Kareem La Vaullee

And the "Mickey and Eric's" method fails even more if you have your Motors Driver Box attached to the front of your top stage... Remove your Preston/Scorpio/whatever receiver and have your Monitor and Batteries c.g.'s on the same horizontal plane and it can be effective, in over cases it's just useless. K.

Hi Neel and Robert, - Neel, I got your e-mail this morning, I will be outside of Paris for the next few days but we can try to meet maybe at the end of next week, the situation is quite complex in France Steadicam wise, nowadays, I will let you know which place you shouldn't rent from and which place you should avoid too... :D If you can read french I suggest that you thoroughly check this forum : http://www.cinematographie.info/ There you will find some info about the AFCS, it's the french equivalent of the SOA, and maybe some clues about what we are facing, us Operators. Today I was with the Association's President, famous, fantastic and unique Mr Jacques Monge, great friend of late Ted Churchill, also father of Steadicam Rockstar Valentin Monge, great men, great friends, honest and generous. Jacques taught some top Operators like Mathieu Caudroy, check his 2010 Showreel (all shots from just one movie he did recently, balance is neutral, as in no drop time) : The AFCS website will open soon - Robert, I will call you tomorrow. K.

FYI we can now embed videos in our messages, like that : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w[/media] The code for it in the forum should be edited as it lacks the ability to go full screen, also to get a bigger display area in the message as it's really small right now, I can show how to Tim Tyler if he wants. K.

Famous veteran Steadicam Operator and now famous DOP Nicola Pecorini from Italy (who created the SOA with Garrett), was known for operating with one hand only most of the time, here is a picture of him on the shooting of Cliffhanger : I remember at that time (17 years ago !) I saw behind the scene footage where he was operating with only one hand, even when he was not running backwards in low-mode preceding Sylvester Stallone on a rope bridge like in this picture ! FYI Nicola Pecorini is also known for being one-eyed, quiet a challenge when you choose to be that guy who makes the camera smoothly navigate in an (mostly) adverse 3D space all by himself. Nicola Pecorini's website. Just go ahead and buy a small rig and have fun ! K.

Wow chris ! Is that a gimmick or for real. I cannot even imagine the level of multitasking required to hold both frames (and smoke a cigarette :) . Sanjay It was during a workshop with late Ted Churchill. And it's not pictured here but my dear friend Jacques also used to have a glass of good red wine on top of his 3A battery, you know, for an unoticed sip between takes ! (I tried that, but with a sandwich, on the shooting of a boring made-for-TV movie... I have yet to try the two Steadicam thing) K.

That's actually a Steadicam Mini, here's a page with some specs about it : Birns & Sawyer - Steadicam Mini K.

Hi, There is an interview of Aaton cameras' creator and designer talking about the upcoming Digital Mag with 5K Sensor for the Penelope viewable here : Jean-Pierre Beauviala Interview There are english subs in the video and a complete re-transcription in english available in the next message. K.

No it's done with a copy of Garrett's SkyCam, I will give you the answer to your question Lars in a PM as I don't like to advertise for ripp-offs, especially when they push to claiming that they are the inventors of their "revolutionary" contraption... Just like I give up talking with people telling me that Glidecam is the original... K.

Is that a joke ? Seriously... K.

For the third year the MacHeist bundle is available, it is organized by independent Mac software developers. The MacHeist bundle is a pack of excellent softwares at an extremely low price. 25 % of your money is donated to charity, you can choose to split your 25 % to 10 charity organizations or to give it all to the one of your choice. This year the bundle's price is 39 dollars for 14 softwares (they say 12 but they added 2 more lately) that should cost you more than 980 Dollars. So you get a very good deal and you do a good action. I bought this year's bundle just like I did for MacHeist 1 and 2. (Every year the bundle is different, I think I created a topic for last year's Bundle...) In the software bundle there are very useful ones (an eBay sales manager, an image capturing, managing and retouching tool, a 3D animation maker, games, an iPhone manager, audio capturing and even a Web-TV studio !...) you can check the descriptions and presentation videos to know more. If one of the softwares is not interesting for you you can gift it's license to a friend (or fellow operator !) at the time of purchase, there is that option for all the bundle's softwares. And even if you buy nothing they give you a free software on their page. Just go there : http://www.macheist.com/ K.

Actually 60 Euros that's 77 USD at today's exchange rate. But anyway, come on !, 60 Euros a day ? And 7.50 Euros a day (a bit more than 9 dollars) for your video transmitter ? I know it's still the Winter Sales' period, but seriously... I used to ask for more than that when I had the opportunity to work on my first jobs, and it was with my Steadicam JR !!! K.

