A thoughtful filmmaker customizes their camera rig the same way a musician customizes an instrument or a fine artist selects tools and media, striking a fine balance between personal style and the intended final product. An overdriven electric guitar is not the ideal choice for a lullaby, a gallon of paint isn’t appropriate for bronze sculpture, and a studio camera on a tripod isn’t going to win you any awards for your Skate Tour documentaries.
Assuming you’ve done your research and chosen a camera based on your budget and production needs, the next step is figuring out how to rig it in a way that strikes the perfect balance between style, intent, and the limitations of production. As Orson Welles once said, “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations,” and so the goal of this article is to help you build a rig that empowers you to realize your creative goals in spite of practical constraints.
There are countless ways to rig a camera, just as there are countless ways to shoot the same scene. You may need to mount your on-camera monitor in a specific way, attach a follow focus, or add a matte box if you’re shooting outdoors or near bright lights. Wooden Camera offers a wide range of high-quality, field-tested accessories to help you design and build a camera rig that’s best for you.
Wooden Camera products are designed by filmmakers for filmmakers. Being based in the USA provides us the unique opportunity to work with, and on, rapidly changing Hollywood productions alongside filmmakers from around the world. This allows us to design products with real-world applications, whether you’re on a soundstage or on location. Wooden Camera also sells replacement parts for customization or on-set DIY repair. And because unexpected loss and damage is an unfortunate fact of life when shooting in inhospitable locations, we also offer stellar customer support if you don’t want to fix your gear yourself.
We work hard to understand what makes sense and what doesn’t when it comes to streamlining your setup, so let’s take a look at some of the many camera accessories available and how you can use them to get the most out of your rig:
