Here is my plan,
Using mostly machinist parts which are already made to interface... er, to fit together (sorry, messing with too many computer programs lately).


Ok, to begin with, the whole concept of stopmotion depends on absolute stability, unlike the world of still photography or video, where a little camera movement is no big deal. I know from experience that those lightweight aluminum folding tripods are no good... even if you duct tape them to the floor and sandbag the hell out of them, a slight bump means an earthquake in your film. So I want something heavy and solid. I decided on a drill press column. It's ideal... aside from already weighing a ton, it's got a flat base where you can pile sandbags or concrete blocks if you want. Probably no need though.


The beautiful thing about using a drill press column is the tilting table... it's made so you can adjust the height and the angle however you want. I thought about maybe using the height adjustment crank to handle vertical camera moves, but it's not stable enough for that, I don't know, maybe some of the really expensive ones are, but I'm on a pretty tight budget, which is why I'm using machine shop fixtures for this in the first place... you can buy custom made dollies but they're not cheap folks! Ideally I would use a floor model press, but they're too heavy to ship except for truck freight, and I don't want to go that route, so I'll either just pull the top assembly off my bench press or buy one used on ebay. Actually the thing to do would be to get a better press than the one I'm using now and designate my current one as a camera stand. Using a bench model means I need to have a table under it, but that adds even more weight and solidity if I bolt it down.





Next comes a machinist's cross slide table, to handle front/back and side-to-side movement. I already bought one of these on ebay... a $200 model that I picked up for $75. Travel is 11" by 7&1/2"... so it's not enough for those really crazy Nightmare Before Christmas truck shots all the way across the set, but it'll give me some nice movement. And here's what I love about this... it's already made to attatch to the drill press table! A couple of T bolts and good to go. I already have ideas about using a set of drawer slides and some allthread to make a longer slide, but that's definitely a future project.


On top of that, for the vertical moves, I'm using a lab jack. It's essentially just a scissors jack, like the kind you might have under the spare tire in your trunk, except the top platform is a nice flat 6" square that's just right for my geared head to sit on. The best price I could scrounge up on these was about $60. If you do a web search there are quite a few science lab suppliers that carry them, and they're all basically the exact same model, except for a few top-end ones that are super expensive. You don't need the stainless steel version (which is more expensive) unless you plan on doing your stopmotion outdoors in the rain, and I certainly don't!


Ok, with all this sliding and lifting going on, you'll need to be able to pan and tilt to keep the camera aimed where you want. For that I opted for a Manfrotto Geared Head 410 jr... their smallest and cheapest one. It'll run ya about $150. That is already in my greedy little hands, and as soon as the rest of it comes in I'll try to fit it all together and take some pics.


Simple and relatively inexpensive... just the way I like it! For under $300, I have a complete camera movement system (I don't know of a name for it really... technically it's not a dolly, and it's not really motion control. Just a camera mover.)