Peter Abraham
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Posts posted by Peter Abraham
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You are so welcome for the answer.
It was a reference to any gimbals used in stabilizers that are not truely round.
Peter Abraham
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Well done !!
Nice sled, too :)
Peter Abraham
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Well said there, William. Might I add that if it isn't your body, focus in on your hand work. A superb gimbal will allow you to switch hands-free with virtually zero pan and absolutely zero sway. If you have roll in your gimbal when switching hands free, you have a problem.
The body work should keep the lens on the line ( so to speak ). The value of learning the switch on a line instead of during shots isn't' that you will ever DO a switch in 180* like that, but it allows one to ferociously zero in on what the body is doing, what the angle of the pelvis is doing, what the feet are doing, what the shoulders and torso are doing, what the head is doing, what the hands are doing.
Being quite critical of one's own form allows for improvement.
Me, I adore the Don Juan.
Charles, that's your cue..... B)
Here's one that I teach during the Steadicam Workshops. It's a rarely applied bit but my goodness does it make some people's brains happy.
If you are going to operate a shot that is 100% Don Juan, consider reversing the monitor/ battery configuration. That is to say, either spin the post or take off the camera and reverse it. ( Depending on what sled you fly ).
This allows one to keep "normal" operating approach to the sled intact while the camera is aimed behind one. Upside? For those who feel that The Don Juan™ is awkward, the monitor is where it always is. Downside? Well.... panning is the same since rotational direction isn't altered just because you moved the monitor. TILTING, on the other hand, becomes rather vexing.
I did this only once, just before I joined Tiffen. An entire day of interviews through Central Park for an ABC News/ Nightline segment. Hour after hour of long shots with few cuts. Made for a very happy day. Try it. Get the idea of it to sit well inside, and then when you face a very long D.J. shot, you might be comfortable enough with the trick to do it and operate facing forwards.
Here's the run-down on how to do it with Steadicams. It should only take a minute ( or less ) to switch elements and re-balance.
1. Pilot- flip plate 180*
2. Flyer LE- Loosen allen bolt head closest to centerpost. Rotate entire bottom of sled. Remember which way you went !! You do not risk damaging the cable harness by rotating it half way, as long as you remember to GO BACK the way you came. Otherwise, you can damage the harness. This bit applies to all rigs, regardless of make and model. You have cables up the post? Mind which way you spun your top to bottom post arrangement.
3. Zephyr and Scout- flip plate 180*
4. Archer on up to Ultra 2- Either flip plate 180 OR loosen clamp on lower post and rotate bottom most post segment along with monitor and battery assembly. Me, I'd leave the camera and plate along and rotate the bottom post assembly. The reason is that you'd have to re-plug all of the stuff in up top.
Hope this is helpful !
Peter Abraham
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The thing that will kill you, and kill you quickly, is bad compositions. Either too much headroom or too little, whatever it is, the DP will get frustrated if you forget to compose the frame. I think this is the worst a operator can do wrong.
I'm very much in this camp. While we all want to deliver extremely fine Operational skills moment to moment, it is possible to be slightly off in terms of something technical, yet deliver a stunning photograph. One that elevates the moment and does not detract from the moment.
One can be a brilliant Suzuki technician and leave the D.P. completely disinterested in the shot. Or, one can make photographs that engage.
My two cents. :)
Having thrown them in, I will readily agree that if you don't Show Up every day, on every shot, you shouldn't' show up at all.
Peter Abraham
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I can go back 10 years in my iphone and see what I was doing ...
Made me smile. Rob, are you very sure you WANT to go back 10 years to see what you were doing ? :)
Janice, that's a bulletproof method of tracking incoming and outgoing work. I like it ! And, it is easier to read than my Droid®.
Peter Abraham
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Kind words well earned regarding the superb SOA Workshops held in Pennsylvania.
As far as the Scout, all I can say today is that it is a brand new product. I do hope to get a demo unit sent to Toronto for this event. Stay tuned !
Best,
Peter
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I won't be attending as I took the whole day flyer workshop at Sammy's Camera :D
All joking aside, will there be any workshops coming to Montreal? And will they be just for the smaller rigs? Are there ever workshops here in Canada that involve the big rigs?
Thanks a bunch. Don't really want to go to Sammy's Camera, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do...
Hey, where is Sammy's Camera? :D
Hi,
Who taught the whole day Flyer workshop at Samy's ?
I taught one at CinequipWhite in Montreal a few years ago. We may return there but we do not have firm plans to do so at this time. As for the larger systems, Tiffen offers the two workshops here in the States, the SOA offers 2, and Rockport offers 2.
I don't currently have plans to bring the larger format workshops to Canada- but you never know !!
Best,
Peter
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The Tiffen Steadicam® Workshops will, of course, be coming back to Los Angeles. Likely in the dead of winter.
Our esteemed colleague is entirely correct. The operational form, physics, aesthetics of Steadicam operating are applied across the board. You do the same things with your brain, hands, feet and body whether the rig flies 16 pounds or 56 pounds. ( Of course, your feet will be a bit more tired with the latter than the former ).
