chris fawcett

Hi Alan, Build the rig and balance it statically with a normal drop time, then rotate the post through 90 degrees, then 180 degrees, if the static balance goes off, your gimbal needs re-centering. Let us know so we can help you further. All the best, Chris

Yes, but the grip has total override control.

Sorry for the delay in replying. I've been in transit. Nils, I'm sorry to say that the Steadiseg Rickshaw uses most of the hardware of the Steadiseg, plus a few attachments. You can't modify the HT for several reasons. Afton, It's something we developed for Larry McConkey. He wanted it for low shots and also for shooting backwards at speed. We helped him out with some attachments for World War Z, where he was being chase by running zombies, and this is a development from that. I'll use it mostly for shooting backwards in confined spaces like corridors or pavements, but also for getting really low without a superpost. As Dave comments, it's handy sometimes to let someone else steer, but still having some control over starting and stopping. David, Glad you liked it! Thomas, I'll send you a detailed quote now. All the best, Chris

Hi Chris, Thanks for your interest in the Exovest. I'm sorry to say that nothing like you describe exists. We might draw up something one day, but for now we're more curious to see how people react to the vest in everyday working conditions. Even after a year of beta-testing, we're still learning. When the patent document gets published, you'll find plenty of detail there, but the vest will stand or fall on its performance in the field, rather than on its design principles. All the best, Chris

Things went well! So well, we're going into production immediately, though the first units will be for existing Steadiseg users. Let me explain it a little more. It's basically a 4 horsepower rickshaw. As operator, you can control speed by shifting the Steadicam back and forth, or the grip can do all that for you. What works well is that you initiate and terminate moves. The grip feels this through the handle and can take off and stop in tune with you. The grip controls steering entirely, and can override speed and bring you to a stop on a dime. On sudden stops and starts the hard-mount block tilts to compensate the accelerations, a little like Jerry's Skyman. It takes less than 5 minutes (working with a good grip, maybe 3 minutes) to go from Steadiseg to rickshaw. It's intuitive. Anyone can get the hang of steering it with 30 minutes practice. We don't have any real pics or footage yet, but here's some iPhone videos and a pic for now: All the best, Chris

This interests me greatly. I've tried the Tiffen one, and it sure does improve my level. At present, I dial in a vertical line in the centre of my Transvideo monitor, so that any vertical that passes through the centre of frame should line up with it. I rely on this for level during most moves, but I also need to use the bubble too. That's 2 items in my cycle of attention that I can now reduce to 1. I'm in! All the best, Chris

Chris, You can try re-padding your vest. I had a fair degree of success trimming my LX to better fit me, though changing the pelvic placement will have limited effect in a flexible vest. No matter how comfy you make it, the vest may still rotate into your abdomen because of the torque of holding the Steadicam out front. You are right that just adding padding may end up displacing the inguinal ligament. It's a balancing act, but well worth attempting. I'm fairly sure the Exovest reduces the frontal pushing forces, though I couldn't claim that it halved them. What I think it may halve is the force needed to resist the aforementioned torque, which it does by extending the lever arm of the torque-resisting structure to the trapezius. Simply, what we try to achieve with the Exovest is to mimic what the body does with forces. All weight you carry on your body, by most any means, ends up in the pelvis, and that is where we place the bulk of the weight, directly, loading other structures as little as possible. Of course, we can only do that from the outside, so we choose to load the bony protrusions of the iliac crests, front and back, avoiding the sacrum, the abdomen and the superior attachments of the gluteus medius muscles. With the torque, we again mimic what the body does. Anything you pick up in your hands and hold in front of you imparts torque into the trapezius muscles via the scapulae, so it is directly to this muscle group that we aim that force. Alan, By raising the torque-resisting structure to the trapezius, we now engage a longer section of the erector spinae muscles that run up to the rear of the spine to stabilise it, much like a set of guy ropes. We're used to feeling the pain in our lower backs below the level of the chest straps in the front-mount, and the rear spar in the back-mount. Now this work is spread much further up the back to the high trapezius. The idea is to both increase the lever arm, and to share the work among a larger group of muscles. I also noticed muscle fatigue a little higher up than usual after my first day of working in the Exovest, but in my case, it was gone by the second day. TJ? All the best, Chris

