Thomas English

http://www.caseman.com/servlet/catalog.Cat....jsp/itemsID~11 http://www.hofbauer.co.uk/cases/thrmodyn.php These were 2 "case avenue s" I went down before I stupidly realised I could turn my Lcd monitor on its side. I don t really know how good either are. But the themodyne were favourite, they can put wheels/handles in and have A LOT of dimensions.

Job!!!!! how did you cut your foam so nicely!

I had this dilema for ages. And after spending a fortune getting a huge case made up that was way too heavy and a total nightmare I now have a storm rifle case.. and the extra room at the top i put my bartech box. Fits perfect and pulls behind me like a dream.

knees do seem to be the main "old operator" complaint. "If you have to stand still try to move your knees whilst the shot and don´t bend them back all the time but try to keep an angle. I know this is more consuming but helps your body to stay healthy" Sorry could you re - explain that? I think its very interesting and would like to understand it further. Do you mean gently do small 2inch squats? When static do you feel your knees should be locked back or ever so slightly bent? I suspect I bend mine a little too much. Gennerally weight lifting your legs will help protect your knees from injury.

It seems to be my thigh muscle, although this clearly is not my thigh muscle but the skin layer above it. My vest does not seem to bite into my leg. The bladder on the back is not something I ever gave much thought on... maybe thats my next step. Your right about the arms position vis a vis the vest, now I think about it, I moved it up the vest for some high shots and worked like a donkey for hours and did not have the problem (also forgot about the problem). However I do like to position that for the shot..... maybe I need to think about that and find a sweet spot towards the top and only lower it for them low modes. I suspect the beer muscle protects the "median femoral cutaneous nerve of the thigh where it exits adjacent to tensor fascia lata" ... Armed with that latin, I wonder if seeing an acupunture man would be interesting for a chat.... because it is a little bit of acupunture after all. Thankyou very much for your advice Dave.... Oh and thanks for my trivia about dutch painters painting churches at 45 degrees! I keep using it in the battles of trivia whilst attempting to develop my beer muscle.

Is there any more news/tricks on dealing with the numbness. I have only just begun getting it. So far what has seemed to help me is - Removing my belt - tightening only the top klassen skiing strap ratchet and leaving the bottom one loose - Loosening the vest between takes What kind of build are people that have the numbness? Would padding out the muscles where this nerve exits with weight lifting help? more circulation.... I am a medium build with a mild beer belly. I had a better beer belly before, when I had NO numbness......

Robs obviously correct, its probably blatantly not worth it, however I believe in giving them as much hell as possible because it sounds like they just don t want to pay, because thats cheaper. Take the company to court invoice the producer personally bitch about them at every possible opportunity and over every pint have your friends ring them from the pub pretending to be from clients you know they have giving them hell for problems that don t exist feel bitter when you look at a bit of kit you want that costs the price of the invoice for the next 4 months In the meantime, I would be more than glad to write to you and include my CV and state that my setup time first time of the day is 45minutes up to an hour if unforseen problems are encountered. It can and has taken 15minutes, and will do again but it can not be expected. Is it true that in california, you have your rig fully setup on the bazooka/magliner in the back of your van, and you turn up to a job, it all just rolls off on a ramp being pushed by a pretty blonde in a baywatch bikini?

The Mickey is cool and seems to work well. Do you balance that with the camera on or off because it puts the sled into mass alignment rather than physically aligned. So if my monitor is one sided in weight, heavy Follow focus motors are mounted on one front side or even if a camera such as the 535 is used with acessories (seems very weirdly weighted). The mickey gives you an alignment of balance but not alignment of lines. So if you ten move the (lob sided) camera around the topstage it would imediately fall out of mass alignment , its lack of alignment will start mixing the X and Y . Is the best method to use the mickey on an empty sled (with as little on as possible) play around so your happy and then start adding toys ? I guese its another tool They are pretty cheap are they not ? Yeah put me down for one Thanks Thomas

this is something that troubles me too. Are there any tricks to making sure your sled is aligned? Can carbon fibre be easily marked a la ultra sled? I tend to use the straights from the top and compare them to the straights at the bottom. But ive been playing with the idea of mounting a laser on the top and seeing were it lands... or even the sight off an air rifle.... there must be some cool tricks......................?

Is there a figure anywere for the NIT s (brightness). To get an idea of comparisons..........

having a the cage and had a go on the AR, Yes it would certainly fit inside. I made my own cage before getting robs, Correctly tooled/machined. But Rob just got all the dimensions right ... I love it, highly recomended.

Yo Jay, No worries at all! , Kino camera, some of your work is great! keep it up! some day you ll be amounst the masters and black belts ( i think ive got my green belt now.... ) thomas

maybe its because you all live on boats and barges? So you like the horizon thing!

