Returned a week later to shoot some night club scenes in La Lea in the centre of Belfast…great night shooting and a great turnout of extras.
TQ flying GPI PRO with RED1
Here is a shot for my in the rig on location. Most of the shots that evening were tracking…leading and following with some 180′s. Great to work with such a professional crew really makes my life easier.
I got a chance to use the new Carl Zeiss Master series lenses on the Steadicam recently. These prime lenses work at extremely low light (T1.3) and weigh nearly 2.5kg. That’s a lots of glass! The front element is 140mm so we needed to make sure we had a full set of step rings for the clip-on matte box. (All the camera kit was supplied effortlesly by Vast Valley.)
In spite of all the weight, I was delighted how the Steadicam rig balanced and the Preston Follow Focus is really working sweetly after her service over with Howard Preston.
This was a night shoot and one of the shots was using the 35mm T1.3 on the Red Mysterium-X camera leading a girl down Ship Quay Street in Derry at 48 fps.
The production working title is Limbo, and I was working with the extremely talented director Kieron J Walsh and his DoP, David Rom. The Steadicam shots looked great on playback so looking forward to seeing the finished product.
Nervous times for me, as my Preston Follow Focus in over in LA with Howard Preston having her biannual check-up. She is getting a fimware upgrade and her motors recallibrated, and is being fitted with a new digital micro-force zoom control. I checked in with Leticia last night and the surgery went well. Anxiously waiting to welcome her back to Ireland as a full flyaway complete package. Looking forward to seeing her on some cranes and handheld configurations as well as the Steadicam in 2011.
Preston Hand unit 2 with digital microforce control and MDR
Thanks to Aido for sharing this little gem. Apparantly chickens have a neck gimble, could this be the next cost effective way of creating micro-steadicams. Great little video of chicken VS handheld VS headcam. Is this the future?
The inspiration for this video came from this one…
Welcome to my blog about Steadicam and the trials and tribulations of life as a Steadicam op. I have worked as a Steadicam operator for almost 20 years, working in London, Seattle, LA, New York, Dubai, Paris and most recently in Dublin. I’ll be updating this blog with images from the various shoots I have worked on recently, and also some musings about the fun of keeping all the kit up to spec and working.
