As a new member to the forum, I'd like to add my perspective. Right off the bat, I was impressed with how supportive and encouraging everyone on the forum is. Yeah, there might be a few grinches spoiling it for some, but as far as I'm concerned it's been great. I don't have the years of archives to look back on and trace the decline in civility. I just have a few weeks of intermittent reading. And I've never noticed anything that made me doubt the comraderie of the steadicam "cult."
I posted to this forum a few weeks ago with questions about building/buying a practice cage. Within days, I was flooded with tips and notes from all over the world. Edwin hopped on and gave some important technical perspective. Rob Van Gelder even e-mailed me pictures of his homegrown beauty. Where else do you see such quick acceptance and encouragement for a guy fresh out of a workshop?
I attended the workshop in Australia this year, and I'm so glad I did. For years, while I was still living in NY, I considered going up to Rockport. Even with a buddy working at the workshops and a way to stay for cheap, it still seemed out of my price range. Then, after two years in Taiwan, I got it in my head to go to a workshop NO MATTER AT WHAT PRICE. Yes, the Australia workshop fee might've been cheaper than Rockport, but when you add planes, hotels, food, it was way more expensive.
So why go to Australia and not the US? Had I gone to Rockport as a New York technician I'd've been with many, many peers. Also from New York and also having the same ambitions. Result... Competition. It's inevitable. But in Australia, with the exception of four guys from Sydney with different positions in the industry, everyone was from a different country. Korea. Taiwan (myself), India, Canada, and the best country of all... New York! Result... Unbelievable support for each other. No one was competing for the same thing. We all knew that at the end of the workshop, we'd be going to different points on the globe and NOT competing with each other for work.
You guys are all right. Back in the day with so few operators competing for the same gigs it was natural to support and encourage each other. Even easy to get excited about other people's successes. And now, it's getting harder and harder. But there's got to be a way to find a positive solution to that competition. Competition can be a good thing; a way to force us to improve.
Don't compete by being cheaper or having bad things to say about your peers, compete by being friendlier, more passionate about the director's vision, doing what you can to get the other departments involved DIRECTLY with the shot you're about to do. Yeah, at the end of the day, most people will only know you for the work you've put on the screen, but the people you work with on set will always remember your attitude; good or bad.
Personally, I have crazy competition here in Taiwan. And most of it is with myself. You might think that for an American (white) cameraman in Taiwan, I'd have my pick of it all. But I've got to compete with plenty of talented guys. Guys who all speak the same language as the director, and everyone else on set. Why the hell would anyone hire someone who can barely speak their language when they can get good results from their fellow country"men"? Only if I can offer something different. And that's what I'm working on all day, every day. How to pull off shots that nobody has tried, or at least not in Taiwan. How to give the light a new life, or whatever. I also try to offer a more personable approach to work. I'm constantly spending time with production. And I'm trying to make myself technically different. Hence, learning steadicam. With so few people able to operate in Taiwan, it's something to help me stand out from a tough crowd.
But back when I lived in New York, the only way I could see myself competing successfully was by being faster and cheaper; being better was always an afterthought. So now I'm greatful for being in a world that forces me to compete by being better.
Jake "can't say enough great things about this forum" Pollock
DP/newbee steadicammer
Taipei, Taiwan
