The MANtini Rover is a professional camera shoulder stabilizer and tabletop dolly combined into one compact device.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/themantinirover/mantini-rover-for-dslr-gopro-and-other-cameras?ref=live

My Story
I have been making short films for the past 5 years with no budget and barely any equipment. Over these years I have realized just how important camera movement is in a film. Whether it is a steady horizontal shot of someone walking or a slightly less steady, in the action, shot of a fight scene, how the camera moves changes the feeling your audience will experience when watching your films. Unfortunately quality camera equipment is expensive, bulky and only ever serves one purpose. So I asked myself this question. What if there was an affordable shoulder rig that also had wheels so I can get both steady dolly shots and action packed moving shots?

That’s when I started my quest to engineer the “perfect” 2-in-1 camera rig. After two years of designing, prototyping, and re-designing I came up with the MANtini Rover. You can go from a counterweighted shoulder stabilizer to a smooth sailing tabletop dolly in seconds. YES IN SECONDS.

What is the Rover?
If you are unfamiliar with camera shoulder stabilizers and tabletop dollies, the Rover is a way to get a variety of really smooth camera motions without having to use multiple rigs. It is a versatile device that eliminates bulky equipment and allows the user to have more options with less gear.

THE END
Please click on the link above to see the MANtini Rover and how it works.

the author

I was 20-years old and I had an idea. After I graduated form the two-year Film Production Program at Confederation College I started my career in television on a show called, Canada’s Greatest Know It All. I have continued to work on a variety of shows and films that use a bunch of different equipment. While working on a Shoppers Drug Mart training video 2 years ago, I was introduced to a tabletop dolly, which sent a bunch of ideas soaring through my mind. I loved how small it was and all the options it opened up for people. This got me thinking and when it finally hit me to combine a dolly with a shoulder rig, there was nothing that was going to stop me from designing it. I shoot video using a DSLR camera and have noticed that the two most commonly used camera rigs are shoulder stabilizers and dollies/sliders. So being the problem solver that I am, I came up with a way to combine both rigs into one small compact device called The "Rover”. And that is how MANtini came to be. On a side note, the reason why I choose to name it the Rover was because one day I was sitting at my desk just looking at the prototype and it hit me, "This thing looks like the Mars Rover". It was as simple as that.