Mike McGowan SOC

This is why having an agent is so critical, a contract takes all the guess work out of something like this.

I use 2 x 2722's so I can charge four at the same time. I also use Hytron 140's for my front battery and those last pretty much all day. I just got a few HC's and they work really nice. Other than that, I have 9 x Hytron 50's. Also, the way things are these days, I'm using HD cameras more and more often. In those situations, I almost always have the AC bring their own batteries and chargers as well and power off the camera (instead of my rig) whenever possible (one less thing for me to think about).

id take more frames, not less... you can always speed it up in post, you can't slow it down.

dslr (like a d5) in time laps mode. cheep, small, easy to set up and use. you can swap out cards whenever you get a chance.

humm........ so your saying that if i have one black and one blue in each section it doesn't matter if i add one turn to a black or one turn to a blue, it would end up changing the weight the exact same amount? that doesn't seem possible. i understand that you only need to adjust one spring per section but the black spring adds more tension with less turns than a blue spring does, no?

interesting. your looking to make bigger adjustments more quickly. my goal is to do more fine adjustment more quickly. of course, with the pro arm you can basically make a really fine adjustment with the black spring by just making a slight turn.............. ill have to mess around with that. on topic, the idea either way is to have the easiest access to the springs you use most. @jerry........ i dont even think i notice a difference but ill play with them tomorrow on set and see what i notice.

i cant say that my advice is correct, just that it works for me. that being said................. i generally use 2 blacks and 2 blues. i have the blacks in the upper top half and the lower bottom half (this way i can easily adjust the blues while im wearing the rig). i also find that (particularly with the wide variety of cameras being used these days D5 to arri cam's) i switch my springs a lot. i rarely use 4 blacks (lucky me) and i occasionally use only 2 blues (like for a D5). 2 and 2 seems to be the best combination for me. ive also noticed that (and again, im not joe tec so take this with a grain of salt) pretty much anything i try on the pro arm works. it just rolls with the punches. in summary, id say, if it works us it. maybe somebody techie will come on and let you know how your supposed to do it. my 2 cents.

I agree that it sounds like neither the DP or the AC knew what they were doing. I shoot with the RED all the time and I don't even use that color check button. As for the AC, it depends on the lenses you were using but it's fair to say that the should get their marks with a tape measure most of the time. An out side of the box answer is to either get a rolling stand or (what I use) a cart/stand. Then when the AC or DP want to look, you can point at the rig and say, "knock your self out". Obviously you will need to frame up for both the AC and the DP (as Eric said, it's part of the job) but you might have saved a few lifts if your stand was on wheels. A side note (part 2) is I go out of my way when shooting with the RED on steadicam to use cards and power the sled from my rig. The 16 gig cards can do most of what you want on the RED apart from high frame rates. The combination of the drive and the battery not on the camera does help quite a bit over the course of the day. My 2 cents.

nice looking spot!

Hey Kurt! Sorry your having such a hard time. I recommended this site to you because my experience has been that most of the people here are pretty cool and generally they have answers to pretty much any steadicam related question you could have. Don't worry about the a$$hole attitude you got about not using your exact name. While I agree it is nice to use your name so everybody knows who they are talking to, the way we go about telling people that they used the wrong name is sometimes ridiculous. I know it is in the forum guidelines (as I just read them for the first time) but at least half of the people that register don't read those rules. Some of those people get a friendly reminder to change their screen name to their actual name (like I did when I used something else) and some of them get the screen name Nazi 'reminder'. The one that attempts to make you feel like some kind of fool for not reading the stupid forum guildelines. I'm a member of at least 50 on line forums and I have never read the forum rules on a single one. That includes the forum I was the lead administrator for 5 years. A forum that was easily a thousand times larger and more active. I'm also sorry that your getting the 'My rig is a big boy rig and your little baby rig is so small I don't have time to think about it' attitude. I'm sure you will find that the large majority of the people on this site are super cool and don't have that kind of attitude. Just a few people that feel the need to talk about how great they are. Those people should probably realize that with the advent of the super high quality - super small size camera, the smaller steadicam's are an ever increasing part of the steadicam market. Some of those 'big boy' operators with their 'big boy' rigs might find they start loosing work to solid operators like yourself with smaller rigs and cameras that they don't have to charge a metric fcuk ton of money to rent because they didn't need a second mortgage on their house to pay for. Anyway, I'm very happy with my Boland monitor but I'm pretty sure that even their smallest monitor is too big and too expensive to be a good candidate to replace your monitor on your mini. I know Terry West can make any cable you could need so whatever monitor you end up with, I'm sure he can make the correct cables to make it work on your sled. Hopefully somebody on the site can give you some help full information about some monitor options. Good luck,

