Over the last few years I've worked with PhotoshipOne's Fly Line cable-cam trolley building it into a V2 version with DJ Vegh's upgrades and most recently a Moco module that senses speed and position on the cable allowing programmable end stops and continuous back and forth operation. It's a terrific system and so easy to use. I originally purchased it during the filmming of BBC's Atlantis. I often found myself trying to do long tracking shots in forests and found that setting up a 100m track with a cable takes about 15 minutes instead of the huge amount of work it would take to lay and level a normal track for a dolly.
I don't get the cable cam out often, and it's tricky to dry-hire without experience in rigging it, but when I do use it myself it's a terrific addition to my shooting toolset. I try to have it in the truck on most of my jobs that allow it. I don't really charge extra for it, but personally love the shots I can get with it.
It's very quick to setup and I usually get more than one angle out of each cable setup. The grips tend to love operating it too! Now I have upgraded to the Moco Module I've also added 200m of new Dyneema rope and voice activated headsets to allow us to talk while operating at a distance from each other.
Below, thanks to the Producers of The Tunnel at Kudos, is some footage that we shot on episodes 1-3 of Season 3 of The Tunnel this year, but didn't end up in the show. One of our characters is on the run, from what we don't yet know. This scene was to be a sharp interstitial moment interrupting another plot line so I thought it'd be great to have a quick, active sequence to edit together. The setup was one cable run stretched between two large trees on the playground in this estate in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Northen France. Our actor, who was a great sport running again and again, ran alongside, closer, ahead and behind the trolley. This gave us a Wide profile, Long Shot profile, Chasing Medium Long Shot, and leading Medium Long Shot.
On board the trolley were 2 x Kenyon Gyros, The Freefly Movi Pro with an Alexa Mini camera on board and Master Prime lenses. Between the gimbal and the trolley is one of my Mini Quad vibration isolators.
I would have finished this sequence off with some really close handheld, bumpy running to intercut the smoother cable shots.
Here's a behind the scenes clip of us doing this setup to give you and idea of the rig. This clip courtesy of my very fun director on these episodes Anders Engström. 1st AC Piotrek Perlinski here on focus.
I've never regretted investing the Flyline, though I wish I used it more often. With the improvements to gimbals and especially the remote controls, it just keeps getting better.
