Jaron Berman

Just thought I'd try one last time. Looking for a used PRO arm with canisters (a.k.a I'm looking for a unicorn). I missed my opportunity on the last one, but all is well now so if you have one to sell, lemme know. Thanks! Jaron

Nicely spotted Erwin. They definitely took advantage of the smoothness and reliability of the arm.

it this the sled clipper 2 Try Chris Konash - he has his full kit listed in the classifieds but he may sell separately? I know his Clipper 2 is a rare sled - framelines in the sled, not the monitor (as all later C2's are). Also, his sled has a 24v mod and 3-section post. Very nice (I copied his mods).

Now includes additional arm-posts - PRO, Flyer as well as Tiffen Ultra/Masters New price - $8000. I'm in LA for now, so if you're interested lemme know before I get shipped off again!

I agree. Happy birthday! Hope you're having fun man Jaron

Hey Scott - is the arm still available? If so, please email me. Thanks! Jaron Berman jaron@jaronberman.com

SOLD, thanks!

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Cosmetically, the receiver looks old... however it functions perfectly. The Antenna jack was switched from an F-type connector to the more useful BNC-type (50 ohm). Works wonderfully with modulus, canatrans, or included RF-links. Also included are the TV-band sharkfin directional antenna and a 50' 50-ohm antenna cable. The transmitter is an RF-links SPX-68TM which retails for $650 before import costs into the U.S. CH 65-69 UHF, and the receiver is pre-tuned to these channels for ease of setup on set. $700/all U.S. Buyers Only. Buyer pays shipping, but I'll package securely.

couple more

Let's see if these post...

I believe the wevi is MIMO/OFDM, in other words, the situations that cause standard analog transmitters in the TV-band to break up or ghost actualy make the WEVI stronger. Lots of metal, reflective surfaces as found indoors help to transmit the signal. Essentially (from what was explained to me), the only way to transmit uncompressed HD without increasing bandwidth past legal limits of the frequency, is to parse the signal and use the multiple antennas on both the receiver and transmitter to create a "matrix" of signals instead of linear paths. Each signal sprays outwards from its transmitter antenna, and each receiver gets whatever part of that signal it can, either directly or multiple times as reflected by nearby objects....and by calculating not only what is missing (based on other signals received) but also how much delay exists between the received signals, and how many times it's reflected, the computer within can reconstruct the original picture. There's a somewhat technical explanation somewhere out there I'm sure, but it's the next level of complexity past "diversity." Each transmitter and each receiver has it's own tuned antenna within the unit, so while it's not as familiar and seemingly efficient as what we're used to, it's obviously been researched and found to be he best route for moving that huge chunk of data without a dedicated license. It would make sense then that it's not as effective outdoors, as there are fewer objects for the signal to "multipath" off. I can't wait to use this unit on set, as it seems to be a great way to finally get the holy grail of wireless in all situations... but we shall see - Ed your post has me concerned. I think earlier in this (or another thread) Charles suggested using the WEVI as you would with a typical cable wrangler, not necessarily as we use a typical wireless link. At least the signal is wireless to the wrangler, and he/she can do the cable dance alone.

I know I'm not the authority on this, but reading that description made me cringe! Honestly, it sounds like a recipe for disaster. We all get swept up in the idea that we HAVE to do everything we're told, we have to REALLY impress everyone with our work ethic and stunning good looks... but this is your life you're talking about here. If they want to go faster, and you're not comfortable with the situation, SCREAM no! If they give you the "we can just find someone else who will do it," then that's fine, walk away. But I can't think of any shot that's worth falling out the back of a car for. I recall Peter Abraham describing a car commercial he shot on the back of an ATV hard-mounted. Perhaps he could fill in the details, but needless to say they went faster and closer on the actual take, and he had taken a lot of precaution to describe to the stunt driver how to do it safely and the trust necessary for such a dangerous move. But soft-mounted? EESH! Not a chance. Steadicam isn't the tool for every shot, and if someone wants to cut corners and cost by strapping you in improperly and risking your life for their vision, you need to say something. 30mph is WAY too much in my opinion to soft mount. I'll ride a dolly soft, but even then the hard mount is safer (and less fatiguing on you, allowing you to make better shots). As for angles, that's a creative decision... but personally it sounds like the kind of shot for an ultimate arm, or at least a proper camera car. Another advantage with a camera car is that they generally force you to use their own experienced drivers who have done this sort of thing before and may have some input on how to do it safely and get the most out of their time.