For reference, the day I saw the unicycle video that was posted a few months (maybe a year) ago I went out and bought one. I've been working on riding it and while I can ride it decently, I would not even consider getting on it with a rig (not even a mini dv rig) unless I got a lot better. Like I was saying before, I can skate really, really, really well so it doesn't seem like a big deal to add the rig.

Just me (and mostly because my don juan sucks ass) but I would walk up backwards. I get a good grip (the dolly grip usually has the best sense of these things) and i have them 'dolly' me up the stairs. This approach doesn't work well for everybody as walking up stairs backwards is not super easy. To be honest though, the 535 would make that shot pretty tricky for anybody. my 2.

lol, i was just making an attempt at humor saying, "ive done a big show or two and i was asked to use my rollerblades" and yes, super cheese on my picture but that is kind of how i roll :D just checked and not a single rollerblade shot on my current reel. like i said 99% of the time there is a better option but they do come in handy now and again.

I did a music video yesterday and just since we were talking about it I did a few takes one handed. I'm the only one that noticed but then again it was a music video.

lol, well first, were not arguing, just having a spirited discussion! like i said above, it's a case specific, person to person situation. doing a back flip on a dirt bike seems like an insane operation to me but to somebody who can pull a double back flip, a single is a piece of cake. if you happen to be a fantastic rollerblader (i won a state freestyle championship when i was 20), skating with a rig is not much different than walking with one. there is a national commercial on right now (like literally turn your tv on now to a network, watch for half an hour and you will see the spot) for sonic burger. the spot is 'from where im skating' playing on the fact that the car hops at sonic skate to bring you your food. if you watch the spot, you will see that every single shot is moving a fair distance at a decent speed with skating talent. that spot had a reasonably big name commercial director and dp (and i acknowledge the difference between commercials and features and television) and a big budget. i was flown in and paid a pretty big chunk of money to skate with a steadicam for two days. it was pretty much one of the only ways to shoot that spot and achieve that specific look. so is it right for everybody, hell know. is it less safe than standing still, yes. is it a good way to shoot 99% of the time, not really. is it a handy skill to have, in my book, yes. i think if you look at the old book by ted churchill, the 'steadicam operators manual' you will see a pair of rollerskates in his kit.

I agree 2000% um, no. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004426/ http://www.mikemcgowan.net/ If you can skate really good it's actually safer in some ways than running. And when your doing action, you get asked by some arguably pretty professional people to do all sorts of things. "Riding on anything pushed/pulled/driven by someone else is USUALLY but not always the best scenario so you can concentrate on good operating instead of just trying to stay vertical and not die." I agree with most of what you said but this is an artistic as well as a technical medium and there are not really any rules when it comes to art, at least none that can't be broken with some pretty awesome results.

Yep. I do it all the time. With a full sized rig it has limits but it does allow for a cheap quick and easy leading a running actor shot. With a smaller rig and a mini dv or dslr camera you can actually kick a little ass and fly around with it. The biggest problem is that you have to be a pretty good skater to even try it and there are not a lot of people that are that good at skating and also operate steadicam.