Keep an eye on our Steadicam Workshops web site for the latest schedule.
Best to all,
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services / Steadicam Workshops Coordinator
The Tiffen Company
pabraham@tiffen.com
917-453-1219
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The obvious answer for me at least, is 'both' - great for playback on film sets, but also very useful for the reel also. Although beware, for those of us with full HD sleds, it generally means downconverting an iso feed to the recorder as it's standard def in most instances.
Indeed. Some folks used to use their B&W video tap recorded image on their demo reel. Not sure how much that still occurs. My EVO-220 8mm recorder was low enough quality that I never used anything from it on the reel.
It was and is immensely useful for playback on set. Even if the show is recorded digitally, that media is removed and hustled off to someone who is entering it into a storage device. Weird as it is, using a digital recorder is a time-saver even if the show is being digitally captured.
Peter Abraham
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Tiffen is bringing the Steadicam Zephyr / Pilot Workshops back to CinequipWhite Toronto. This workshop will be held on November 13 & 14, 2010 at their Islington Ave store. The tuition is $ 500.00 USD, paid at the time of registration. Our group is limited to 9 students- allowing for plenty of rig time per student.
Come and spend the weekend learning all that you can about the Steadicam systems designed for lighter weight cameras !
Click Here to register.
Contact me with any and all questions regarding this and all of our workshops.
Best,
Peter
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services/ Steadicam Workshops Coordinator
The Tiffen Company
pabraham@tiffen.com
917-453-1219
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Tiffen has brought the Steadicam Zephyr / Pilot Workshops back to Rule Boston Camera. This 2 Day Workshop event is being held at their Soldier's Field location on October 9 & 10. The tuition is $ 500.00, paid at the time of registration. Our group is limited to 9 students, allowing for plenty of rig time per student.
Come and spend the weekend learning all that you can about the Steadicam systems designed for lighter weight cameras !
Click Here to register.
Contact me with any and all questions regarding this and all of our workshops.
Best,
Peter
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services/ Steadicam Workshops Coordinator
The Tiffen Company
pabraham@tiffen.com
917-453-1219
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Hey it happens. We sure try to avoid them though. Famous reflection of Ted Churchill in huge glass windows in Meryl Streep / Robert DeNiro movie. Also a bit of the Op in the "Untouchables" POV shot moving in through the window into Connery's apartment.
I got caught out while shooting Notorious BIG's first video. "Juicy", I believe. Moved fast past a car that was driving away and forgot to have them roll down the back window. Sheesh. :huh:
If you're one of those Operators who has their tongue stuck out and to the side, woe to you if you wind up on the screen !!
Peter Abraham
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Did a shot on a forklift once.
http://www.konecranes.com/portal/eng/equipment/lifttrucks/forklifts/
We craned up higher than a huge stack of containers at Port of Houston. The stability of the forklift was beyond question.
Having said that, the math above may or may not be spot-on but the video does make it appear that the fellow was on a fairly stable platform. Safety and support is key as Jerry pointed out. Me, I'd want a flat plate behind me and below me. Pallet with 1" ply nailed to it, handrail, etc. Falling from 15 feet could be painful.
Oh wait...
Peter Abraham
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The 5th Annual 2011 Lake Arrowhead Classic Steadicam Workshop
The Tiffen Company is pleased to announce that the Lake Arrowhead Classic Steadicam Workshop is returning for a 5th year. Once again we will convence at the beautiful UCLA Conference Center at Lake Arrowhead CA.
The dates of the workshop are Saturday March 26th to Friday April 1, 2011. Tuition for the event is $ 3,000.00 USD prepaid. Registration can be made with a $ 500.00 deposit. This class is limited to 16 students. Details on registration can be found at the official Steadicam Workshops web page.
The rough scheduling is arrival at 11am on Saturday, and wrap just after breakfast the following Friday April 1. As is traditional, we will be hosting our Operators' Night where local Steadicam Operators travel up to the workshop to visit, share stories, show their gear and join us all for a dinner.
Jerry Holway will be our Lead Instructor and Steadicam Inventor Garrett Brown will be with us all week as well. Additional instructors will be announced in the coming days.
All of the new Steadicam systems will be used during the training, from the Ultra2 to the Steadicam Phantom, to the new Zephyr and the Merlin. The Steadicam Tango® system will be on hand as well and used during shots.
Please contact me with any questions regarding this or any of our Tiffen Steadicam Workshops.
Best to one and all,
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services / Steadicam Workshops Coordinator
The Tiffen Company
90 Oser Ave Hauppauge New York 11788
(917) 453-1219
pabraham@tiffen.com
tiffen.com
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When available, the prototype of the new Steadicam Zephyr® is being used in our Workshops Program.
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I have been a Steadicam operator since 2004 and I owned / rented / operated stabilizers from Glidecam 4000 pro all the way to the Steadicam Archer.