I can't speak for Charles, but I did the same thing and found it to be much more convenient than using the cheese plate. And believe it or not, the whole combo weighs about the same, and puts the CG roughly the same height above your dovetail. The red cheese plate weighs more than the element o'connor/arri plate, and the baseplates weigh about the same. One advantage is a quick switch to sticks, the other is that the arri style base gives you even more fore/aft adjustment for front-heavy setups when you fly without the battery. Still no "perfect" way to fly it, but I personally found that particular base setup to work better than anything else.

Happy birthday Torch!

it's a fairly standard din connector... I used to have a pinout somewhere..... anyways it's a very easy thing to do. The plus of doing that is you can also use splitters at the base of the sled if you need to go to a WEVI or boxx transmitter. I had this done on my old flyer - a simple inline breakout. Robert's right, try Terry West.

I'm curious - I was about to buy one and then called blackmagic. Twice. One guy said "yes, it will downconvert in software, so it's not a broadcast-quality picture, but it will downconvert." The other guy said no, it's simply a cross-conversion. These things are still tough to find in stock right now, but I'd love to actually try it, as even the guys at blackmagic don't seem to know all it can do (their "tech" department as well as their sales).

Moving to a G-70 or Pro arm. The G-50 is about 2 years old, but has the variable drag post. Cosmetically it's about 90%, functionally it's 100%. Steel block, so it's workable with a back-mount vest. Comes with original bag. Buyer pays shipping and insurance to anywhere in the world, I'll make sure it gets packaged lovingly. Sale will be through my LLC in Wisconsin, so keep that in mind when comparing to new pricing, as my LLC is not in NY or CA and Taxes will differ. $9100. Pictures to be added once I get a chance to snap some

Yeah, it was a huge bummer that we couldn't finish with RED, the footage was great when it recorded! Glad you had a good experience.

