on the monitor.

For a shot in a small area I also mounted it on my bogen and ran it horizontally using my PVC track dolly for a shot that floated in over a kitchen table to a really tight CU of this one character that was really cool and for a bar scene I was able to get it up near the ceiling to include a ceiling fan in the shot before lowering down to head level for an actor's lines.

I would highly recommend it to anyone considering jibs. The price is well worth what you get for it. I'm getting a LOT of use out of it in ways I never thought I would and have been using it for a lot of stuff I never thought I'd use a jib for.

Kevin, just had just got my Skycrane JR and will agree with everything you said. I can never imagine myself building something like this. Id like to use it on a Dolly but am having qualms of how stable this will be ridding on top of a doorway dolly. Did you have to spread the legs out farther than normal when using on a dolly? Also, do you have a LCD screen mounted on the dolly? If so, what kind?

Nope... there isn't any way to do that (spread out the legs), it's sitting on my bogen tripod on the dolly the same way it would be if there wasn't the jib attached.

Yes, you have to be a bit slower and more careful moving around but if you have the weights right and have checked everything AND your tripod is very securely attached to the dolly you should be fine.

Be sure and have the proper weights and trim. that's the most important thing.

What camera are you using?

What we have is either a studio monitor or a field monitor that I run from the S-video out on my XL1S down the arm and we block out the shot and practice a couple of times and then we use the remote control for the XL1S to start it recording and we shoot that f**ker.

I do have a small LCD screen I keep in the kit for situations when the field monitor won't work out--- it's a Citizen 4 inch screen. It's okay but it was cheap and that counts. I never use it to focus or check colors with, just to frame things.