Filmmakers have been using wheelchairs as camera dollies since the days of horse-drawn cameras and kerosene microphones. Well, I’m not sure if that’s exactly true, but a long time ago someone came up with the idea of shooting film from a rolling wheelchair, and the idea stuck. Google “Godard Breathless Wheelchair” or “Rodriguez El-Mariachi Wheelchair” for two pretty successful examples of wheelchairs used as dollies.
The first time I saw this “omnidirectional” wheelchair (on YouTube) I was in the middle of shooting a movie where the main character was a wheelchair user. 90 per cent of the shooting was hand-held, with the camera at his eye level. As my back began to ache –imagine holding a ten pound metal detector in front of you and beachcombing for 8 hours a day, every day for two months– it dawned on me that this would have been a great opportunity to use a wheelchair dolly.
And this would be no ordinary wheelchair dolly. This one has many of the physical qualities of a more traditional dolly – the weight; the large, soft balloon tires. And, because it’s controlled by joystick, an experienced wheelchair user would already have many of the skills to get the most out of the chair.
I got in touch with the inventors to find out more about their amazing chair, wondering how we might get our hands on one. When I described what we wanted to do with it, they very quickly -and generously- offered to lend us the prototype.
A short time later we were able to put the chair though its paces. We marveled at the technology and thrilled at the possibilities.
And then we broke the chair.
But it’s being repaired, and we’re still excited about the OmniChair.
Stay tuned.
