[Andrew Rudolph]

Had a few more thoughts after looking through the thread.

Instead of lugging around a big heavy concrete filled bucket or umbrella stand, I would get a lightweight aluminum speaker or lighting stand. I have seen where people modify shorter speaker stands with a long pole for the last segment to get extra height, the stands are designed to keep 50lb speakers up, so making it tall and putting a few pounds is safe.

We used a GoPro for wide angle shots pretty effectively, we also have used a HD security camera to get some other interesting shots.