Peter Hoare

I did it the poor-op's way :-D

This is the best I got...

I had loads, but my laptop was recently stolen and I lost them all.. Might have one or two somewhere, il have a dig about...

Hi, I flew a stripped down red on my flyer and it struggled. The only reason it was abit tight was because I had to use the redbrick which made the rig 2-3kg heavier (with the battery plate and battery). The new Flyer LE comes in a special Red package that includes a red power cable so you can use the red without its own battery. Also dont forget the Red only ouputs HDSDI so a normal flyer monitor will not display anything from it. When i flew red, I had to stick the 5inch red screen on the camera with a Noga arm which worked fine. Got very nice footage from it though, did some overcranked to 120fps and it looked great, nice camera to fly. We were using a Zeiss 28mm lens.

Why would you be ouputting HDSDI whilst you were on the sled? I had an EX1 on my jib once and the monitor just plugged into the BNC video output and it was fine...

Robin Thwaites and James Ellias can both help. Phone them at Tiffen Europe in Oxford. (0)1869 343835

Im also pretty interested in using my flyer monitor seperatly, so I was going to knock myself up a cable to use... let me know if you want one Edwin, im sure we can sort something out....

The bebob is ok. i got a manfrotto one which is qutie nice and will work with the V1. Your going to find it hard to operate that as you operate the sled, any pushes will set it on the wonk....

Hi Jay, Tiffen Europe do workshops. Im booked onto the next one (starts in a few weeks) but it sells out in no time, as theres only about 6 places. I think they only run them once or twice a year. The NFTS in Beaconsfeild (not far from you, and 2mins from me) also do a course but I wanted to do the official one. With regards to sticking stuff on the camera, people usually have a remote focus and a video transmitter. Sometimes lights etc etc. I am doing a job at the moment with a redrock and I have the focus motor and video transmitter, both clamped to the support rails at the back of the camera. It works but its not very elegant :-D Most cameras would usually use a remote follow focus. The standard is the bartech which isa about 1000 GBP for the transmitter, and about another 1000 for the motor. I sometimes practice with my FX1, and I keep everything in manual but the focus. Its frustrating to see the focus pulling all over the place as you move but you can see what your filming, and its never used this way on a proper shot. The focus receiver and video transmitter is usually powered off the steadicam sled. I know you mentioned you use Vlok batteries on your pilot, but Im not sure if the battery plate has a 12v output plug on it or not? The flyer and up has a 12v power rail on the sled for powering these gadgets.

Hi, Thanks for your input. I know im still new to this and any words of advice helps. As for the poem, the fact it gets boring or whatever dosn't really bother me, this was purely a steadicam practice exercise. I knew the arm was adjusted badly as soon as i picked the camera up, but it looked like it was going to rain, so we did the walk pretty quickly. Im going to have another go next week and put your comments into action. Anything else I should know? Thanks, Pete.

Hi, Ive had my flyer about two months now and this is the first time I have really 'published' any of the footage. I decided the first two months would just be private practice. After seeing the great walk n talk thing on the graham norton show the other week, I thought id give it a go. I used an FX1, weighted by about 3kg. As I mentioned in the video description, I let go of the gimbal handle towards the end and the arm was adjusted wrongly and the sled immediately tried to fly away from me, so it goes on the piss for some of it. I think ive improved though, my horizon whilst still not perfect is a lot better than it was. Any criticsm and tips (or compliments if necessary :lol: ) would be great. Link

Hmm, looks like someone wasnt too happy with the steadicam work.... What kind of name is that for a media company :-S

I was on a shoot the other week and the sound man (Mike Palmer, nice guy) told me his uncle was the operator for this long shot. I wonder if I could get some work experience with him :-D

Im really pleased I saw this, Ive going on the workshop in the UK in May. Looking forward to it. Do i have to take my own camera :huh:

Mm looks nice, quite cheap too... Will there be one at the workshop?