Maybe you missunderstood me Jay, off course if the director wants a flat horizon, it should be painlessly delivered. The ability to keep a horizon flat is so elementary to steadicam it should be taken for absolute granted. I have been in situations however when delivering a flat horizon on the first couple of takes has not gotten me the smile from the director I like. He has come out with some garble (as they do) and ive taken a much more unconstrained approach, without keeping horizons, letting them subtly rotate over freely (smoothly, without that corrected look) with the dynamic of the shot and this has gotten me the smile I desire. Admitadly this is subtle rather than overt scenary horizons, but nevertheless. All I can say really is I like to practise my handheld as well in real shoot situations and remember that a steadicam is not just a dolly, it can do much much more not just in movement. And its an art! If you prefer it to look one way offer it up and forget the rules of good and bad steadicam...... but master good steadicam first, I feel I will always be learning. And sure I might be wrong now and completely disagree with myself in a few years. What I hate the most, absolutely hate is when they "go dutch" on regular television. Anything over 20 degrees, anything with no shot dynamic to "explain it" , anything where they hold the camera at an angle just to "add funky ness" to the shot.... I hate it! But hey, maybe if I had been working for mtv in the mid eighties and had been part of that culture, I would have been dutch boy! and loved it..... Why is it called "going dutch" anyway?

The only problem possibility I could see with the retained status quo; If you are competing for a job (or someone unkown to you is competing with you) and their CV/credits are equall/better than yours. The producer may think, this new guy is cheaper and we get more expensive kit for the same money. This is simply me extrapulating the only worst case scenario. Leave it, you get better overtime!

How do you feel about your horizons? Whilst you may have thoughts about the latter ones, sometimes I think slight loss of horizons can work quite well (notably the opening sequence). The more I operate, the more I realize that there s a lot more to operating than just holding a flat horizon the whole time. How do you feel about your headrooms in DonJuan? I think I can tell when you have changed (round the rig into DonJuan) by the headrooms There was a sequence of posts a little while ago about controlling headroom in Don Juan on green screen monitors and how the plastic casing give you a false image with regards to headroom (check the archives). Maybe this is of help, what do you think?

Ruben, I think they are brilliant! Nice one! wicked more please!

back to the long slog of saving for a pro arm, then maybe................ Thanks for your advice, of course it makes a lot of sense. Patience.

Its also the equivilant to having a pro arm with 4 light springs in it. Could anyone give me an idea as to how flexible a pro with 4 lights in is. experience wise.

After some internet trawling.... I suspect it might 24lbs for 535B + 100pc top + steadimags 5 lbs for cook S4 lens 2lbs for stock 1 lbs lmb-5 1 lbs for FF motor/s total 33lbs I am not sure how much my mk-v /lcd monitor + 2 nicad pags weighs but a master elite weighs 20 lbs (with battery) so thats a total of 53 lbs . So on my sled it might just break even. No room for gyros though! Looking at other figures, In a previous post Erwin estimated a fully loaded and running 435 at 21 lbs - easy. I am sorry Jim for my lack of correct grammer........ colloquial internet and all that. I actually wrote a letter for the first time in about 10 years yesterday! Only because his phone did not work and he was too old to use the net. I shan t suppose ill be doing again. x

make sure you turn that steadishot off, in camera.... Had a real headache for ages on a dvx100/pstechnics trying to work out where this image shimmering was coming from on running shots. your weight will really vary with what lenses your using DVX100 + pstechnics + Anamorphic cook = 14lbs

This G-50 sounds amazing! So do you think it would carry a 535B with 100 % top and steadimags? Considering its maximum weight range is the equivilant to a 3A with black springs . 8000 dollars! I am calling tiffen on monday to find out. This is very exciting! It looks nice and simple. I assume its ISO-Elactic ajusmtent changes the angle of leverage that the springs Come from, essentialy de-tuning it and making it more centre weighted. Perfect for vehicle mounts and the like. WoW... I love the idea of this, but is it strong enough to do the kind of work I aspire to? It will certainly do my bread and butter, SR3 s and digibeta with ease. . . . . .

Thanks Jason, I have nt seen it yet, so im glad it looked good. Nothing to do with me though... i was hypnotised and don t remember a thing. Shame. Could have gotten you into to assist, There was a lot of cameras getting messy. It was one hectic shoot. It was my first day in a klassen vest and ended up being a load of 30 minute shots. Thank God for Klassen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the word up Thomas

you still are going to have the space size problem though! especially if your going to be trying to recreate those subtle nuances that make steadicam steadicam. shoot the whole thing on the mocom!