dalemccready

I had a great one last year, my first real one amongst many near misses. I was running backwards along a corridor (535/ Ultra) with loads of extras popping out of doorways and had to go fast backwards up a ramp and then through another door (no DJ as the corridor was really too narrow) I ended up pulling the rig too close to myself as I hit the ramp on one take and INSTANTANEOUSLY I was on my arse holding the rig above me. Damage to rig: NIL, Damage to pride: 1. I guess sometimes its okay to have a bit of pading back there... I normally use a spotter but in this case there was no way he could even get near me. Most experiences I've had with near misses are so quick I would be very impressed if someone managed to grab on to me or the rig. I have some great help and those guys know that the best they may be able to do sometimes is give me a hard tug or push, puling the rig back in toward me. Then there was the time I had to go home with a bad mosquito bite and the guy subbing for me agreed to do the run down that big sand dune...whoops

HI All, Recently I had the pleasure of testing out the new HD Varicam from Panasonic (very impressive and not heavy!), and sitting on top was a very cool HD 9" LCD monitor. Similar to the UltraBrite but with SDI options on the back as well. The only functions that it didn't have were the ability to tweak the zoom in by increments and also to rotate/flip the image. Otherwise this was a very impressive product. When I told them that this monitor would be an interesting Steadicam monitor the looked at me kinda blankly. I don't think that it is a market that they had ever considered. With subtle tweaking this would be a good replacement for an Ultrabrite. Dale