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TAKING THE BUMPS
OUT OF THE MOVIES
Part Two –
by Barrie Smith
Seemingly unable to stop inventing more technology, Garrett Brown
developed Steadicam® into more and more models. He then came up
with radical ways of moving a camera above and across a sports field,
down into a pool as a diver descends and tracking with swimmers as
they move from one end of the pool to the other.
T
hese days there seems to be
a Steadicam for almost every
need, user and budget.
Way down the bottom of the list is
the Merlin model that is tailored for
camcorders that weigh between 200g
and 2.2kg.
Shaped as a hinged, curved tube that
weighs less than a can of Coke, Merlin
can be handheld or attached to a vest.
It is priced at around $1000.
Steadicam Pilot resembles a ‘junior’
To satisfy the need
for a low cost
stabiliser, Garrett
Brown came up
with the Merlin
model, suitable
for camcorders
that weigh between
200g and 2.2kg. If
fitted, the camera’s
internal stabiliser
must be switched
off as it can
introduce delays in
panning and tilting.
22 Silicon Chip
Steadicam in its setup and appearance,
based around the vest, iso-elastic arm
and sled. It can carry a camera weighing between 900g and 4.5kg.
Another current model is one that
Brown admits to thinking about in his
early inventive beginnings. Steadicam
Tango is a novelty in that, although
based on the vest,
arm and sled, the
visible ‘extra’ is a jib
arm that can
rise from floor level to ceiling height.
It’s also able to make 360° pans with
±90° tilts all around. Camera weight
range: 2.3 - 11kg.
Amazingly, there is even a budget
Steadicam made for mobile phones
that shoot video. Amateur camcorders?
Maybe soon. Price: $US179.
The top models are the
Ultra 2 and Ultra 2c,
used by high end operators around the
Steadicam Pilot
incorporates the
vest, iso-elastic
arm and sled. It
can carry a
camera weighing
between 900g
and 4.5kg.
Top of
the Steadicam range
models are the Ultra
2 and Ultra 2c,
which
can support
5.4-31.7kg of
camera.
siliconchip.com.au
world. They can carry 5.4 to 31.7kg of
camera. Price: around $US66,000 with
“all the bells and whistles.”
Video at: www.lemac.com.au/video/
Steadicam.mov
It seems the sky is the limit for extensions of the Steadicam principle as
the camera can now soar above sports
grounds and dive deep into Olympic
pools.
SkyCam
According to one of his Australian
associates “Garrett just can’t stop
inventing!”
Having totted up 50 patents worldwide for camera-associated inventions, devices like Steadicam, MobyCam, DiveCam, MoleCam, a new
creation, SkyCam, earned him a 2005
Academy Award nomination. As with
Steadicam, the idea for SkyCam was
born on a film set.
During the shooting of the Little
House on the Prairie TV series, Brown
had the idea of a camera that could fly
high above the action and move freely
in a large three dimensional space.
So it was in 1984, the first use of
aerial cable technology for motion
pictures was seen, on the set of Birdy, a
movie about a young Vietnam veteran
who returns home obsessed with birds.
SkyCam is now a commonplace
element in any sports coverage, first
appearing in February for NBC’s 2001
football coverage.
In operation, SkyCam resembles a
flying Steadicam, able to support a
stabilised camera, thanks to a cablerigged support. Whereas Steadicam is
limited by the movement of the human
operator, the range of SkyCam’s movement seems boundless.
The crew is a SkyCam pilot plus a
camera operator and assistants. The
pilot moves the rig through space, as
the operator moves the camera on its
remote head. They sit side by side
and work closely together.
Three components drive SkyCam:
the central computer control, the
spar (or central support and counterbalanced camera column) and the reel
(motor drive and cables). These components are linked through the use of
a highly complex fibre optic network.
Each of the three parts works in tandem to move the supported camera to
virtually any location and at any angle.
It is the only stabilised camera system
that can unobtrusively fly anywhere
in a defined three-dimensional space.
SkyCam rides on four cables. These
are made from a braided Kevlarjacketed single mode optical fibre
with conductive copper elements and
capable of supporting 270kg.
Each is attached through a ring at
the top of a tall tower or mounting
platform of some kind, up in the air.
Basically, the higher you can mount
the four wires and farther from each
other you can place them, the larger
the three dimensional space it
can work in.
Each cable carries fibre-optic
signalling from
the camera operator. The SkyCam
pilot operates
the spooling out
and taking up of
each. The degree
of slack and take
up is what determines the height
of SkyCam, with
a computer ensuring they stay
(Inset): Steadicam Tango
monitor.
