Rhys Duncan

i broke a rod on my old 3a arm , my advice go to a good engineer , they can often improve the original design , my 3a rods have a grub screw to hold them in place with a one quarter inch slot , ultimately they move over time as things loosen , my new pin has a drilled hole , it can not move anywhere so it remains tight .it is such a simple modification and just works so well.they said it broke because it was hardenned steel , they offered an alternative and time will tell if they are right but i suspect they are , they are offering me alternatives 20 years after my steadicam was built , i remember the tripler is a problem in a 3a rig , mine went but an engineer found me a better one out of a modern color television that was way better than the original,

i have a 3a , 20 years old and have cracked a spring , you know the noise when you hear it once , i suppose it is fatigue , i was on a shoot and i thought crap what do i do now , middle of nowhere , i happened in to a lawnmower shop and we got some cable ties believe it or not, 18 of them and laced that sring together and continued the shoot the next day with out a problem until i could get a new set , occasionally they break and although i thought it to be a function of age i broke a spring on King Kong with a new ultra rig pushing down to do a low angle shot and it just popped ,i suppose there is an incredible pressure excerted on those springs and they do fail sometimes,

look up Rig Enginering ,an australian company , they do a 3a arm and it looks superb

steadicam is the industry standard , lets face it it was the first , everything else is a copy , i have been a very proud owner of a 3a steadicam for several years and am quite proud of that fact but i feel the truth is now there are a lot of alternatives on the market and i must admit i am tempted by them mainly because for all the clever design the one thing tiffen in my opinion does not seem to accomodate is that as batteries and monitors have got lighter the dynamic balance of their rigs has got harder to achieve ,i.e The Flyer, how many people have added weight to their rigs to make them fly straight , forgive me if i am wrong but why is that not a design consideration ,you literally have to gaffer tape them on , i have found that the addition of a kilo or two can solve a lot of problems but if you are a new boy you might not think of that ,you would expect that the rig is perfect , ready to go , so i suppose what i am saying steadicam was the leader but now i find the likes of say mk-v, glidecam etc are offering viable alternatives and i am starting to look at those. ps i still love steadicam and would love to meet garrett brown one day, for all the joy he has given me!

i shoot a lot of video and more recently with wireless cameras so i can get a picture feed no problem to a monitor and i am never without my follow focus , i have taught my daughter to assist me and she has become a very good focus puller, although you can survive doing certain shots without follow focus to be really creative you really have to hand that control over to another person and my preference would be always to have someone pull focus for me, you can always run a lead to a monitor or record a picture on a video camera and to be honest if you shoot film you just need to have both , whether you can afford them or not,i bought a barteck follow focus and for the price it has been the best and most reliable system ever,i love it ,I find a lot of people underestimate the steadicam in a television sence and to be honest i treat it as a two man machine at least , operator and focus puller (come assistant),

rob is right , my 3a serves me well even after 12 years , they are a great machine and float beautifully when set up well , i feel that you do need to get a bit more experience with the rig and add more weight , steadicam as you have discovered does not work by magic and requires a lot of work and when you master it you will discover that the 3a although old is a really good machine.

it sounds like the camera you describe is far to light for the rig , the 3a arm is capable of lifting 60lbs and if you have a light dv camera when i have been confronted with this in the past , and thankfully not often i have added weigt to the camera , in the form of lead dive weight and this has got the camera into a better operating mode

are there any oppourtunities to operate on the rugby world cup, in france , 2007, anyone working on that?

among other things i work on the rugby in NZ,in test matches there are no breaks often an hour and a half buildup before the game which invariably i am a part of be it interviews or tracking around the field, this is a stop start affair, and then i run the sideline for the ninety minutes , now this is not for eveyone but i have used it to build strenght and stamina, you could takes a break but this is not for me , i run the line like the players play the game looking for any oppourtunity that comes my way, and when you do other jobs the fitness tells,television has in my carreer always demanded you stay rigged for extended periods of time and i have got used to that

a BL4 is a beast , but hey some would say that about steadicam , as it is sometimes they appear from time to time be it budget or whatever , and i have flown them on several occassions , yes they are heavy but i have found that they sit rather well on my rig , and can be surprisingly stable. low mode is a problem but i have a bracket , if there is other options great but if not do what you have to, today especially there are so many better cameras user friendly to steadicam , built in splits , low mode brackets etc that will make these cameras redundant , but dont discount the old workhorse , i still fly my trusty 3a

There are of course lightweight cables that you can get from tiffen but they are prone to break as they do not properly fit the large connectors , i myself have got the softer version of the 8mm triax that i can find and had adapters made that connect to the various cameras , that means you can avoid the stiffer triax cables and have a short adaptor maybe a metre and a half that you can rig , great for plug , unplug if you have A/B position on the shoot , as i often do on sport coverage without de rigging entire cable, i plug cable in back then run it thru arch where camera joins steadicam then to front rod and attach it securely to left hand rod , then make a loop that projects forward and hangs down to be above the monitor and return it down camera right , this time i do not attach to rod but have used old haden motor bracket to cradle cable so it is free to move , thus the loop gets bigger and smaler as i switch rig from side to side , and attach cable firmly to gimbal, i like this way personaly and have got good at it , the influence is minimal even though cable is large , i "train " it to do what i want and feel the longer cable lenght and route to gimble helps reduce its influence, anyway i suppose it is a matter of trial and error but it can and is done godluck i run the sideline and do sport coverage in new zealand , namely rugby , also work in feature films , like to have the field covered

same in new zealand i do a lot of the rugby and have developed a lot of stamina running the entire sideline , it is amazing if you are persistant enough how often you luck in to some great shots even though you are no where near the pace of the players , timing is everything, rugby is a good game to cover , i am not to sure about the american football though , sport is not everyones cup of tea but a great training ground if you can do it.

i have been cancelled a few times and have never charged a cancellation fee in my life , i work a lot and quite frankly appreciate the days off , for me the goodwill generated has far outweighed the negatives , life is to short to anguish over these things , you win some lose some but overall i would rather have a rule that people hire me because i am good at what i do and if the job falls over it falls over , yes it is bad planning sometimes , yes people do make mistakes , for me if i payed for every mistake i made i would be a very poor person , :)

:rolleyes: thanks howard , i will soon,sounds really good B)

Thankyou for your reply , more and more i thinkthis is the way to go