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TAKING
THE
BUMPS
OUT OF
THE
MOVIES
I
n my early years as a TV commercial Director in the mid 50s, I
well remember working with cameramen who had been in the industry
during WW2 and before.
Some had been combat cameramen,
others had shot feature films and
documentaries.
The equipment they worked with
was magnificently engineered but built
like the proverbial battleship.
The mainstay camera of the time
was the American-made 35mm Mitchell BNC, sound-proofed, carrying a
1000 foot magazine and fitted with
an industrial strength viewing system
that gave you two options.
One was to rack over the camera so
you could preview and focus the scene
through the lens — but not shoot; the
other used a parallax-correctable viewfinder that fitted onto the side of the
camera, so you could view the scene
while you shot, while the lens’ light
path went direct to the film.
It usually took two men to carry
and fit the Mitchell to a support base,
usually a heavy duty tripod or a dolly.
The other camera that was usually used for location work was the
German-made 35mm Arriflex, weigh22 Silicon Chip
ing only a few kilos, compact in size
and driven by a small set of portable
batteries.
Only the cameraman could view
the scene while he photographed.
This was the world’s first mirror reflex motion picture camera and saw
considerable use by German newsreel
cameramen throughout WW2.
If a director wanted the camera to
move during a shot he could only
request a dolly or a crane shot, necessitating mounting a camera on a substantial, metal-built dolly or a wooden
platform with rubber wheels called a
western dolly — or a crane that could
not only move the camera forward but
up and down and laterally as well.
But to operate these devices you
needed the manpower of the studio
grips to push and manoeuvre them
around.
A handheld shot was definitely not
possible unless the cameraman was
willing to use the Arri and fly blind,
without the ability to view what the
camera was photographing.
The zoom lens, as another way of
changing the camera viewpoint did
not come into general use for 35mm
cinematography until the 1960s.
For more than 30
years Steadicam®,
a system to stabilise
the camera in film
and video production
has been a mainstay
of the industry. But
Garrett Brown,
inventor of the
device has not stood
still. So, today there
is Steadicam, son of
Steadicam, son of
son of Steadicam . . .
Part One –
by Barrie Smith
Then Garrett Brown, a native of
Philadelphia, sat down and did some
hard thinking.
Garrett’s great idea
Beginning as a folk singer, he made
an early entré into advertising as a
copywriter. Next stop was to open a
small film production company, using
a Afrika Korps (Rommel-era) Arriflex,
strapped to a 360kg dolly, shooting TV
commercials.
Brown recalls in a 1972 interview
that it “broke our hearts lugging this
dolly around in pickup trucks … but
I loved the moving camera.”
Commercials with technical challenges interested him the most. On one
occasion he put together a rig for an
advert that allowed the camera to move
freely through the rooms of a house.
Taking the idea further he spent a
week locked up in a motel and built a
series of gadgets to do this, traveling
down a couple of unproductive roads
and although he felt he could actually
make stable shots, the gadgets were not
‘manufacturable’.
An early approach was to use a
length of plumbing pipe as a support,
which was stable in all directions as
siliconchip.com.au
The younger Garrett Brown
operated his Steadicam
prototype for the first time on
the feature film “Bound for
Glory” in 1975. The director’s
first shot called for Brown to
mix a complicated crane shot
that began ten metres up in the
air, descend, then he walked off
with the Steadicam.
you moved around. Brown recalls that
it “was clumsy and rolled a lot”, but
the footage shot with it looked surprisingly good.
Then Brown mounted the camera on
his body. Next, he worked out how to
balance the camera so that it was easily
movable. He used some of the heavi-
est camera parts, such as the battery,
as counterweights. Along the way he
experimented with bungee cords and
gyroscopes.
Brown went even further, building
a body harness, moving the camera
away from the operator’s body and
floating it, while maintaining a level
point of view as it moved
up and down.
At this point he had a
working rig and was able
to shoot TV ads with it,
getting the agency guys to
sign confidentiality agreements to keep details of the
invention from leaking out.
It’s worth noting that
there is no gyroscope in the
Steadicam.
Stabilising is achieved
by shifting the camera’s
relation to the operator
from being handheld to
body-supported, augmented by the stabilising force
of springs and pulleys in
the arm that connects the
camera to the body.
It was 1974 and Brown
felt he had to make a move:
he approached Panavision,
whose people were “dying to see what the device
looked like.”
His demo visit to Panavision went badly: after
showing a film he had made
with the new invention, the
Panavision people were
keen to actually see the gear.
Brown asked them to sign a nondisclosure document to protect his
design. The Panavision executives
refused and that was the end of it.
However, the same day, Brown
went to see Cinema Products Co. The
President, Ed DiGiulio had no problem
signing the non-disclosure.
As Brown recalls it “Within a day
we had the bones of a contract and CP
launched on building the Steadicam.
