Camera Crane Truck

One more video from Saturday:

 

these are not "track days" ?

just videoing cars on a track? very cool stuff.

 

This is insanely cool, incredible build!!

 

Cool build and great footage! Just curious about your goal with the track day video shoots. Do you make videos and sell them to participants, or are videos part of a larger project?

 

i thought i recognized the multicolored VW. this california? cant be.

 

Those videos were shot during a regular car track day. The only goal is to train and test the truck with my crew. The track days simply give me subjects to point the camera at.

Here's a fun "chase scene" from that private test day I had last October:

 

well california footage or not..your job is much cooler than my job.

 

Another day of tossing this thing around the track.

 

Gettin after it! Front passenger tire aint doing too much there haha

 

Had some fun yesterday!

 

Cool man, now consider a trailer for Village for the up-charge in kit fee

 

Another track day, another video.

 

Awesome vid!!

 

Wow thats cool . Ever thought about lowering a little for better handling ?
https://sosperformance.com/products...sh-3-dot-5-rear-lowering-kit-fits-2015-tacoma

 

I actually lifted the truck 1" (https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/installed-5100s-aal-for-1-lift.668783/) to compensate for the added weight of the crane + 4 guys in the cab!

The goal isn't to use the truck on the track very often. It just so happens we've been on the race track a lot lately doing those facets of testing (high speed, high cornering). It's a good way to torture test it, so to speak.

Most practical uses for the truck will be much tamer.

 

Putting the rig to work on a Cadillac shoot in NYC.

 

I want your job!

 

VW actually produced cars in that color scheme, called the "Harlequin Edition.". Pretty goofy cars.

Awesome crane setup - love seeing this kind of stuff! I know often they use pretty high performance vehicles like Cayennes and AMG rigs so they can keep up with cars moving relatively quickly - do you find any limitations as to what sorts of sequences you can shoot with a Tacoma?

 

If I wasn't a poor 24 year old when I started building this thing, I probably would've gone with one of those performance SUVs as the base vehicle. But there are advantages to the Tacoma platform as well. The geometry actually lends itself to increased crane angles for a larger work envelope. It was also easier to design and fabricate the tube chassis that bolts directly to the frame through the bed. Less intrusive on the truck (which at the time was also my daily driver).

The main limitations are speed and handling, of course. The supercharger helps in the speed department, but it's still never going to hang with any fast cars. It's not really a problem 95% of the time though. Most shoots are relatively low speed (or no speed - using it as a stationary jib like in the pic above). We did a lot of training on the race track in order to push the equipment and crew to the limit. That way everything else feels 'easy' in comparison.