Mark Schlicher

Andrew,

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, The problem with the French Shorty (as well as the Baer-Bel V-lock plate, it turns out...and every other direct dovetail replacement I've found) is that they appear to be for a standard-width dovetail.

At least I believe that is the case.

The Zephyr uses a narrower dovetail that is the same as the Flyer (and I think the Archer and maybe the Clipper??).

So, the only products that I've found that would work for me are the MK-V plate and the GLD plate, both of which screw into an existing dovetail.

I already have a Sony V-lock plate with motor rods, but it's a couple of pounds that I'd like to shed.

Mark,

 

Have you looked at the Cam-Tec site. There is the "French Shorty" and variations on it.

 

-Andrew

Job,

Thanks. I will contact you in a couple of days. I've been reading about your 3D job, get some rest!

Do you have the motor rods, too...or do you know if the holes are compatible with the PRO 15mm rods?

Thomas, thank you for the link to the Baer-bel plate. I was aware of it but didn't realize how light it is. Hope you are doing well, my friend!

Rob,

Thanks but I have a Zephyr so that's not gonna work for me. I need something to screw into my existing narrow dovetail, rather than replace it. Well, if someone made one to replace the narrow Archer-style Zephyr dovetail I'd certainly be interested, but...

I'm looking primarily for the lightest weight plate (with dual 15mm motor rods) I can find, willing to sacrifice quick-release.

GLD in Australia has one. No weight specs, so don't know how much I'm gaining.

MK-V advertises onebut is out of stock and I'm not keen to send money in advance. The design does look good, though.

Hoping to find used but willing to consider new if someone has a solid lead...

bump-anybody?

If they are using multicore, the chances of them finding budget for broadcast-grade wireless seem nil. Maybe at least they can subrent a triax or fiber camera (I don't really know the engineering issues of routing it into a switcher, but surely they could figure something out). At least then you could maybe borrow a jumper and they could still have paint control...

Call Michael Craigs at the factory in Glendale. Peter may have that info, too.

For that matter, Terry West can no doubt give you an informed and independent opinion.

What camera(s) are you planning to fly with the Preston and Modulus?

If Matthew is pushing the weight limits of the sled, that's a different question, of course. I wouldn't recommend pushing the Flyer LE past it's weight limits. At the physical limits, performance is compromised and damage is risked.

But his question was about power distribution, and that's an easy (though custom) fix.

Matthew, just be realistic about the weight limits you'r working within with your FlyerLE. Since you said you've worked with a pro rig I assume you understand the issue.

Assuming the overall power draw is within spec (and you should talk to Tiffen about the sled's limits),

You could have a breakout box made to plug into the power port, and velcro or attach it to the camera stage. Terry West has done this kind of work, as has Siggy at Clairmont. Brian Freesh is your go-to guy with experience pushing the Flyer LE limits.

I believe that Terry has also done complete re-wiring of Flyer sleds.

As for connectors, that's another can of worms as you know. Depending on the cables you already have, and what you plan in the future, you may want your output ports to be PRO, Tiffen, 4 pin XLR, P-tap or some combination.

Yup, sounds like they're just a**holes.

They may have "bought all the rights" but your lawsuit puts a big wrinkle in their sweet little deal, because the lack of payment puts a cloud over the ownership of the footage.

As long as the contract with crew hasn't been honored (or negotiated in a settlement), the copyright to the show is in dispute, and distributors and broadcasters won't touch it.

As a practical matter your lawyers are probably wise to advise you to settle, but it still sucks that the company appears to be blatantly feeding off of the backs of hardworking crew "because they can." It could very well have been part of their business plan on the front end of the deal.

When I follow the link the old reel comes up...

OK, so I have re edited my reel, no sound. And I have added in some other shots. What do you think?

http://www.douglasjohnkropla.com/steadicam.html

Since the new company's right to air or distribute the show are clouded by the lawsuit, I'm guessing that ownership/authorship (copyright) is your attorneys' biggest lever in the negotiations.

If you had a contract with company A as work-for-hire, and they didn't pay...and then the rights and obligations were transferred to company B, then company B doesn't have clear rights to the work until the work-for-hire contract is executed (ie., you get paid.)

Shame that you had to sue, and may have to settle for less than what is owed. Better than nothing I suppose.

I'd be curious as to others' opinions. I personally favor some music, as long as it's not intrusive and not familiar. But I have a background in radio and my perspective may be skewed.

Douglas,

Some good operating there. My two cents....

The first shot of running in the woods needs to go. It has a wonky horizon (not off far enough to play as intentional). I’d just keep the second and third shots.

Woman in hat: the first shot looks a bit like a practice shot, but is decent operating. The second shot coming up the stairs is bouncy and not up to “demo reel” quality operating. It also tends to confirm the sequence as a practice shot. You may feel you need a stairs shot but this one doesn’t showcase your operating, it’s better to have no stairs shot than a weak stairs shot. Or go shoot another one.

Low mode soccer match: good operating but the shot is spoiled by your shadow which briefly appears a few seconds in. I’d start the shot after the shadow, or break it up into two shots, cutting out the moment where the shadow appears. It’s also stronger than the woman in the hat, so I’d put it before her shot.

Two guys walking and talking: solid operating, but I’d consider some color correction to give the shots more punch.

Editing: generally I’d just use straight cuts or fades out/fade ins. Keep it simple, avoid gimmicks. The hard cuts to a second of black and then back up are distracting, especially when you come back to another shot that is obviously from the same project. Music: taking it out completely isn't the answer. use non-intrusive, medium energy, instrumental royalty-free stock music.