James, If things go well at NAB, we'll go into production immediately, so we'll be posting material on the Steadiseg website. I'll see if I can get something up on Youtube before that. Chris

Apologies, I double posted "Steadiseg Rickshaw" in the Vehicles forum. Sorry about that, Chris

Steadiseggers, My partner, Ulik, and I will present a working prototype of the rickshaw version of the Steadiseg at NAB 2013. It's a simple bolt-on attachment that uses all the existing Steadiseg hardware and takes 2 minutes to switch from normal operation. The idea is to have a motorised rickshaw that requires no effort on the part of the grip, apart from having to keep up. So one grip can lead you up or downhill easily, and start and stop you quickly. You can decide speed and acceleration by shifting the rig fore and aft with the grip only steering, or the grip can control everything. We're finding it fun and intuitine both to ride and to steer, and we'd really appreciate your comments and feedback, so please visit us at the Tiffen Steadicam stand. All the best, Chris

Yes, the Exovests at Lake Arrowhead were very close to the production models.

From NAB, yes.

Thanks for that link, Twojay!

Friends, You need to address all sales enquiries to the Tiffen sales guys. Dan Ikeda for the Americas: dikeda@tiffen.com Robin Thwaites for Europe: rthwaites@tiffen.com I know there are other parts of the world too,I just don't know who covers what. Anyway, either Dan or Robin will be able to help you out. Sorry I can't be more help here, Chris

Colleagues, Steadicam pioneer, and teacher of hundred of operators, Phil Balsdon, suffered a major stroke in October last year. If you're feeling generous, or want more information, please follow this link: http://us5.campaign-...id=966bbdc9d6 Phil's a hell of a guy. We taught together in Australia, where he walked the feet off me showing me his favourite hidden beaches north of Sydney. This picture, taken at the Kuala Lumpur workshop a few months before his stroke, shows his playful nature. My enduring memory of Phil is of him running flat-out in the rig just for the hell of it. It would be great if we could all help Phil to just walk again. Chris

Janice, In the context of my earlier post, "Keep fit by all means, but special exercises for Steadicam? I'm dubious," we are probably more In agreement than you surmised. Peace, Chris

Daniel is enjoying the transformation from photographer to Steadicam operator, but less the sex change :)

Colleagues, I'm getting PMs about this thread, so I'll make my position clear publicly. I'm with Eric and Alfeo (and possibly Ron too). Let's not take ourselves too seriously. We lift heavy weights and point them accurately. So do workers on production lines, and we don't see them developing special exercises to build up their strength. There's no forum for bricklayers on how to best to train that 'hod' muscle. If anything, after a hard week's work, we probably need to rest our working muscles and stretch them out. Go for a walk, a swim, do yoga, have a spectacularly good ––––, whatever. What we do is wonderfully energetic and fluid. We load our core posture muscles with a suspended weight that is insulated against shock loading by a $10k+ shock absorber, and then dance around with it. You can't recreate this in the gym, unless you bring in your rig and film people. Operating Steadicam will exercise and stretch out not only posture muscles, but a vast 3D network of supporting muscle and tissue too. In contrast, many exercises and exercise machines are planar, and may actively shorten your muscles. And remember, strength isn't important compared to technique. In workshops, it's the lightly-built women that put us all to shame with their staying power. The muscle-bound guys often have the hardest time, because they try to use all that expensive muscle out front, instead of the perfectly adequate support system we all have out back. I enclose a photo (courtesy of Daniel Waite) of Gemma Probst carrying a rig that is more than half her body weight. Most other beginners are glad to hit the stand with a rig like this. Not Gemma. You practically have to wrench the rig off her. Her secret? She's a dancer, and knows how to use her body. But of course if what you really want is look good naked, by all means, go out and pump depleted uranium till your heart's content. All the best, Chris

Greengrocers' apostrophes are starting to piss me off. The Apostrophe Protection Society Peace. :blink:

Agreed. Keep fit by all means, but special exercises for Steadicam? I'm dubious.

