Ed Moore

Whoa! That sounds like one very tight location, good luck! I think for Das Boot they had to make up a gyro stabilized hand held rig. I've got a KS8 if you have to resort to that. Oh hey Mike - we bumped into each other at the Broadcast show, right? Yeah it's going to be very tight; I'm actually taking the rig down on a recce next week to see if it's even going to be remotely possible. Thanks for letting me know about the gyro, I'll bear that in mind. Take it easy, E

Chris, I just 'Fawcettised' my G-50 and like it a lot. Slightly trickier to stick the arm into the vest when putting the rig on, but definitely increased mobility. Doing a shoot on a WW2 submarine in a couple of weeks with insanely narrow corridors and I think you've just increased my chances of nailing some Das Boot magic :) Cheers!

Haven't tried it myself, but the Archer has the same multipin connector and tally light sensitivity control in the stage, so very likely identical operation.

Don't know why you all think that's a real operator... this is clearly a photo of the hood ornament on Garrett's minivan. The man's got class.

I finally got some pictures back from the stills guys, and I found this awesome website for making those 'inspirational' posters, so in honour of the MB-14...

Hey Ben, Just being massively cheeky/nosey and wondering what the job is! Are you off Cribs now then? Cheers, Ed

Via Teh Internets, I've seen stick-on strips of "proper" gearing that you stick round the stills lens grip to enable it to engage with the Mone ARRI standard gear, etc. Not sure where they're obtained from. Obviously, any stills lens focus barrel that spins forever will be electronically rather than mechanically linked to the actual focus motor, and it's unlikely that any fine degree of repeatability could be obtained. That said, people keep buying the follow focuses for cameras like the Canon XL-H1 so either it's a case of Emperor's New Clothes or they do sort of work okay.

Thank you Max and Brant - amazing how something which can provoke so much head scratching and frustration in the heat of moment is actually incredibly simple once your head is in the right gear. I'll try paralleling the batteries together first, if that doesn't help I'll try the PowerCubes, and if that doesn't work I'll investigate the cable. Cheers,

That's a great idea. The E-10s have that feature where they will 'stack up' and do this for you, but it usually doesn't work for balance on the usual Archer backplate, so I've added another V-lock plate underneath the opposite end of the battery rails (which usually ends up almost directly under the post). I did that mainly as V-lock batteries are a convenient source of quickly-attachable mass, but now you've said that I'll definitely make up a P-tap to P-tap and parallel the two plates together. Lovely, thanks.

Ah, nice work. Approve of the two colours :) And you say that's just 0.75 mm2 speaker cable?

Yep should be; I'll be the one looking like he needs a haircut with the thick rimmed glasses. Thanks for tips for rewiring the sled power - I might take the top stage apart "just to have a look" and see what I think. What were the effects of not having a coily coily power lead in the post for you when changing post lengths? Was it a massive pain?

Thanks Robert. I wasn't aware the E-10s *had* a thermal overload cutout, so that's useful information!

Hey Rick! Thanks for the tip - the wire gauge does sound like it could be the culprit. When I'm feeling brave I might Have At the sled with a set of allen keys and a coathanger, see if I can poke a few new power leads down the post. Are you about for the Broadcast Show in Earl's Court next week? Looks like I'll be on the Tiffen stand for a fair bit, would be good to say hi. Cheers, E

Hi guys, The other day a strange thing was happening. I was powering a RED, a Decimator downconverter, and a BFD/Mone from my Archer sled. Obviously the standard LCD was being powered as well. Power was coming from an IDX Endura 10. Everything was quite happy, unless the focus puller made a rapid change in focus, at which point the whole sled would trip out. Cycling the sled power switch brought everything back up, but obviously it was pretty annoying due the RED bootup time. A similar effect happened when I was a little over zealous in calibrating the focus stops and the M-one came up on the hard stop on the lens - everything tripped out. The obvious answer is that in these two situations the BFD / M-one drew a little more power than under 'normal' conditions, and this tripped some sort of MCB or something in the sled that is reset by cycling the sled power switch. The other option is that there was something faulty with the BFD / M-one, but I use this set all the time and haven't encounter this before. What would be the best way to prevent this in the future? I can now understand why the more expensive rigs have multiple power supplies so you can power the camera separately to the AKS, but that's not an option on the Archer. Well, I *could* power the RED off its own batteries but the typical RED setups I work with are difficult enough to balance on the Archer without adding yet more weight above the gimbal. Your thoughts appreciated.

I flew an MB-14 today. It was stupid. Trying to get some photos from the stills person to demonstrate that, but for the moment you'll have to take my word for it. Do any of you guys own your own clip-on or smaller mattebox as an item to rent to productions which can't/haven't got hold of one for steadicam work?