I'd say almost 50% of my work the last few years has been doing car and other vehicle (usually high speed vehicle) work. Your question has a 2 part answer.... First the rigging part. You need to attach the camera to something and you need to attach yourself to something. There are several mounts out there that can attach you to all types of things. Some go into 2" standard trailer mounts, some attach to a Mitchel plate and some attach to speed rail. I personally use this mount (http://www.walterklassen.com/vehiclemount.htm) and have found it to be quite excellent. I don't generally like to be attached to the rig if I have the option to attach the rig to something that doesn't require a chiropractor. Then there is the arm and finally the rig itself. Now for the rig itself, you can get gyros and antlers and a few other things to help make the rig handle the inertia of starting, stopping and turning that usually happens on a vehicle. I have a rig I built (I call it the 'HyperCam') that I have been meaning to re-design and make a batch of a dozen or so for other people that want one. The last bit of rigging is how you attach yourself to whatever your riding in/on. Personally, I don't get in or on stuff that I don't completely know and trust the driver. I've seen too many 'mistakes' with moving vehicles and if your hanging off the side of one with 50 lbs of swinging aluminum a small mistake can be pretty big. If you go to my web site: www.mikemcgowan.net and check out the 'HyperCam' section, the 'Equipment' section and the 'Pictures' section you will see some pictures and video of various ways I have attached myself to things that move. The second part is your comfort level with what your doing. It's your physical comfort (am I being pulled in a way that hurts my back) and then your mental comfort. I think it's probably pretty hard to operate well if your thinking about how much pain your in, how hard it is to hold the rig still, how hard it is to see the monitor and whether or not your going to crash and die. I can't say for sure but a rock climbing course might be a good thing. I've been climbing since I was a kid and the rigging part of climbing translates well into vehicle mounts. If you just know exactly how you want to be attached and what tools you need to attach yourself you can set yourself up more quickly, more comfortably and more safely. There is the skill (I guess you can call it a skill) that allows you to turn off all the other stuff and just frame. That is harder to do when your flying down a road at 50 or 60 miles per hour a few inches off the ground with cars sliding past you. So I guess the short answer is, yes, get a vehicle mount of some sort. The part 'B' is that practice doing vehicle shots will greatly enhance the overall quality (and comfort) of what your doing.

I have a different spin on the topic. It seems there is a greater and greater demand to work with super small cameras like the Cannon D5 or D7 or other mini dv cameras. Why not get one of the smaller rigs like a Jr or some other smaller rig and get the newest most kick ass DSLR or Mini dv camera? I am 100% sure you could do great operating with one of those with a little practice.

Yea, I have a few friends that I debate this stuff on a sort of political forum, it's an endless discussion.... However, I'm hoping we can stick to the, "now that it's been passed (or on it's way to being passed) what can we expect the impact will be to us as camera people and union members?" topic. Any thoughts?

Any smart people have any thoughts as to how Obama Care will effect our union health insurance (if at all)? I'm not looking for a political discussion (Voted for Obama, glad I did, wanted health care reform, would have liked it if it was better than it was but all and all glad it passed) just some facts or factual insights about how this may effect our hours (400/300/500/etc.).

Everybody wants something different. Personally, I want something that I can drop from ten feet on to concrete, pick it up and use it for under 5 grand.

Wow, cool stuff........ I thought something else that may help. You (since you are using a RED) could over crank. That way you could move at a more comfortable speed (instead of super slow) and still have a nice smooth shot. And a side note.... My wife is a vet and I just asked her about the whole horse thing. She gave me a strange look and asked why. I gave here the (don't worry, I'm not actually going to try it in the garage look) and so she reluctantly replied that yes, she can skin a horse and that it's just like skinning every other animal. Learning new stuff every day :D

Many ways to skin a horse... If you are only shooting up, you could balance the rig totally (or almost totally) neutral with your monitor tilted up and just point the rig upward. Depending on the rig there are other rig specific options. My first choice if possible would be to use a vehicle mount on an atv or golf cart and just sit and point. my 2 cents.

wow, that's a load of batts! Over 9 lbs...but it's nice to have tons of power though! I've never owned the d-90's but so far the hc's are working well in my limited anton bauer experience. They were $420 at Band Pro in Dec so I bet they are even less now. I was just flying an f-35 on a pilot -- powering the camera (no deck), tb-6, preston, camwave, and cinetape off one hc and one d-160 for every shot all day. In addition to my lower disc, I'd go through maybe 4 or 5 hc's and 3 d-160's. I didn't try it with only 2 hc's, I only have 6 and I knew with the amount we were doing on the steadicam I'd go through them faster than I could charge them. rb i hate having to turn my monitor on and off, especially on hd jobs. with the 140 i can pretty much turn it on at call and leave it on until wrap. the 2 50's last (on a 24 volt camera) any where from a third of the day to much less than that depending on how much film were shooting. i also like the extra weight of the 140 as it makes up for the loss in weight going from a greenie to my 8.4.