Steadicam
Tango has
a jib arm that
cranes from floor
to ceiling, making it
the near-perfect
production
tool.
locked together.
Each reel is a cable
spool with 3.4kW
motor and disc brake
with its own computer, capable of .01
inch positioning resolution.
The camera’s view
itself is operated by
remote head technology, handling focus,
lens aperture and
zoom; the link is
SkyCam resembles a flying
Steadicam, able to support
a stabilised camera, thanks
to a cable-rigged support.
The original patents have
now expired.
siliconchip.com.au
December 2011 23
by radio and an auto-ranging dish mounted near the top
of an arena.
It is driven by a Windows XP computer that provides
camera flight and video control and obstacle avoidance.
SkyCam was acquired by Winnercomm, Inc in 2004
and was then taken over by the parent company of the
Outdoor Channel in 2009.
“SkyCam” is a trademarked name, and properly refers
to one company and their equipment. However, with
the expiry of the original patents, other companies have
entered the market and the term is mistakenly used as a
generic reference for any cable-controlled camera system.
Fox Sports refers to their system as the DLP Ultimate
Picture Cam.
SkyCam and systems like it have been in limited use
since the mid 1980s when the technology was first patented but until the mid 1990s, progress was slow due to
limitations in computer and servo motor technology.
All SkyCam patents have now expired, except one “quite
valuable one” from 2000. There are about “half a dozen
clones” scattered around the globe.
Watch the demo at www.skycam.tv/folders.asp?
action=display&record=3
MobyCam
The world saw MobyCam splash into the pool at the
Steadicam Smoothee… a
budget Steadicam made
for the rest of us!
Barcelona Olympics in 1992.
Enclosing a video camera, the 60cm long submarine
housing travels between lanes four and five (closest to
the top-seeded swimmers) on the black line at the bottom of the pool. The camera’s progress is controlled by a
mechanical pulley system. According to Brown, this kept
the system simple and less likely to startle any “jumpy
electrical inspectors” that might have kept MobyCam out
The Inventive Mr Brown
Meeting Garrett Brown at Sydney
SMPTE, I asked him why he seems to
have an almost compulsive need to invent.
“Well it’s a serial issue, a serial problem. It comes up because I’m in the
habit of understanding that if you want
something, the primary inventive act is
discovering something that’s missing. If
you can take for granted that something’s
missing that you want, the act of inventing
something is actually pretty joyful.
It’s the follow up that can get painful.
But the act of inventing something frequently isn’t as difficult as you’d imagine.
In some cases it’s absurdly easy. The
real trick is not skidding right on by.
Let me show you an invention that I lug
around with me that’s the perfect example.
I love to invent personal things. My
life is full of stuff that are one of a kind.
Now and then I need reading glasses if
I’m in a dark restaurant. I hate lugging a
glasses case around just to have reading
glasses. So I decided I wanted my reading
glasses in my wallet.
So I came up with this item and paid
a jeweller to build this thing. So I have it
with me all the time. It slips into my wallet and I’ve got very comfortable reading
glasses and they do the job.”
Once you’ve invented something,
you’ve made a sample. Stateside or in
24 Silicon Chip
Australia what are the problems of taking
it to a patent stage?
“Stateside there appeared recently a
thing called the Provisional Patent that
can be as primitive as you want. It’s the
equivalent of the old game when we were
kids. The folklore was that if you drew
or wrote it up and you linked drawings
and described it, then you mailed it to
yourself, registered mail, you had at
least established a date, which is a very
imprecise process.
The patent office’s Provisional Patent is
more or less the same thing: you write it
up and illustrate it as well as you can and
file one. I’ve fallen into the habit of doing
that and I believe there are international
things that are similar.
So what you get is a year from that date.
That establishes your date for whatever is
in that package. A year later you have to file
a regular patent or give it up. But at least
it gives you a year to fuss with it and see if
it’s valuable.
I have been doing this long enough that
I can pretty much do these myself, then
hand them over to my long time attorneys
and they just file them.
With all my Steadicam stuff we almost
always do a provisional patent. And that’s
not terribly frightening, so I would recommend to anybody who has the bug to invent
and they think it’s ‘date sensitive’, if they
want to control the date.
Humans are always inventing stuff. If it’s
in the wind somebody will come up with it.
But I don’t even bother searching them. I just
control the date, then decide how valuable
it is, then if the real date comes around a
year later, you have to file it internationally
and the whole bit.
