Peter Abraham

This sounds most likely, Rob. I'd forgotten about older gimbals that I had, that sometimes needed a tiny spring steel washer/shim to make them sit totally centered. I've no idea what the tolerances are on the Artemis, having only touched it once or twice briefly at trade shows- and this isn't a cheap shot at another maker. It is just possible that some makers don't adhere to the wicked tight tolerances all around, and this might be a case in point. Trust me, if this IS the problem, it will take a bit of fiddling around until one can get the small thin washers in the right combinations to make the gimbal sit totally centered in the outer yoke. It's not a shimple thing to do. :D

Before the Great Divide, I shot a job with my old MS Elite with a MovieCam Compact for Mercedes Benz. We were doing 40-45 mph in the canyons of lower Manhattan. I was rear-mounted on a vehicle with a stunt driver driving my vehicle, and the C class Benz. There were times when his headlights were...... 5-8 feet from me. :blink: It was a truly fun job, and the footage made em happy. ( which, if I recall correctly, is always the goal, safety aside ). Peter Abraham New York

I don't know of anyone who has so thoughtfully plumbed the depths of proper spinal care, and how to walk in regards to what we do with a Steadicam. Chris's writings on the subject should be regarded as canon, and sought out, and printed. Seriously. Excellently articulated ideas. Read. Absorb. Rinse. Repeat. Peter Abraham New York

What Alec said. The only thing I can add is that some cameras in certain configurations make it wickedly difficult to keep even static balance. The old 2-piece Sony BetaCam ( pre-Beta SP days ) was particularly evil. I think it was the BVW-5 back? Very high specific c.g., especially with a brick battery on top. ( depending on the balance needs of the sled ). Is it possible that the camera is too "high" in it's c.g. ? Peter Abraham New York

In the past, I've quoted prices for the all-imporant Tri-ax to Co-ax adaptor barrels. They allow a Steadicam Operator to use a full-function Tri Ax cabled camera feeding to a remote truck, or studio control room. Quite the handy set to have. Typically we use one female, one male. I just got a catalogue from Markertek, and their prices have come way down. Thought I'd pass this along. Markertek.com Part # TRX2BNCF FEMALE $ 94.99 Part # TRX2BNCM MALE $ 94.99 Quite a change from the older days, when each connector was well over $ 100.00. They interface properly with Kings Tri Ax connectors, so the catalogue says. Peter Abraham New York

I'm six foot two and drive a 1995 diesel Suburban. The veggie conversion kit is in the garden shed, awaiting two or three days off to take it to the Man to have it installed. Interesting indeed. Clearly a correlation. This thread is great, I must say. Sucks, to edit your own reel. Sucks more to love your reel and have someone eviscerate it. Definitely something we all should have to sit through. I went both ways. Sometimes I'd use a bed of music, sometimes the real tracks/dialogue. I did cut an early demo reel to the "White Rock" track by Rick Wakeman from the LP of that same name. A Winter Olympics films soundtrack. ( Can't remember WHICH Olympics. God, my brain ). The music is...frantic, lyrical, fluid, like listening to a musical avalange of speed and prodigious skill. No clue where that reel is. Although the last reel I cut was 10 years ago, I would gladly sit in to a session with the Guild, and have it critiqued. Always time to learn, and listen to the creative reactions of my peers and betters. Charles, I saw a few moments of the premiere as wife was watching it. I saw a stellar long shot, whip pans, from street into interior. Dave, eh? God.... just lovely. Energetic without being sloppy in any way. Humbling. :) Peter Abraham New York

Hey Dave ! Glad it went well for you. The evening you did thag gig I had a conversation with my director about fim shooters v.s. live t.v. shooters, what to expect, what one does when one first steps across the lines into a different arena of camera operating. Undoubtedly the Flyer is a good tool for Tri Ax jobs, given the camera weight + camera mount plate weight + lens weight obey the Golden Poundage Rule. ( 15 pounds, dat's it ! ). As is the case with any rig, very special care is taken to rig the cable as it departs the sled to minimize drag and sway on the rig, and to strain relief it securely before it departs your body. I'd love to see the DVD of what you did. Right on ! Best Peter Abraham New York

Crossed Cables This is a very common situation, and in no way is a flaw or mistake on the part of CP / Tiffen. As the cables move across the rollers, and the springs spring in and out, the spring ends that are turned around the ends of the titanium springs can by the very nature of the way the move, slowly rotate. This can eventually cause the cable to cross. Bits of dust, dirt and grit being rubbed back and forth will cause the plastic sheathing to wear away, and then slowly cause the cables to fray. Eventually they snap. It is nothing at all to eyeball one's spring ends and adjust if need be. No matter how new or old your arm is, the proceedure is the same. It is done in the field, and you don't have to ship it back to the factory to do it. ( I am a huge fan of having my arms completely disassembled and cleaned and reassembled about every 18 months, and did so before I went to a Flyer arm. ) 1. Take off the dust caps if you own a Model I, II , III, III-A or EFP arm. Similarly if you own a MS arm. I haven't handled the Ultra arm enough to know if there is the same kind of dust cap on it, I suspect there are. 2. Have a cloth t shirt or old towel handy. One you are willing to throw out, or wash as a rag. It will get slightly greasy. 3. Cut said rag in two. You will need to cloth "grabs". 4. Grab ahold of the stainless steel spring end in one hand, and the spring itself in the other hand. Dire serious note:: Do not touch the springs with anything metallic or sharp at all. Not even a small scratch. Use a 100 % cotton rag or towel. The slightest mar or scratch will become the fracture point on the surface of the titanium spring coil, and could result in, as they say, catastrophic failure. :huh: 5. Rotate slowly to uncross and align the two cables coming off the rollers at the spring end. That's it. This is a process that occurs naturally, but it takes literatlly hundreds of thousands of "flexes" ( the cables movling slightly as the arm flexes with each step ) for the spring end to slowly rotate. While you've got those dust covers off, no sense passing up a chance to clean off things. Larry McConkey has spread the word on an amazing anti-grime marine sealant, whose name I think is ACF-50?? Anyone have the proper name and a lnk? I used to use it on the MS arm and sled to keep it grime-free. 6. Replace dust covers. As for the new G-50 and G-70 arms, send them to Tiffen for normal cleaning and bearing lube as per any instructions in the manuals. Just so we are clear. I am a huge fan of sending my Steadicam arm back to the factory every year to 18 months, for a complete overhaul and parts replacement where needed. I didn't mean to say that one should deconstruct one's arm while kneeling in the living room in front of a roaring fire or anything. It is a big part of the magic we get to make, and while I tend to be hard on my gear, I am rather genteel and respectful around the arm and gimbal.

The specifics vary from vest to vest, and I am hesitant to get into details of what I do here. It will feel like an advertisement, and there is a Forum already for things for sale. Email me directly, I am most comfortable with working one on one with Ops to do mods to their vests. Best Peter

Hi Folks, With the kind permission of Frank Rush and the folks at the Tiffen Facility in Glendale, I have scheduled another weekend Steadicam Flyer Workshop. It is being held December 16 and 17, 2006. The location is 6933 San Fernando Road, Glendale CA. 91201. Hours are: Sat- 8:30-5:00, Sun- 8:30-6:00. Tuition is $ 500.00, pre-paid through my website using the usual variety of methods. Any questions or concerns, please email me through the web link below. This is the 6th Flyer Workshop in the last year in the L.A. area. They're fun, intensive, and heavily skewed towards the fundamentals of good operating. Come and get hooked on Steadicam ! Best to all, Peter Abraham The Steadicam Workshops

I'll call the man up in a few !! Peter " Why rip when you can click? " Abraham New York

Hi folks, I've arranged for another Steadicam Flyer Workshop. Details below. These have sold out in L.A., Atlanta, New York City and other venues. New York City: Steadicam Flyer Workshop. The dates are Saturday and Sunday, October 21 and 22. This two-day intensive training is being held at Barbizon Electric. It is located at 456 West 55th street, between 9th and 10th avenues. An afternoon of Steadicam Flyer and Merlin demonstrations will be held the day before, on Friday afternoon, October 20th in Barbizon. To pre-pay for the class and therefore reserve a slot for this New York City workshop, visit the website link below Tuition is $ 500.00 The class is limited to 9 students. Instructor: Peter Abraham . To email Peter with any questions, reach him at the website below. http://www.TheSteadicamWorkshops.com Best to all, Peter Abraham New York

Alf, et al, thank you so much. Very cool. Denis, I had one of those 1 and 2,3,4 lifesaver cables too. -grin- GOOD answer. You win :)

-smile- The $ 50.00 is meaningless if it meant you got to be a hero out there on the edge of the water !!!!! Glad I was so pushy. :)

Your modesty is showing again, Alec. :P I had my first gold spring arm break while under load with a regular Ikki 377P. Alec is spot-on, the SMALLEST of scratches or nicks can exacerbate out into a full-scale failure. No clue if I'd shoved a screwdriver in there at some point. Nobody got hurt. I kind of wish I'd kept the broken spring sections- cool souvenir. Sad, about that arm. I FedEx'd it to LA, to have the arm rebuilt. It was scanned into the FedEx office at LAX, and never scanned out. Ever. After a few weeks of an internal FedEx investigation, they did admit that it was stolen by someone within the facility. I took the insurance $$$ and got a new IIIA arm. Yeah, I still use FedEx all the time but god almighty that hurt. Spring failures are rare but do happen. But you know what's really rare?? Having your upper vest spar crack apart on you. Man. That's rare ! Back to you, Alec. ;) Peter Abraham New York

Now now, Alec. Never say " soft " and " Steadicam " in the same sentence. --shudder-- :huh:

Excellent, thanks. Now, if a train leaves the Santa Ana station heading northwest towards Chicago at 62mph, and at the same time another train leaves 30th Street Station in Philly heading south for Atlanta, what was the pin configuration for the early MovieCam Compact bodies that got switched to 24 volts? :D (Bonus points if you can identify the difference with Hand-Held Films bodies opposed to every other freakin' body out there..... )

I had this vague memory of being told that Ted Churchill was one of the hand-held cameramen at "Woodstock" who shot a lot of the stage performances. It's not on his IMDB. Anyone know definitively if this is b.s. that was passed along, or if he really did do some of the shooting. Best to all, Peter Abraham

Additionally, the MS Film had a set of electronics that my MS Elite did not. Bubble level, etc. The SOA links through to an exhaustively interesting paper written by some fine person that lists the breakdowns of features for various rigs. Manuals Page for SOA. Click on Steadicam Resource Manual. Best Peter Abraham New York

You know what they say- Video Killed The Radio Star. ;) I shot a shitload of music videos before The Winter Of My Discontent. Most were atrociously poorly designed, some were outright dangerous. A few were elegantly fun. Fascinating way to pay the mortgage, shooting music videos. Let's not let this thread degrade, it's a great treat to see this stuff via these links. Kudos to those linking stuff through. Peter Abraham New York

God bless you, sir. I don't plan to stop for another 20 years, I'm 44 and have 20 years in a rig already. It has literally been the cornerstone of my belief for the last few years that the cameras will come to me. Weightwise, and with appropriate accessories. 15 pounds is the Magical Number. All that we need for a given shoot, at that weight threshold up top on the mounting plate. The bits and parts and cameras themselves are indeed coming towards this goal. I'm a patient man, and love what I do. Peter " Respect That Threshold " Abraham New York Stuttgart Addis Abbaba Nice Vladivastock Rome The Other Rome Skanneatolis Porquis Junction Ontario

" I look forward to sleeping with you. " " Me too ! " -cackle- God I'd forgotten all about this. I've never seen Ted's A Day In The Life Of A Steadicam Operator. My understanding is that he nails it. Anyone have it? Peter Abraham New York

I disagree !!! The bit where he's walking up and down the steps a la Rocky?? PRICELESS. Anyone else notice the thin black cord running from the camera around the fellow's neck, so that he could do tricks like barely touch the handlebars and still keep the camera upright? Guys, we've been Whooshed. A great laugh, nothing more. Peter Abraham New York

I'm about to install ( or, wire outboard.... ) a two-in and four-out video DA. I've been mowing the lawn. I love mowing the lawn. I smell funky, am covered in a sheen of sweat and have good Think Time. Here is what I think. The SupaCam has a shared In/Out. The camera needs to be told which way the signal is going, and the sled needs to not be bollixed up. Would this work? 1. Take the common signal wires from the SupaCam, which we shall now call CS. Run them into an A/B switch of quantuum-like smallness. 2. Take the A output of the CS and run it into the # 1 input on my DA. 3. Take the B output of the CS and run it into the #1 OUTPUT of my DA. 4. Take my sled video out and run it into the #2 input of my DA. 5. Take the #2 output from the DA, run it to my monitor. If I run video into my sled, it hits #2 input and is DA'd. The signal runs out of the DA, going to my monitor ( # 2 output ) and back into my CS line, from #1 output. It hits the A/B switch, which is set to B ( accepting incoming video signals ), and runs down the lines, into the 3-conductor + ground mini plug on the SupaCam. You hit record, you record video. The monitor has a signal ( as do xmitter, etc. ). To play back, I have to do two simple things: 1. Flip the A/B switch to A. This is feeding the signal from CS through the switch, down the line into the #1 Input of my D/A. The D/A sees this signal, and distributes to the monitor and xmitter. It can NOT feedback into the SupaCam, because the A/B switch is stopping a two-way flow. 2. Turn off my video camera up top. Lacking a secondary signal into the two-signal D/A, the D/A can only process the signal it sees- which will be the #1 input signal from the CS. I say videocamera, but of course, the onboard is used for film shoots. Powering down the video tap to cut off the #2 D/A input signal is necessary to avoid feedback it seems, and is nice to do anyway cause it saves on juice. Thoughts? Forget the power voltage regulator issue, let's assume I covered that already. Why won't this work with my D/A, and a very small A/B switch? I could wire the A/B circuit into a small metal J-box that I'm building for the bottom of my rig, therefore avoiding any feedback issues. Peter " I must now go finish the lawn " Abraham oh, and Jim, the Fed Ex guy is hung up at the beach. He'll be there by 2:30 :D Here's the DA of which I speak so fondly. Micro DA

Hmmmm. Mine is still in the box, I've not gotten into the next project on my lightweight sled- a small J_Box on the bottom. Seems I need to build in a voltage regulator circuit. Why can't I wire the video from the SupaCam the way the IIIA sled or MS or Ultra sleds are wired- pass video through a switch. Throw it one way, get video from the camera up top. Throw it the other way, get video from the on-board recorder? I'm missing something here. What is it ? :) Peter " Loves Foam-Core Weight Technology " Abraham New York