Hi Luiz,
Love to talk to you about this, see you and your rig in action and see if we can nail this down. If you're willing to do a bit of driving, so am I ! Let's meet up half way between Easton and NYC and spend some time running around and figuring this out. Diner, New Jersey, lunch on me, we work on this and see exactly what is going on. You'd bring the Z1 exactly as rigged on the day you shot the kids doing the bike stunts.
Work for you?
Always glad to try to do the face to face fix- assuming an overnight stay in Motel 6 isn't a part of the picture :)
Best,
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services/ Steadicam
The Tiffen Company
917-453-1219
pabraham@tiffen.com
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About a year in, with my Model I, I shot 23 spots in 27 days. This was in 1988. They were called "When I Grow Up" and they ran for years on ABC Saturday morning programming. Every shot of every spot was Steadicam. Low High Mode.
The next year, they asked for another ten. One was, " When I Grow Up, I want to own a McDonald's". Seriously. So there I was, in the busiest store in America, at the stores in Rockefeller Center in the underground concourse. Shooting the store manager.
He took 48 takes at a bit of dialogue that ran perhaps 20 - 25 seconds. It took all morning and into the afternoon. By the end he was completely freaked out. Then we had to shoot the REST of the shots.
Looong day, as I recall. Long day.
Peter Abraham
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Afternoon folks. Tiffen will be hosting the 2 Day Pilot / Zephyr Workshops in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Los Angeles Workshop is hosted by Filmtools and is Sept 11 and 12.
The San Francisco Workshop is hosted by Adolph Gasser and is Sept 18 and 19.
To register and find out all about the entire range of Tiffen Steadicam Workshops, please visit the Workshops web site. Additionally, call or email me with any questions !
Best,
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services/ Steadicam
The Tiffen Company
917-453-1219
pabraham@tiffen.com
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Wait a minute. Peter, are you and the other people in these pictures members of the race of incredibly tiny people that assemble our gear? That would explain why I always have such a hard time soldering those damn lemo connectors......
Try Hirose ( HRS ) connectors. I soldered my 12- pin HRS connector up for the Fuji zoom cable for my old J-7.
Took me hours. Hours and hours. My goodness.
Peter Abraham
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Come on, gents, that's the new output connector for the Canon 5D/7D DSLR monitoring setup!
Remember?? C'mon. You know you remember.
Back in the day, Brant called me up. This is maybe..... 1993?
" We gotta go to this junk yard. Meet me there. Bring pliers and a razor knife and a bag. Dress to get very dirty." So, off I go. Brant had found a medical device. Some kind of imager. Laser had already been removed but man it had some large and interesting lenses still mounted into the central column. It was festooned with Lemo's. Cables, chassis-mounts, the whole ball of wax.
We made quick work of the thing. We cut every cable as long as possible and removed the matching chassis mounted connector whenever we could. I think we crawled it for about an hour.
Best part? The guy looked into each of our dirty dingy bags and said, " I dunno. What a mess. ( The spaghetti of gray cabling ). Gimme $ 25.00 each of you. "
We sort of nodded..... and paid.
And ran like heck.
Those Lemos made for a lot of very happy modifications and got used into 2003 when I built my lightweight prototype sled. Eventually sent what was left of my bag to Brant.
We couldn't even figure out what each of our bags was worth. A few thousand new. And...of course...they're gold plated connectors so they appeared as new.
A marvelous day !!!
Peter Abraham
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I guess Jacques Monge was busy that day ;)
Wow chris !
Is that a gimmick or for real. I cannot even imagine the level of multitasking required to hold both frames (and smoke a cigarette :) .
Sanjay
Dude, we had a long talk about your smoking at the Eastern Classic !! Now, you can go smoke-free and chaw and pan, chaw and tilt, chaw and whip......
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A very Happy Birthday to you Eric !!!
Best
Peter Abraham
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When you laugh with delight after 60 seconds and keep smiling through an entire shot of this length, it's a testament to operational skill and just plain fun.
Nicely done !!!
Peter Abraham
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Good morning !
Gentle reminder that the Steadicam Open House is happening this Friday. This event is being co-hosted by Doug Macaulay at Kingsway and Yen Peng of CinequipWhite. The Tiffen Company is bringing most of the systems up. Featured will be the premiere Ultra 2, the Archer 2 with unique fold-up sled design, the Flyer LE and Steadicam Pilot.
Come and join us for a day of hands-on testing, flying and exploring ! We all look forward to seeing everyone there this Friday from 10 am to 4 pm at the CinequipWhite store at 1040 Islington Avenue Toronto ON M8Z 6A4.
I will be there all day to demonstrate the systems, answer questions and help you make the most of the time with our Steadicam rigs.
Best to everyone,
Peter Abraham
Director of Technical Services, Steadicam®
The Tiffen Company
90 Oser Avenue
Hauppauge, New York 11788
](917) 453-1219
pabraham@tiffen.com
Steadicam Zephyr and Pilot Workshop comes back to Boston
in News, Events, Workshops
Posted
We're excited about this workshop- a chance to fly our new Zephyr. There are still a few slots open in this event.
If you've got any questions about this, or any Tiffen Steadicam Workshop, feel free to contact me.
Best,
Peter Abraham