Does anyone know where i can buy or rent support wire harnesses, or anything real cheaply? Thanks

For one project we bought a rock climbing harness and used store bought aircraft cable with block and tackle. I can't remember how much it was, but it was under a couple hundred.

I doubt anyone will rent you gear (without massive insurance) if they knew you wanted to do wire work with it. But what about climbing gear. An outfitter store like REI might rent climbing gear. That's probably your cheapest route.

If you know anybody that is a Boy Scout, talk to them. My brother is a scout and he helped out tons when I was messing around with wirework.

It's a lot tougher than it looks in the movies, but with the right perspective on things, you can get some really cool things done.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"

I figured it'd prolly be pretty hard :-p Anyway, i will look into this. Also, about suspending? How would you go about building something that could be used to suspend the actor in the air? ( Something sturdy enough to hold a person ) Thanks!

Well, we didn't get very serious when we were making our wire supports. We weren't planning on using them in a movie where we would later edit out the wires (we were using huge thick rock climbing ropes, rather than those tiny thin little steel ones).

I'll just tell you what we did, and if you like it you can try it out.

We found two trees that were about 10 feet apart from each other. They were tall and thick, it's not like they would bend if a kid climbed on it. They're huge. We leaned a ladder against one of the trees and climbed up to about 15 feet in height. My brother took some kinda hook thing (it had a pointed screw in one end for digging into the tree, and a thick metal hoop on the other end for clicking caribeaners (sp?) and other things into it) and put it in the tree. He did the same thing to the other tree. What we had so far was two trees with hooks in them.

Next we took a nice thick metal chain and locked it into the hooks on each side. Don't use those fake caribeaners that you can buy at Food Lion. If you're going to use them, go to a sports store and get some heavy duty ones. We didn't even use caribeaners, I think my brother wrapped the chain through the loop and stuck a lock through it, holding it in place on both sides. Now, we had two trees joined together by a sturdy chain 15 feet in the air.

Next, we took the ladder and set it up half way between the two trees and attached a pulley wheel in the very center of the chain. The wheel had a hook on top (which we snapped into one of the center links of the chain) and a wheel that spun with a frame around it. We took the rock climbing rope and put it through the wheel.

Next we took a rock climbing harness and fit it tightly around my waist and legs. Be careful if you're a guy, these things KILL. Also, if you plan on filming with one of these rigs, get your actor to wear extra long pants, because the harness pulls your pants up about 5-6 inches. After the harness was on, we attached the rope to the center in the front by means of some kind of scout knot. We didn't have the money to buy more caribeaners, so we just tied the rope to my harness. I would stand in between the two trees (which acted as a giant framework) and my brother would take hold of the other end of the rope. He created some kinda loop for him to sit in. On the count of 3/4/whatever, he would sit back and I would fly into the air. We weren't able to do flips or anything, because we only had one rope in the center of the harness and not two (one on each side). I was able to kick back and forth while "sprinting" up the trees in a kind of Matrix type move. It's a lot of fun, and there's tons of ways you can spice it up.

Sorry if my instructions suck, I would have taken pictures to show you, but the rig isn't up anymore. Hope this helps.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"

haha, that sounds pretty fun :P Hmm, i've been looking around for some cheap yet sturdy harnesses, and found a few, hmmm.

I woke up this morning and turned on the TV to find some show called "Jackie Chan: My Stunts". It was pretty cool, and it had a few minutes of explanation of how they do the real wirework for movies. They use really thin steel wire and it has to be set up a certain way or else it will break.

If you can, try to find a way to see this show. It'll help out.

"Don't breathe or I'll kill you!"