Moviola Crab Dolly

This vintage dolly with its hydraulic jib was for many years the standard studio dolly for 35mm feature films and was used to good effect in The Shining. It’s still in good working condition and gives you the ability to do some very subtle jib moves; I have used it to move down small aerosol cans and things like that. A good tip if you’ve got a light camera is to sit on it to give it a bit more weight. Its crab steering switchable to rear wheel steer makes it incredibly manoeuvrable even in tiny spaces.

I have used it in the past purely as a camera support, because being able to adjust the height and position of a camera quickly can sometimes save you a lot of time on a studio shoot. Its eight pneumatic tyres and large wheelbase give it good stability, and if you’ve got a flat floor you can track around and jib without having to worry about getting the tracks in shot.

We can and have moved it when necessary, but you do have to remember you need a wider than average door to get it through and it’s quite heavy. In case there is any confusion, this dolly does not run on track. There have been various attempts over the years to enable it to, none of which were very successful!

The original Moviola Dolly design was modified from a bomb loader that lifted 500lb and 750lb bombs onto planes during WW2 after an air force officer saw the potential for its use in the film industry. The Moviola has been in operation for over six decades and provides a very flexible and simple answer to studio filming.