Problem solved thanks to Robert Orf at Tiffen... Had to jumper pins 3 and 4 to pins 5 and 6 on the connector board in the back of the monitor, effectively bypassing the frameline generator, which seems to have died and caused the problem. Thank you Robert for your speedy diagnosis! (Clearly now the monitor's a bit dodgy, I should probably upgrade the whole sled to an Ultra 2. It makes sense)

Any ideas why my standard Archer monitor is suddenly refusing to see any signals? Have even tried plugging directly into the Video input on the back - just says NTSC - No Signal. There doesn't seem to be any way to toggle between "channels". The manual said something about "safety mode" which i tried toggling to no avail. Big shoot tomorrow morning, your ideas appreciated! Ed

Pleased to report mine arrived very speedily - thanks to Daniel at Cypher AMS (www.cypherams.com) in the UK. Next week I'm going to try and chop the DC connector off the PSU and solder it on to a spare hirose 4 cable - shouldn't be too hard. Not quite sure where I'll take power from, possibly just make a Y-lead up and take it off the hirose-4 connector on the top of the sled that's typically used for video transmitters. (on another topic: allegedly that hirose should contain composite video paralleled off the main input so you can feed a transmitter with video and power at the same time, but I've never got that to work) My plan in terms of signal path is to come up with some bracketry to mount it just below the focus receiver at the top of the sled, where I can take the HD-SDI from the camera, convert it to composite and then feed that into the composite in at the top of my Archer, from which it gets fed through the existing cabling to all the various outlets. The Archer's so bloody difficult to get weight below the gimbal that I considered trying to mount it down there somewhere but it's a lot smaller and lighter than I was expecting, and whilst the Archer internal cabling is rated for HD-SDI, I'd have no easy way of getting a composite signal back to the top of the sled for whatever reason.

Hi all, Lazyweb question: Does anyone have an idea of the weight of the Cooke Xtal Xpress anamorphic primes, specifically the 25, 40, 75 and 150mm? Anything I should know about them for steadicam work? Cheers, Ed

Get all the usual "robocop" / "is it heavy?" / "how much did that cost?" stuff but my favourite was a short where the set had been built in a non-air conditioned "studio" (really a student theatre) and by the time the lights were all on, it was absolutely baking in there. Everyone had streams of sweat running down their face. We only had a couple of steadicam shots but they were fairly long. In between takes I'm waiting at first position when the first comes over me looking all concerned at the rig and asks if I'm feeling okay, if I want my stand etc. I decline gracefully, thinking that by the time the frazzled assistants can get the stand from its hidey hole round the back of the set, they'll be ready for another take. I have the rig slung back over one shoulder. The first, who's been on a Mission (capital M very much intended) all day to Properly Hydrate and Rest Everyone (not that I'm complaining), looks suspiciously at my lack of enthusiasm regarding all things stand related, and without any further word, reaches out, grabs the post (which I release in surprise), and lifts the rig up a foot or so. The arm is still taking all the weight, and in fact it's fairly unpleasant as he's now moved the whole thing further away from my body. The first looks very pleased that he's being so hands-on and downright sympathetic to my plight, and continues to "hold" the post up whilst directing people around him. I'm so taken aback by this turn of events that I can't quite bring myself to point out that he's making no difference whatsoever. This continues for a good couple of minutes whilst whatever we're waiting for happens, during which time he has to shift around a couple of times to let people past, but always manouvers himself to continue "holding the steadicam rig up". I made sure I looked "all relieved" when he finally let go. At least his heart was in the right place...

Just imagine the sled control...

Great photos. Looks like it was a lot of fun (whilst simultaneously being knackering). Is that an XTR? Bet the footage looks gorgeous.

That is a bloody good point, and I can't believe I haven't noticed that before!

I'm definitely not using enough gaffer tape :)

1) The Tiffen figures take into account the load capacity of the gimbal, which is designed to perform under certain parameters up to a certain weight. You can put more load on it and it won't fail (in the same way that you can overload a fluid head without the camera falling off) but it's possible you'll notice a drop-off in performance (probably taking the form of an increase in drag) 2) Used to be the Archer SE had the tilt head but now all Archers do. I think you get a upgraded vest and they 'throw in' batteries, the low mode kit, and a few other bits and bobs. I have to say I thought the difference in price was quite extreme between the two options, but then I already had loads of batteries. And I ended up buying the low mode kit shortly after in any case. 3) I use the Archer with the RED all the time and it works great. Unless you have practically no AKS on the RED you're going to need to add weight at the bottom of the sled somehow (I go for the same 'gaffer tape a spare battery on' method as Chris (although I've found when I do that I can never quite get the finesse in dynamic balance that I might otherwise). Tiffen (and others) make a power cable to run the RED from the 12V out at the top of the sled, and whilst expensive, that's a worthwhile purchase if you're doing a lot of RED as it gives you a lot more options for how you can build your rig. The main catch is that you need a downconverter to turn the HD-SDI output from the RED into composite standard def video; unless you invest in an HD-SDI compatible monitor for your sled. The downconverter most use is by AJA and I think costs about £700 these days. The bodgy alternative is to use the RED LCD monitor, but the viewing angle sucks. Although apparently the new 7" RED LCD is a lot better in that respect. 4) Haven't tried it, but depending on where you're from, exchange rates make a difference. For me in the UK I got a lot more bang for my buck (well, quid) by buying Tiffen rather than MK-V (who are based in Manchester). Although it's fair to say that the MK-V option gives you a greater degree of flexibility in terms of upgrading in a modular manner, whereas other than the Hofmann AT-AT upgrade for the Archer, the 'upgrade' path is to sell it and go to the Clipper or Ultra. 5) Never tried one myself but my understanding is they make working with very heavy rigs a lot more bearable. Whilst I'm sure they help with all manner of rigs, for the price of the Archer a WK vest is probably overspend. I would first buy wireless follow focus and video send before I upgraded my vest. Hope this helps! Ed