Why crappy rigs are the sign of the truly great filmmaker

Sometimes you just have to go with what you've got. Josh Edwards on the symphonies of duct tape, bits of string, and things found by rummaging in kitchen drawers that help filmmakers worldwide get that crucial shot.

A while back, while discussing some ideas for action camera month here on RedShark, editor Simon Wyndham and I got talking about the concept of ‘shitty rigs’. If you’re not quite sure what that alludes to, there’s a whole Instagram account dedicated to showcasing the world’s best shitty rigs with over 260,000 followers. It’s great (but hey, we’re sending this out in an email and don’t want to be caught by anyone’s spam filters, so we’ve gone for ‘crappy rigs’ in the headline instead.

Essentially, crappy/shitty rigs are DIY improvisations that filmmakers often have to come up with as a way to get the shot they really need without blowing a budget. Sometimes, something breaks, something doesn’t work or you need that little bit of extra “umph” and the only way to achieve it is to adapt, improvise and overcome. We’ve all been there, right?

The mark of a good filmmaker

While this may be a little bit of an industry joke (it’s certainly amusing when you see a very expensive camera inexplicably mounted to a car with old broom sticks and gaffa tape), I also think there’s something more important to be gleaned here. In my opinion, to really achieve in this industry and make the films you set out to make, you need to have this kind of skill set in your itinerary. I can think of plenty of examples where a shitty rig may well have saved the whole shoot!

We all know how wrong things can go from time to time. It is part and parcel of the job that gear will break or doesn’t do what you want it to do, the weather threatens to derail everything and, in many cases, the budget doesn’t stretch far enough. Having this ability to improvise on the spot and problem solve is actually essential for any good filmmaker. In fact, when you boil it all down, isn’t the whole process of filmmaking just a hell of a lot of problem solving? When I’ve hired in the past, seeing examples of this ability to adapt certainly doesn’t do any harm in my books.

With this in mind, I wanted to pay homage to the many great shitty rigs stories out there. I reached out to filmmakers around the world and asked for their stories and anecdotes. Here are some of the best.

A 360° camera belt

Recently, I myself had to create a shitty rig on the spot. I wanted to shoot a driving sequence on my scooter with a 360 camera and I’d purchased a very cheap, flimsy handlebar mount on which I was hoping to screw the 2-meter stick. The problem was, the weight of the stick and camera at the other end meant the handlebar grip simply wouldn’t stay put, no matter how hard I tightened it. Not great (although it did only cost £3 so really, there’s no surprises here).

I needed a quick solution and, after a little bit of rummaging around in the draw I have labelled as “random” (do we all have one of those?) I found something that may just do the trick. A hot shoe to ¼ screw adapter. Ah-ha. We’ve got something now.

Next step? I found an old belt and threaded the screw through one the hole closest to the one I use (I’ve now committed to staying at this weight for the foreseeable future) and then proceeded to put the belt on as normal. 

Proper job!

The screw was facing the front of the bike as I’d hoped and now, I could mount the 360 camera and pole directly onto me as I drove. The pole leans on the front of the bike to keep it level and voilà! I had the shot I needed!

And the result? Nailed it as you can see below. 

Note – of course this wouldn’t pass any stringent health and safety tests but seeing as I’m a one man band, I got away with using a bit of common sense and driving slowly. Job done!

Rocks are always a filmmaker’s friend

Being from Australia, cameraman Brett Campbell is no stranger to rocks. While shooting with the crew for Beau Miles’ YouTube channel, Brett created this “shitty, rock based timelapse rig” because, he admits, he was “too lazy to wander the 250m back to the campsite to grab a tripod.”

To that I say good on ya, Brett. I like it. Why not make use of the perfectly good materials all around us?

Working with a budget of $0

American music artist Evelyn Kircher found herself in need of a specific shot for her music video – they needed to “film the subject out the window from underneath…we had a budget of $0 but it worked out great!” 

Sometimes, it just needs a little tweak

Over in Indonesia, Andre Saputra recently purchased a Sony RX100 V with underwater housing to capture some of his work underwater restoring corals. The problem was, the little knob on the zoom switch didn’t protrude enough to fit into the designated slot on the underwater housing. “I found that I couldn’t actually zoom in and out at all underwater, which really limited me with what I was able to capture. So I ended up supergluing a small piece of wooden dowel to the switch and now it works like a dream!”

While the setup really was the definition of a shitty rig (literally a tripod excessively taped sideways to a car, supported by some string around the wing mirror and door handle), the results speak for themselves. They got the shot and it works seamlessly with the rest of the video. You can see the result at the 0:35 mark.

Sometimes, it just needs a little tweak

Over in Indonesia, Andre Saputra recently purchased a Sony RX100 V with underwater housing to capture some of his work underwater restoring corals. The problem was, the little knob on the zoom switch didn’t protrude enough to fit into the designated slot on the underwater housing. “I found that I couldn’t actually zoom in and out at all underwater, which really limited me with what I was able to capture. So I ended up supergluing a small piece of wooden dowel to the switch and now it works like a dream!”

Did Spiderman rig that?

I have to say, this last minute solution from George Waid makes me nervous. It’s a brave one. 

He explains…“it was a last minute solution since we were shooting in a remote location and needed to get up higher for a top-down shot. I ended up driving to a hardware store that was fairly close by to grab a wrench. 15 minutes later, a tripod head, a big steel beam plus a small piece of wood and you have yourself a nice little shitty rig. Surprisingly it turned out to work really well. What you don’t see in the picture is that this is about 10 feet off the ground so only mountable with a ladder!”

The takeaway

George went on to talk about how his boss “is really good at improvising on the spot and being able to find a solution for a problem in an instant…one of the most useful tools I’ve learned from him so far” and that’s the key takeaway when it comes to shitty rigs. 

While we can all have a good laugh about them, we also have to admire the skills on display. To improvise and adapt so quickly on the spot in order to nail the shot and save the day is the hallmark of any great filmmaker. Long live the shitty rigs! We’d be lost without ‘em.

We’d love to hear some of your best stories in the comments below!