Thanks Afton for the posts, they came in handy before I ended up in the field with the RED. These are obviously just my opinions based on working with the camera for the 4 days it cooperated, so perhaps they don't fully reflect the cam's capabilities or positive aspects. Anyways... I was booked on a 3-week indi feature shooting on the Texas/Mexico border between Roma TX and Miguel Aleman, MX. The day I headed to NY for a quick in-between gig, I was informed that we were no longer shooting S16 through panavision Hollywood, but rather RED through indirentals. Fine. Terry west was great and got me a power cable ASAP, and Jim Bartell got me the run stop ASAP as well, so I was pretty happy. Referring to posts from all you guys I requested all the bits I would need, and things seemed fine. We built the camera day 1, using Ultraprimes, 1 motor, LW mattebox, no drive or battery mount. It was VERY light. Then I was asked to fly the onboard, downconverter up-top, the transmitter up-top as well. No problem. Still light and easy. I chose to use the Element Technica rods base, as it gave me a very secure mounting point for the motor and accs, as the DP wanted to do lightning-quick transitions from the rig to sticks or handheld. I used the Element O'connor plate, and just ran my dovetail to that, which gave me a HUGE range of fore-aft adjustment, and felt extremely solid. I tried the RED cheese plate, which worked but was molasses slow for the transitions in comparison. All good. I flew 2 of their batteries on the bottom of my sled, which let us keep the camera powered during battery swaps (though unfortunately not during transitions between the rig and sticks/handheld). Then I was asked to start flying the drive, as they "forgot" to bring a loader and preferred to dump the whole day at once. Ok, no problem. Still balanced fine - used the long rods on the bottom, and pushed the cage as close to the camera as possible, pointing roughly straight up and down (slightly tipped towards the camera). This helped lower the CG quite a bit and made the camera more of a normal weight. Only problem is that the power connector, GPI connector and drive connectors all plug into the back of the camera, so you cant really snug the batt/drive cage up close to it. As mentioned by everyone else - it ends up longer than necessary...poorly designed layout on the back but otherwise fine. Still lots of velcro necessary to hang accs, otherwise you end up adding about 5 lbs of RED hardware...to stick velcro on. So for the first 3 days, all was well. Shooting indoors in Texas/Mexico summer heat and so far so good (about 108 degrees and 90% humidity). Then we stepped outdoors and the camera essentially quit on us. Nothing to do with heat, the drives or steadicam, it simply would not record. The camera began spitting "codec errors" and other random messages no matter how they formatted the cards, etc.. This was on build 15 (supposedly the stable, proven build). It was bizarre, we rolled, slated, and I held the first frame, but as soon as the actor stepped into frame, the camera puked and quit. Tried again, same thing. We tried shooting another scene, which worked fine, and then the scene after that it did the same thing. The best answer we got was "oh, yeah, the camera will do that sometimes. There's too much information in the frame for the compressor." Uh..... Wrapped early, had some fun in Mexico, then back to set the next day. This time, they recommended upgrading to build 16, so production did. Same thing. Indoors, fine - no problems. Outdoors with any movement in the frame - codec errors. Sticks, handheld, drives, CF cards - all the same thing. So I got another day off while the sat on the phone with indirentals and RED. Same answer - the camera sometimes gets confused with high-contrast scenes that contain movement. "It does that sometimes, but most people don't have a problem with it." They offered to trade-out bodies, but almost guaranteed that it would happen no matter what, just an issue with the compression implementation. Oh, and then it overheated. And a few batteries went down until I remembered Afton's post and cleaned the plastic bits out. F900R and digiprimes came the next morning thanks to a Panavision bailout, reshot the first 3 days and finished the shoot with no camera problems (but plenty of production issues......so fun). I was really hoping to fly it the whole shoot, but it appears the camera has a long way to go before being reliable enough to take a single body a long way from help. The images were beautiful, it flew nicely (though I agree with Brook on the modularity - interesting idea, not so great in practice. Takes too long to build and you can never REALLY build it ideally steadicam at this point in time). A couple years from now the bugs should be worked out and it'll be a good camera. All I know is that right now if it were my money backing a project, I wouldn't touch RED with a 10' pole. Film or HD are a LOT cheaper than reshoots and downtime. And the worst part is, you never really know if it'll do what it did to us, or just work perfectly. So many people report great experiences, and then after you have a bad time, it seems like there are guys coming out of the woodwork who have had similar experiences . Oh well. We tried.

I think in terms of food....LA is a Burger capital, so eat as many as you can while here! In Venice, Hinano Cafe is a semi-secret AWESOME bar-style burger. 15 Washington Blvd. In Santa Monica, there's a bar called Father's Office on Montana and 10th. Always a line, so expect to wait like 45 min, but it's pretty unparalleled. Gourmet-style. MMMMMM

New G-50? or an Older one? How much you want for it? The arm is about 1.5 years old I believe. Not sure if that makes it new or old? It has the adjustable drag on the post, but it is not the newEST style post that's removable (and adjustable by about 3"). I'm told that upgrade is about $350. With that in mind, I'm pricing it to be $9100, meaning it's still $1000 off new if you include the amount you'd pay to get the post-upgrade kit. I will sell it through my LLC in Wisconsin and ship it from there, meaning that you pay no sales tax in NYC or LA, giving a larger discount to those looking to purchase new in LA. Should be available roughly July 23.

I realize that this is like looking for a flying pink elephant unicorn...but still.. I have a one-month gig beginning next week, and need to get my finances in order so that following this job I can upgrade my arm. Looking for a G-70 or Pro arm ONLY, and will be selling my G-50 to help defray the cost. I've tried both arms, love them both, and will start on the used market before looking new. If someone has a "spare" and needs the cash in these economically challenging times, let me relieve the burden and fly it. Not expecting any takers here, but it's worth a shot, eh?

SOLD! Thanks