The rest is history.”
Panaglide
Australian cinematographer Kane Guglielmi operating a Steadicam, with the
ability to view what he is shooting on a low-set LCD screen.
siliconchip.com.au
As a footnote to Panavision’s interest in the device, some years later the
company came out with Panaglide, as
Brown describes it: “a nearly exact copy
of Steadicam . . .” While he had offered
them the device first, they stalled and then
tried to do their own, spending a reputed
four million dollars in their efforts.
“Funny thing was that none of their
efforts were functional until they hid out
in the scenery and photographed our
prototypes and did it the same — part for
part …. On being sued, they folded and
became a licensee, and eventually just
bought Steadicam gear from us.”
November 2011 23
It made its debut in the movie Bound
for Glory (1976).
The view
However I may have wished that my
1950s cameramen could have shot handheld, it’s obvious to me now that the camera’s weight was not the main obstacle to
freeing it
up.
operator
now has a
small LCD screen
mounted beneath
his rig so he can see
what he is shooting.
How it works
Users of digital still
and video cameras have
it easy! Stabilising of
Steadicam
Archer
At that
time there
was only one way that
the operator could
view the scene before
the lens: with his eye
stuck to the viewfinder! He was bound to
the lens.
Brown explains
that, aside from isolating the operator from
the camera, he also
realised it was not the
only challenge: in his
first Steadicam he ran
a fibre optic cable from the
camera viewfinder
all the way up to
the operator’s eye.
At last, operator and camera
could be remote from each other.
Today, the system relies on a
video split or assist, with a portion
of the camera’s incoming light path
diverted to a video sensor and the
rest to the actual film frame or image
sensor, in the case of a video camera.
These days, the cameraman and
Director – and, sometimes unfortunately, the rest of the crew as well
– can see each take of the action as
it happens.
Most importantly, the Steadicam
(left): the top model, the Steadicam
Ultra, able to support a 22kg film or
video camera.
24 Silicon Chip
these (where fitted)
is usually handled by
steadying either the lens or
the image sensor itself.
With the former, unwanted
motion is detected by an angular velocity sensor and this
information then controls and
alters the angle of an element within
the lens.
In the latter case, sensors detect motion or vibration and this information is
used to move the image sensor (CCD or
CMOS) itself, so that the incoming image
is captured correctly.
When an operator holds a motion
picture or broadcast camera and moves
forward, movement of the body, arms
and legs is transmitted to the camera.
Steadicam seeks to counteract this.
Even when a cameraman stands still,
it is still likely that unwanted movement
is passed on to the camera. The problem
lies in the human perception’s ability to
iron out bumps as we walk and talk; we
just don’t realise how shaky the camera’s
view actually is.
Garrett Brown’s invention set out to
isolate the camera from the cameraman
and, in the process, dampen shocks and
bumps.
The basic component in Steadicam is
the vest, worn on the operator’s upper
body.
Attached to this vest is an articulated
arm, consisting of three segments, with
two lengths connected by a pivoting
hinge; the vest and arm isolate the camera
from the operator’s body. This arm supports a sled or platform that holds the
camera, viewfinder, battery etc.
Isolation is achieved with the arm,
which is made up of a combination of
springs, cables and pulleys.
It’s an articulated support system
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that parallels the operator’s arm in
any position and almost completely
counteracts the weight of the sled/
camera combination with a carefully
calibrated spring force.
One of the Steadicam models (Master Series) is iso-elastic and thus completely counteracts the camera weight,
being able to hold the latter’s position
in space when placed and released.
The arm and sled support the
camera, etc on a central pole, so the
main weight is far removed from the
operator’s body.
This arrangement can also be reversed so that camera is below, with
the other items above, allowing the
operator to shoot low angle shots.
Each arm segment resembles a
parallelogram, being made up of two
metal bars. As with any parallelogram,
the metal bars will remain parallel
with each other no matter where the
arm is positioned.
The end blocks are secured to the
ends of the parallel bars, so they will
remain in the same position as the arm
swings up and down.
A camera attached to one of the
end pieces keeps pointing in approximately the same direction.
However another trick is used to
maintain the sled in a level attitude:
parallel metal bars in each arm are
connected together with a spring system. The system is set up to exactly
match the
downward
force of the
The Shining (1980),
saw director
Stanley Kubrick use
Brown to capture
a Steadicam shot
to zip down the
hallways of a
haunted hotel, and
another to follow
Jack Nicholson
through a snowy
hedge maze.
sled’s weight.
So the arm and the camera sled will
stay in the same position until the
cameraman shifts the camera up and
down. The springs can be adjusted to
handle different camera weights and
cushion bumps caused by operator
movement.
The camera’s weight is supported
by the vest. The operator has only to
aim the camera!