I looked at one of these a while ago, the one you buy depends really on weather you want to use it for film or research. you can get a camera from a company called Photron pretty cheap. They do these Fastcam PCI cameras that is a camera head, and a big thick cable that goes to a PCI card. The PCI card has a load of solid state storage on board, and the camera dumps its images onto the solid state storage before it is copied to the hard drive. When i was looking at it it was about 15GBP for a colour system doing 2000fps at full frame, up to 150,000fps at reduced frame/reduced res. Failing that, Olympus do one called the iSpeed which is quite neat, as its an all in one system with a touchscreen controller/storage device. Once you get your camera, I got some pretty cool fast things you can use to test it out, I got a gun that shoots beer cans (full ones) at 400mph :-D

Hi Ed, I flew a Red the other day, and we had one of those fancy BNC boxes ont he side. Unfortunately, it still only outputs 720p HDSDI, which wouldn't work with my SD only monitor, so I had to use the Red monitor anyway. The cheeseplate seemed pretty solid on our rig... And, against all odds, and being told over and over again that it was impossible, I managed to successfully fly a RedOne on a Flyer :lol:

Very nice, I like the vehicle shots. Ive wanted to try that for a while, not got round to it yet. Ive yet to get any of my first few jobs footage back yet, still in post... Thanks, Pete.

Hi, I tried lots of times to try and power the camera from the sled. I phoned Red and the hire companies and the owner of that camera, but it sounds pretty much impossible. The power input on the back of the RedOne is an 8pin lemo connector, and it deliveres more than just power from the battery, it takes information about the status to and from the camera, so the camera can tell you when the battery is running out etc etc etc. If you plug a non redbrick battery in, it still half works but if you try and power it off the sled which only carries power Ruby throws a complete wobbly and wont turn on. Hanging the brick off the back in that way was the only way to power the camera. Jeff did suggest mounting the brick on my vest but the cable wasn't long enough. Yeah thats more or less the reason it was so neutrally balanced. We had a remote follow focus on the camera so focus wasn't a problem. As far as the DB is concerned, im not entirely sure. Because of the big battery hanging off the back, i suspect not. the battery also prevented me from spinning the sled around in my usual way so I dont know. I was only running round some pepole dancing in a big circle anyway. I think you are right about a heavy camera gibing more control. I practice with a Z1 and I weight it with gym weights to mimic the effects of having a much larger camera on the sled. I think its good to be prepared for the heavier cameras...?

I recently defied all laws of gravity and managed to get a RedOne digital cinema camera with battery and remote follow focus to fly on my Steadicam Flyer. Everyone said it couldnt be done, and I was skeptical myself but after taking an alan key to the camera and stripping all the handles and stuff off I got it to work fine. The drop time on that rig was slow, as the camera was so big, about 4 seconds. It worked surprisingly well, I might use a longer drop time in the future.

I did this as my centre post wont extend. I mentioned it in my dynamic balence topic in the sled section. No one seems to understand why I did it, so maybe its not something that is done very often. Worked for me though.

Hi, Im not sure about the more room, it just feels more comfortable when the camera is higher up. Im already booked onto the next workshop, very much looking forward to it ;-)

Hi Jerry, Ive been avidly watching your EFP dvd for the last few days. Its nice to see that the gimbal on the EFP is pretty similar to the flyer. The skinny centre post is the one part of the flyer that I dont like, but as you said, its skinny for a reason. Hopefully going to upsize soon. I had also noticed how small the control parts of the merlin are, I have big hands and I can support the merlin with three fingers :-D Thanks.

Hi Robin, I still had afew kilos left before the limit and I wanted to be able to move the gimbal down the post a little bit for more hand room. Adding extra weight allowed me to slide the gimbal abit further down the post. I may be in the market for a bigger rig fairly soon... Archer maybe. Whats stock like?!?

I used to have the batteries set up flat so I could use the top to hold an extra weight. When i tried spinning this round it was all over the place, so I suppose I was very off dynamic balance. I will see how the rig handles in the morning. Thanks, Pete.