And it is an enormous pain in the ass
– patents. The US patent laws are under
attack by businesses because they want it
less inventor-friendly and more businessfriendly. The laws are about to change. It’s a
siliconchip.com.au
MobyCam is
a 60cm long
submarine housing
that encloses a
video camera
and travels at
the bottom of
a competition
swimming pool.
of the pool in Spain. As operator, Brown estimates he
drove it 30km in Barcelona.
To see a MobyCam video go to www.youtube.com/
watch?v=MSAG861sr2A
DiveCam
This device appeared in 1996 at the Atlanta Olympic
Games.
It’s an air-filled tube carrying a wide-angle lens camera
which rides up and down on rails, pulled along by a wire
and a pulley. Camera tilt is controlled remotely as it drops
and the entire tube can be panned, both actions handled
by the operator’s joystick.
At the exact moment the diver leaves the board, an operator releases a wire, allowing the camera to drop. Thanks
to gravity, both reach the water at the same time, traveling
Feeling the need for reading spectacles
that he can carry in his wallet, Brown
came up with his version of a pincenez. He admits to hating the need to
lug a glasses case around “just to have
reading glasses. So I decided I wanted
my reading glasses in my wallet.”
hideous situation for a lone inventor. I have
50-60 patents. Some of them have expired.
The original patents on the Steadicam and
the SkyCam have all expired. Which is a
shock.
You can’t renew a patent but all the improvements you’ve made are patentable.
So people are free to make the original
primitive Steadicam. There are 40 of those
in the world. But they’re not free to make
anything based on our improvements. And
those we go after in countries where we
have taken out those patents.
When I got my first patent, which was
siliconchip.com.au
at approximately
40km/h, to deliver viewers a side
view of the diver
hitting the water.
The camera is also
remotely controllable to pan up or
down slightly.
The operator
watches the pelvis
of the swimmer on
a monitor. No other
body part will do:
there’s no point
in watching the
head or the legs, as
they’re moving too
quickly, depending on the dive
being performed.
You can see a
demo at www.you
First seen in 1996 in Atlanta, Divecam
tube.com/watch?v tracks the path of a high diver
=DDped9n5_vk
plunging into the pool, traveling at
SC approximately 40 km/h.
issued in 1977, for a Steadicam, I looked
at the expiration (sic) date and I thought to
myself, this will run until I’m 53. I’ll probably
be dead by then!
Well the date came up and I was very
much alive and very shocked to see that
thing expire. But that’s the way the system
works. You get your monopoly briefly.”
What are the challenges in taking to the
next step? To make a model and then go to
manufacture?
“First of all, you rely on the inventive quality of the idea. If it’s really invented, which
means you have some property in that. We
call it laughingly ‘intellectual property’. And
if the idea is valuable.
Is what you wanted valuable to somebody
else? If you’re inventing because you want
one, that’s a brilliant motive. And frankly if
you want it, it’s statistically likely there are
lots of other people who want it.
But don’t invent for money because
that’s a very slippery slope. If you imagine
somebody else might want it but you don’t
necessarily want it, you’re in big trouble.
Then watch out of course for all the
predatory people who lurk around looking
for opportunities. You’ll see ads ‘Let us
market your invention’, they’ll tell you. Most
of those, if not scams, are very unimpressive
in terms of results.
If I were using the glasses for an example I
would take that to manufacturers and try and
find who is the friendliest soul who makes
something closest to what you have
come up with and what manufacturer
would benefit from making this.
And then make a frontal assault on
these guys. And the first thing they’re
going to say is ‘No we’re not interested.’
Or they want you to sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent them
from being sued if they do anything that
may be similar. In some cases you have
no choice but to sign it. But the second
part of this package is that you have to be
willing to spend a little dough. If inventing
is on your mind, think of it as a hobby.
If your hobby was antique cars you’d
spend money on it. If your hobby was
fishing you’d spend money on it. But
people are astoundingly reluctant to
spend their own dough on an invention.
So you should spend money to get the
prototype built well. A machinist is your
best friend. You come in with a sketch
and he’ll build you something.
File a Provisional Patent. One step at
a time. But spend your own dough on
it. That’s a sign of how serious you are.
Inventing is actually a lovely hobby.
Seriously it is. If you start to populate
your life … my boat, everything is full of
one of a kind stuff. It’s really fun.
So you have the joy of owning it, whatever it is and you may have the prospect
of making some money.
But do it in that order: own one first.”
December 2011 25
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