In 1976 Garrett Brown
was asked by Director
John Avildsen to operate
his Steadicam on the
feature Rocky. This let
the audience follow
Sylvester Stallone as
he ran up the steps of
the Philadelphia Art
Museum. Pre-Steadicam,
an unachievable shot.
siliconchip.com.au
Operating a Steadicam is one of the
most difficult jobs on a movie set, but
also one the most rewarding.
For a typical Steadicam shot, a
cameraman must follow a preset path,
while simultaneously adjusting the
camera and avoiding any obstacles, all
the while supporting more than 30kg
or more of camera equipment.
Centres of gravity and mass
The centre of gravity is the point
at which an object is in balance in all
directions, and from which an object
can be manipulated without adding
any additional motion. Steadicam
works by bringing the camera’s centre of gravity, or centre of mass, from
somewhere inside the camera to outside the camera and placing it where
the operator can manipulate it.
The centre of mass (which differs
to the centre of gravity, theoretically,
although not in actual practice) is the
point at which an object is in balance
in all three dimensions, and this is
what the gimbal is used for, as it precisely intersects the three axes and lets
the operator control the camera from
its centre of gravity.
This is the beauty of the Steadicam
system. It’s very simple. It achieves
its results by using mass, balance and
inertia.
The job requires a good deal of
November 2011 25
physical stamina and technical skill,
but it also calls for a good sense of
shot composition. The Director plans
the shot, but the Steadicam operator
makes it happen.
The best technique for Steadicam
operation depends entirely on the
nature of the shot.
To film a simple conversation between two actors, an operator may
try to replicate the even feel of a dolly
shot, keeping the camera perfectly
level and moving it slowly around
the action.
For a “flying sequence” over low
ground, the operator might intentionally tilt the camera from side to side,
creating a soaring effect.
One of the most common uses of
the Steadicam is to track actors as
they move around obstacles or rough
ground.
Typically, the operator will walk
ahead of the actors, shooting them
from the front as they walk and talk.
For this sort of shot, the operator
may walk backwards through the
scene, with the help of other crew
members. He or she may also walk
forward, with the camera pointing
behind.
For these shots, and most any other
shot, the director, the crew and the
operator will all work together to figure
out the best approach.
Most professional Steadicam op-
Legal (and Illegal) Copies
There are a number of illegal copies of Steadicam
being made in Asia and Europe (such as that shown
here). I asked Brown what could he do about it? Now
that the name is almost part of the language what
action can you take? Are the patents still current?
Brown: “Most of the 40 or so copies in the world
are legal... based on my original patent suit that expired in the mid ‘90s. We have a dozen or so patents
on improvements and some Chinese rigs infringe a
few of them. All we can do is go after them if they try
to market the gear in the West. But the Steadicam
trademark itself is vigorously protected. Wouldn’t
want it to become generic while I’m still upright and
inventing new stuff!”
erators work freelance, renting themselves as well as their equipment out
as a complete package. When a scene
in a film calls for a Steadicam shot,
the filmmakers will select a Steadicam
operator based on his or her past work.
Most established Steadicam operators are members of the Steadicam
Operators Association (SOA).
In addition to representing hundreds of Steadicam operators, the
SOA holds regular Steadicam training workshops. Tiffen, the company
that manufactures Steadicams, also
organises training sessions.
Steadicam operators have helped
create some of the most memorable
shots in film history.
In Rocky (1976), one of the first feature films to use Steadicams, operator
Garrett Brown let the audience follow
Sylvester Stallone as he ran up the
steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.
This shot, one of the most memorable in the movie, would have been
nearly impossible before the Steadicam.
In The Shining (1980), director Stanley Kubrick used a Steadicam shot to
zip down the hallways of a haunted
hotel, and another to follow Jack Nicholson through a snowy hedge maze.
In the latter, Brown had to walk
backwards, revealing the snow-covered ground. In order to conceal his
own footsteps, he walked on stilts!
In addition to standard film models,
there are Steadicams for lighter video
cameras and there are specialised
models such as Tango that take the
principle even further.
The Tiffen Company has taken over
from Cinema Products and makes
Steadicams for the worldwide market.
In July this year, Brown and his
associate Jerry Holway held courses
in Steadicam operation in Australia.
I took the opportunity to speak with
both of them – more of this in part two.
Part Two
In July this year Garrett Brown and
associate Jerry Holway travelled to
Sydney to host a series of Steadicam
courses.
26 Silicon Chip
Seemingly unable to stop inventing
more technology, Garrett Brown soon
moved on from Steadicam and came
up with ways of moving a camera above
and across a sports field, or down into a
pool as a diver descended and tracking
with swimmers as they moved from one
end of the pool to the other.
This and more in Steadicam Part Two,
coming next month in SILICON CHIP. SC
siliconchip.com.au
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