Hi Peter, You meant : "N'est-ce pas ?" ? That translates into : "Isn't it ?" WordReference ;) About the "elevatored world" versus tilting down, it depends of the style/mood of the shot and the skills (or lack of) of the operator. The "no tilting" style can be pretty cool and not distracting at all if made in perfect sync with the talent and without wobble, that's something that Steadicam is able to do in a way that is hard to achieve with other tools. As always it's better being able to deliver both styles flawlessly (and create many new ones). K.

Happy Birthday Afton !

Thanks Afton, I know that you are a kind of "me younger" when I see the passion you have for the Art of Steadicam. I just wanted to add that even if I have a "career" with 14 years of experience working as a Steadicam Operator and a "name" with some of the best DoPs on this planet who want to work with me and no-one else, if tomorrow an operator like James Muro or Larry McConkey tells me that I can be his intern for say 6 months and follow him everywhere to see his genius at work, I would take the first plane to be his intern... K.

Here is a picture I took with Garrett's iPhone that I wanted to post since the end of this year's IBC : Garrett and Chris both on Chris' new Handsfree Transporter, yes, the hard mount is that strong. As always it was great to spend some precious time with you, what can I say, I love you guys... Thanks also for the great party and food from Steadicam and thanks for the great food and crazy talks with Ulrich... Garrett, I didn't like that you almost made me cry by saying so much nice things about me and my operating technique, you are a one of a kind human being. Chris my friend, I hope you are safe and happy on your shooting in the Amazon Rainforest. Hope to see you soon. K.

As your message is for the moment this year's most stupid (but it may be beaten by a worse one when I see in which direction things are going nowadays...) I can't help but reply, but I will simply use a text I have found somewhere with three simple examples in it (just the second one should be enough, but who knows), I knew someday it would come handy. I could have tried to reply with my own words but it would take me so much time and energy it would just cost me too much, because english is not my native tongue and because I like to write messages that I am fully proud of (and that's almost never the case, I am like that) I hope your topic and all the replies you will get are going to be also useful to the others who are wannabe "Steadycamers" but don't want to "loose time" assisting veterans on film sets... So here is the text : Kareem La Vaullée - Steadicam Operator who learned the hard way.

And he is 55 years old... What is your age again ? Those kids... :rolleyes: K.

If they are only moderators they can't do much, they should be admins here anyway but this may never happen... K.

Here are two pictures of a huge 3D setup : The sled is a modified PRO with a custom base, with on top two Sony's F23 cameras : The positioning of the second camera below the Donkey Box (and even below the Gimbal) is quiet smart. The operator is Julian Chojnacki on the shooting of "Final Destination 4" I sent him a PM to ask if he could chime in to share his experience. K.

Safari 3.1.2 here also and no problem. Seeing that Charles and me are "Sustaining Members" and that all the ones having problems to see the pictures are just "Members" maybe it comes from the forum and it would mean that there is a "group limitation". I hope it makes sense, I need to train my english... About the picture, I know that I already saw it, but where and who did show it to me, I can't remember... (Edit : Maybe I saw it on Ben Semanoff's gallery too...) K.

I am posting a picture of Larry's rickshaw for comparison. Larry's one is a bit more elaborated but Andrey's is a good start. K.

Hi Andrey, Did you made it yourself or had a grip make it for you ? I would be interested in more pictures or even a list of parts as I am also in the market for a Rickshaw and think that it may be the best design (it looks a lot like Larry McConkey's rickshaw). I was also wondering seeing my friend Chris' Handsfree if the vertical post would be better on the arm connection side instead of right in the middle. Waiting for your replies and thoughts, Thanks, K.

Hi, In UK I would suggest to ask directly to Lemo UK, I had a pack of cables made by them and the quality is perfect and none of them were faulty. As a side note I would like to say that I had a very unpleasant experience with a US based company that used to advertise on this forum, not only almost half of the cables I ordered were badly soldered (the ARRI 24V was connected to the 12V pins, the Scorpio MDR cable had the 12V and 24V pins connected together !?!...) but the overall quality was sub-par and when I contacted the cable maker/company owner about the problems not only he didn't apologize or offered any help but he was even extremely rude. I spoke with two others fellow operators who had the very same problems with cables' quality and the guy's rudeness towards non US customers. So go and try Lemo UK Cheers, K.

I'm posting only the last image for the ones who have troubles to see the pictures, it's a bit of a pain to download and upload them all : K.

http://www.cartonifrance.com/ K.