Good to hear you have fresh footage. Your reel needs more variety and it sounds like you can address that.

My philosophy is that your reel is for two audiences: producers (who may not know the difference between good, bad and indifferent operating) and directors and DP's (who probably do.)

To producers, your reel says "look, I do these kinds of projects (and/or this budget level, these famous actors, etc.)

".

To directors and DP's it says, "look at the kinds of shots I can execute well. I know what a good Steadicam shot looks like and I can pull it off, in a variety of situations".

To both it says: "you can trust me to deliver".

So it's a balance of including a wide variety of projects and shots, but no shots that are obviously weak or mistakes.

Hope this is helpful.

It doesn't look like it's for sale anywhere, the illustration on the website is a CAD rendering. Their USA website has a dead "purchase" link. I'm curious about the product, but it appears to be vaporware at this point.

That looks great! At 11 pounds the Zephyr flies pretty nicely, and you can add some merlin weights below, to add to the panning inertia.

Hi!

 

I added 6 weight plates from my old Glidecam-System to my Canon 7D + Zypher.

 

These weight plates are very convenient to add weights to the stage. I made a picture of it. This configuration weighs about 4.5 kg (10 lbs). Adding my Hocus Focus Rcv + Motor the weight is about 5 kg (11 lbs).

 

Wolfgang

Shawn,

Welcome to the forum. Ozzie's advice is spot-on.

It would also help to know more about your locale, overall level of experience, and the market niches you serve/plan to serve. Real estate walkthroughs, weddings, and indie band videos are a different ballgame than broadcast multicam, high end corporate image videos, etc. Who are your clients? Do you work only with end-user clients, or do you hire yourself out to other production companies. I agree that your regular cam op rate seems way low...at least without some context.

Your local rental houses may not be renting Scouts, but they may be renting Flyers or Pilots or Glidecams. My guess is that a rig-only rental of a small rig would probably be in the range of $300-400 a day.

As you get more skilled and accomplished, and add the inevitable extra-cost accessories to your kit, you should push your labor rate higher, too. Big rig operators tend to get 1.5 to 2x the labor rate of a regular camera operator (or more!). Even if you are working with a smaller rig, YOU ARE A SPECIALIST and should be paid accordingly when asked to perform your specialty.

You won't be competing directly with big rig operators with your Scout, but you should still get to know any local operators, cultivate relationships (ops are generally a friendly bunch) and ask some of these questions of them.

If you can, please be more specific. Is your trouble with static balance? Dynamic balance? Fore-aft or side-to-side?

There is nothing about a Manfrotto plate that should make it harder to balance the camera, it's just another mass.

Yep, 24V is definitely the way to go, since you have the 24V option. Should save wear and tear on your batteries. I just noticed you are in the UK, so maybe others can chime in about nearby sources for custom cables.

What batteries are you using? What did you end up doing about an HD monitor?

Viewfactor cages are sturdy and well-designed. However the manufacturer has a spotty reputation and burned a lot of folks on a never-delivered follow focus system. Caution advised.

If you can get one used, good. It's not a "weight cage" though...you'd still have to mount it to something. It's good for mounting accessories.

Many of the dslr "cages" offered by others don't look very sturdy or practical for Steadicam. No experience with them, though.

Simplest solutions for your original question of weight is a Janice Arthur weight plate (you don't need a full cage necessarily) or have a machinist make one for you.

That's great, Ryan. How's it going? Dave, have you addressed your centerpost's (lack of) safety stop?

That would be a huge issue in my book...

Tom,

The key is to leave off the "few other things." :-) Seriously, you can probably go to 25lb on the camera stage (but the overall arm lift is going to be around 36lb max).

One help would be to use a clip-on mattebox, mount the motor rods to the sled's dovetail (alas, another expensive Tiffen bit unless you want to do a custom job) and either mount the FF receiver to the rods, or try to save weight with a custom bracket for the receiver, to mount to the underside of the camera stage. I've been scratching my head about this very question, how to get a solid mount for the FF and motor while shaving ounces.

Re the cable, Tiffen's website, as usual, is confusing and inaccurate (the 24v Arri cable page has no mention of either Alexa nor Zephyr, and erroneously describes the Fisher connector as an XLR.) And at $415, I am pretty confident that Terry or East Coast Cables could do much better on price.

I haven't used it that way yet but I have some info that might help. The 4pin XLR cable that Tiffen supplies is wired for 12V only, according to Mike Craigs. So it would not work to provide 24V.

Best thing is probably call Terry West. It's gonna be a custom cable thing...

Don't get me wrong, I love working with these guys and am grateful for the work!

It definitely is a lesson in "letting go"...! :-)

There is no Catgriller or similar accessory for Flyer/Zephyr/Archer dovetail. I've tried, I'd be delighted to be mistaken but I recently searched pretty hard.

Instead, the suggestion is to buy two Manfrotto plates. Attach the Manfrotto dovetail to your camera, one Manfrotto base to your Flyer dovetail, one Manfrotto base to your tripod dovetail. Then swap the camera (and Manfrotto dovetail) between Manfrotto bases.

Different road, same destination, for probably under $100.

Another Walmart Soundcheck just went live...

Jake Owen performance

Six songs, five cameras-Canon 5D's and Panny AF100, two passes each, edited from iso's. Shot this with an old Flyer. They loooove seeing glimpses of the jib and Steadicam operators in the shots. They also love to use the "in-between-moves" stuff as texture.

They decided to add a "distressed film look" complete with a nasty amount of film weave to much of the footage, including virtually every Steadicam shot. Makes me dizzy trying to critique my own operating. :blink: