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OT: Thoughts on how to build a small turntable rig for filming products?
I’ve been toying with the idea of building a small turntable rig that I can use to film 360’s on beauty shots of small products that we feature in our tv show. Anyone got any ideas/experience/advice for how I should approach this?
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10 Replies
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[Dennis Leppell] “I’ve been toying with the idea of building a small turntable rig that I can use to film 360’s on beauty shots of small products that we feature in our tv show.”
Find a potters wheel, the kind used for throwing pottery
they are very heavy and therefore stable, Most can be geared for fine control.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows for the Digitally Inclined
Chicago, ILhttps://blogs.creativecow.net/24640
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On Mythbusters they’ve done a few builds where they use something as simple as a power drill to drive a pulley or belt system. So you set up your round table on a pole that can spin and then use the drill at a set speed to turn it.
Or if you can rig it and the items are light enough, put the shaft directly into the drill and let the drill turn it directly at low speed.
But I’m sure if you were to google Product Turntable you’ll probably find some ideas complete with instructions. Small electric motor and drive system is all you need with a little nice plywood for the top.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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[gary adcock] “Find a potters wheel, the kind used for throwing pottery”
That’s an AWESOME idea. Never even thought of that……
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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If you don’t want to deal with building anything, you might want to just buy something…
Brian
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The lazy susan thing is EXACTLY what I have in mind. But, being the industrious DIY handyman that I am, I’m loving the power drill and potters wheel ideas. Most everything I’ll be setting on it will be less than a pound.
So…..power drill, potters wheel, DIY variable speed motor controller from fry’s, some sort of adhoc belt drive system, and a nice backdrop/mounting case thingy….Should be able to put it all together in a day. Thanks for the help guys!
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Take lots of pictures, keep track of what you do and turn it into an article for the Cow. I think it would be great to see what you come up with and I’m sure folks would love to see what you do.
I did that for my travelling HD edit system and it was fun.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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Perry and the Digital Juice guys beat you to it:
https://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/detail.asp?sid=70&sortby=&page=36&rpid=0&rvid=0&swid=0&searchid=0‘>
https://www.digitaljuice.com/djtv/detail.asp?sid=70&sortby=&page=36&rpid=0&rvid=0&swid=0&searchid=0 -
Digital juice “djtv” section, page 36 has the video of the entire build. Their secret was to use the battery pwoered motor from a BBQ grill rotisserie accessory for the high-torque, low-speed power.
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This is less than 20 bucks:
https://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=578&CategoryID=75
Another ready made solution may be the turntables they use in the chines restaurants.
rafael -
I haven’t the time at the moment to read the other replies but I’m going to chime in with mine, so apologies if it’s been mentioned.
A number of years ago (more than I care to name) I had a very large client who makes and sells a large number of small figurines. They wanted 360s of them all, and in the past no one else had been successful in getting that right, or in lighting them.
I went to a model/efx shop and had them make me a powered turntable made from a machine shop milling head. The attached a giant rheostat to the electric motor, then attached to the gear down tranmission. We had perfectly smooth movement throughout all speeds which ranged from about 30 seconds per turn to about 2 seconds per turn, something like that. It wasn’t that expensive, between $500.00 and $800.00 and fit in the budget. The thing was heavy as hell and even worked in reverse. It let us drop the shooting to about 2 hours from probably 3 days. It was all part of a larger budget and we saved a ton of $$ in the studio. Lighting was done mostly by tenting the shooting stage. We made a sweep from 4×8 sheets of solid formica in colors specified by the client. We were heros and they came back to us for several more projects. The hardest part was cutting a circular piece of formica to sit on the stage, and then shooting so the edges wouldn’t show during rotation. A narrow depth of field and some judicious softening in post helped.Non-linear: all the time and nothing but.
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