Hi Everyone, First let me thank you all for your interest in the vest, second let me apologise for my absence from this thread. Life got busy. You all know how that happens in this business. I'm happy to report that our extended second round of beta-testing has allowed us to iron out issues with the IBC (September 2012) prototype, and to move into the first production run, which is almost completed. I'm delighted with the result. Unreserved thanks to Garrett Brown and Steve Tiffen for injecting the initial blast of enthusiasm into this project almost two years ago, my never-ending thanks to Jerry Holway for his brilliant design solutions and tremendous support throughout, and all praise to Robert Orf and his engineering team for making the Exovest real. To answer some questions, Peter, the degree of pivot is 3 degrees each way, 6 in total. I measured a lot of people before I discovered that despite our great differences in shape and size, some of our measurements are very similar. For instance, distance from the clavicle to the scapula varies by only 1.5 inches over 200+ people. In contrast, waist measurements vary by 25 inches or more. In the case of pelvic pivoting about the coronal plane, I'd expected women's pelvises to rotate more than men's—that's why the NAB (April 2012) prototype had adjustable pivots—but it turns out that because men's pelvises are deeper and narrower than women's, they only appear to rotate less. Three degrees of movement each way accommodates everyone's stride, so far. As to the back-mount question, Mark, I've worn the Exovest extensively in both configurations, and when I close my eyes I can barely tell one from the other—as you would expect from cantilevering a weight forward of an exoskeletal structure that is rigid about the sagittal plane. To the vest, there is of course a difference, but because of the structure's inherent rigidity about crucial planes, this is not translated into the body. The only difference in sensation that I can feel comes when there is extra hardware out back in the form of the third arm section and its mount, which adds counterbalance to the weight out front, reducing the overall torque on the body. That feels nice, and I'm guessing that back-mount vests, being heavy at the rear produce this same counterbalance sensation. For me, however, that in itself is no reason to add counterbalance weight unless it is an extension of the system you are operating, as it would be when you are using the 50% extra boom range the third arm section offers. We cannot alter the fact that the mass of the Steadicam sits out in front of our bodies, and the forces that result from this are a downward one in the form of weight, and a turning moment in the form of a torque. The Exovest tries to deal with these forces in the same way that the body does, by placing them into anatomically-suitable areas. All weight that you carry on your body ends up in your pelvis. For this reason, the Exovest places the bulk of that weight directly into the main pelvic bones, the illia, by means for four pads. Two out front contact the forward protrusions of the iliac crests, avoiding compressing the abdomen. Two out back contact the rear protrusions of the crest, avoiding compressing the sacrum. Both sets of pads avoid compressing the gluteus medius muscles that attach along the crest between these protrusions, so as not to restrict walking. This load-transferring waistband articulates with these pelvic bones during walking for two reasons: so there is no rubbing of the pads against the body when moving; and so that you can move, walk, or run normally without the natural rotation of the pelvis translating to the socket block. The torque resulting from any weight that is held extended from the body by your arms is resisted by the scapula (shoulder blades) that are embedded into the trapezius muscle. This is why the Exovest raises its torque-resisting pad to the same level. By raising it from the level of existing vests (mid-thoracic) to the level of the shoulder blades, we double that lever arm, and halve that force. We also spread it over all of our erector spinae muscle group, instead of resisting it solely at the lumbar level. I hope this answers some of your questions. Keep them coming, but please address the sales questions to Dan! All the best, Chris

Same movie, but I knocked my tooth out in the gold-mine shot.

A 10 minute Don Juan shot preceding an Amazonian native down a jungle trail crossing 3 pirana-infested creeks as he grew increasingly pessimistic about shooting something for his dinner. FMS, that was fun.

Hi Janice, I made one of my best shots less than a year into the business. In some ways, I've yet to better it. What's improved since is my consistency. If I had landed a big job back then on the basis of that shot, I doubt I'd have made good. The pressure of being on set, and having to consistently make good shots would have been beyond me. I'd have screwed up, possibly in my home market, and have made a bad reputation for myself. One of the niggles we face in this business is working with producers, directors, and actors that have had bad experiences with Steadicam operators, when it takes time to reassure them that we can do the job. There are productions I have known of that eschew Steadicam entirely on these grounds, so the opportunity of trying to change their opinions never arises. Relatively inexperienced ops launching themselves into this world as fully-fledged Steadicam operators do neither themselves nor the rest of the community any favours. I still think it's perfectly fair, and indeed advisable, to state your capabilities on entering into a contract. It's not a question of apology, but one of honesty. All the best, Chris

Hey Afton, I like the way you put that. Season's greetings, and happy apocalypse, Chris