Cartoni HyperRoll Explained – Skate Wheels for Any Camera Cage, NATO Rail Mounting, Lockable Wheel Angles

by Nino LeitnerToday

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Cartoni is a tripod and fluid head company, so a set of skate wheels that bolts onto your existing camera cage is a slightly odd thing to find on their IBC 2026 booth. That is the HyperRoll, and I sat down with Elisabetta Cartoni to find out why they built it, what it can do that a dolly cannot, and why the wheels alone justify a good chunk of the €699 price.

I am not going to start skateboarding, but the idea behind the HyperRoll is close enough. Elisabetta describes it as a camera support that is completely different from anything Cartoni has made before: it gives wheels to any camera, at a fraction of the cost of the cranes, dollies, or sliders you would otherwise need for the same move. The kit is three wheel units, three sets of NATO rails, and a rosette mount for a telescopic steering stick, and it attaches to whatever cage you already own. Cartoni’s own spec sheet adds polyurethane wheels on double-shielded ABEC-7 bearings, engraved angle scales on each wheel, integrated bubble levels, and 120mm NATO rails, all machined from aviation-grade alloy. It launched in Europe first and it is shipping now. Watch the video above for the booth demo, then read on for the details.

Skater dolly, minus the dolly

Most of us have seen, or improvised, a skater dolly at some point: a plate with skate wheels underneath, a head on top, a camera on the head. Elisabetta was quick to credit that idea as genius, but the HyperRoll takes a different route. It gets rid of the plate and the head entirely and uses the camera cage as the chassis. NATO rails clamp to the sides of the cage, the wheel units clamp to the rails, and that is the whole rig.

Two of the three wheel units sit at the sides and double as handles, so the operator can push the camera directly. The third wheel sits at the rear and carries a rosette attachment for the telescopic stick, which is what you steer with once the camera is on the floor and you cannot comfortably hold it anymore. The rosette can be oriented to suit the shape of whichever cage you have bolted it to.

Because the wheel units slide along the NATO rail, that same rail sets the camera height. Push the units up and the lens sits as close to the floor as the cage allows; push them down and the camera rides higher, with nothing underneath it. Cartoni calls the side-mounted layout the reason the space under the lens stays clear, and it is the feature that separates this from a skateboard with a tripod plate screwed to it.

Which shots is it actually for?

I asked Elisabetta for the concrete cases where a conventional dolly is not just expensive but impractical, and she had three ready. Floor level is the obvious one: the true “pet perspective,” where the lens is centimeters off the ground and you can follow a cat or a small dog at its own eye line. Tabletop and food work is the second, where the camera needs to travel a short distance very close to a surface and then fly over the plate rather than around it.

Automotive is the third, and it is the one that has apparently driven the most use so far. Anyone who has shot a car commercial knows the problem of getting a camera inside a vehicle without marking the interior, and heavy grip equipment is simply not an option in there. The HyperRoll is discreet enough to roll across the seats and the dashboard, and because each wheel can be locked at a chosen angle, you can drive a curve or hold a straight line rather than hoping the rig goes where you pointed it.

That last point matters more than it sounds. I know people who have improvised this with off-the-shelf skateboard wheels, and the recurring complaint is that free-swiveling wheels wander. Cartoni added angle adjustment with an engraved scale and a bubble level to each unit, so setups are repeatable from take to take. Elisabetta’s framing was that they kept the construction logic of their heavy-duty support gear and stripped it down to the minimum.

From an iPhone to an ALEXA 65

The HyperRoll was originally conceived for small cameras, but the load rating turned out to be a non-issue. Elisabetta pointed out that these wheels carry a full adult on a skateboard, so a camera package is not going to trouble them, and Cartoni has run tests with an ARRI ALEXA 65 on the same three wheel units used for a smartphone.

Naturally I had to ask whether a 65mm IMAX camera could ride on it, since Cartoni’s Magnum head carried the IMAX camera on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and that behind-the-scenes footage has reached people who normally have zero interest in cameras. The answer was that the wheels would cope; the limiting factor would be a custom cage to hold a body that size. (If Chris Nolan is reading this: the offer stands.) We covered the Magnum and The Odyssey angle in more detail in our Lambda 15 interview from the same booth, where Elisabetta made the same observation she made to me: almost every request Cartoni receives is to go smaller and lighter, and IMAX is the rare exception. My feeling is that the attention around The Odyssey is partly a reaction to that shrinking trend, but as Elisabetta noted, productions on that scale come along roughly once a decade. Maybe we discuss a HyperRoll XL next year.

Accessories and the pouch

Beyond the core kit, Cartoni showed a U-shaped base that accepts a quick release plate for cameras without a cage, or for anyone who needs to get the camera on and off in a hurry, plus a longer set of NATO rails for larger builds. Elisabetta said further variants will follow as users ask for them, which is how the HyperRoll came about in the first place: it was designed by Stefano Pedretti, an Italian director and cameraman specialized in advertising, to solve his own on-set problem, and he brought it to Cartoni to industrialize it. Pedretti also shot the promotional film that has been doing the rounds on Instagram and Facebook.

One change I can take a little credit for: Cartoni sent us an early unit, and it arrived in a plain cardboard delivery box. My feedback was that the box would not survive two trips, and the production version now ships in a small compartmented pouch so the anodized parts do not scratch each other in transit. The whole kit fits in it, which is really the point of the product for me. This is the kind of thing that can live permanently in the car, even on days when you are not sure you will need it, and come out when a product shot or a low tracking move suddenly calls for it. Elisabetta would like it to become standard kit for every shooter; I suggested it should be legally required alongside the warning triangle and the hi-vis vest.

Price and availability

The Cartoni HyperRoll is €699 excluding VAT, and Elisabetta was open about the fact that the price looks high for three wheels and a set of rails. Her explanation is the components. Cartoni went to skateboard suppliers for the wheels and found a range from a few cents apiece to around €25 each, and picked from the expensive end, paired with precision ball bearings. I have friends who skate at a serious level and they will tell you that good wheels and bearings are where the money goes, so I buy the argument, even if it makes this a considered purchase rather than an impulse one.

It is available now with stock on hand. Cartoni launched in Europe first, through CVP and other European dealers as well as direct from Cartoni, and Cartoni USA handles North America, with a further US distributor under discussion. For more information, please visit the Cartoni website.

Would a set of wheels for the cage you already own earn a permanent spot in your kit, or is €699 too much for a floor-level trick? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!