Ken Underwood

Hey Matthew, I sent you a PM.

That is the most amazing camera move I have ever seen!!! Ok, it's like ballet, gymnastics and soccer all rolled into one. What an amazing athlete! Did I say amazing?! I am humbled and inspired... now I must see that shot.

First of all nice work on the moves. It was all butter. Second of all I love the way the RED looks. Amazing.

Sticks... definitely.

Hey Mike, that plate is a great idea. I think I'm going to talk to my brother in law about machining me a plate like that. The only think I had come up with was to use my low mode bracket attached to the top handle of the camera with a brick of 9 volt batteries gaff taped to it. I just taped the holy heck out of the box of batteries then strapped it to the bracket with even more gaff tape. It was a little tricky getting the whole thing clamped onto the handle with the battery box partially blocking the screws of the bracket but it ended up working really good. Extra weight is really the key, inertia is the best thing to make a sled stable.

I can only speak from my experience as a Flyer Owner / Operator but I have been extremely pleased with my Flyer. The closer you take it to maximum weight (15 pounds or so) the better it flies. The arm is absolutely top notch. One of the guys I work with most often just purchased a new Panasonic AG-HPX170, that thing is only around 3 and a half pounds, so there is plenty or weight left on the sled for follow focus, 35 mm adaptor etc, etc. Since I live in a small market there was no where to try out a Flyer before buying it so I ended up buying it without ever trying it first. I did read about everything I could get my hands on about it and what people thought about it. In the end, for my market, it is a perfect fit and I can't say enough how well made and easy to work with it is. I also helped a guy in my town who had purchased a pilot get it balanced and working. Even the pilot, once evenly balanced, worked quite well. I think Steadicam has really got their engineering perfected. Just my 2 cents, hope it helps.

But there is something to be said for remaining out of shape for Steadicam work. I did a gig for a local company after having not done one for over a month. It was a warm day and I was out of practice (and out of shape as usual) and was wearing a black t-shirt. I was sweating like a race horse the whole day, wiping my forehead with a hankie. The director comes up and asks me if I need a break. I say "Sure, if we have the time." I put my rig on the stand and take 5 while they reset lights and what not. I'm actually feeling OK but the director keeps insisting that I take breaks. I'm actually feeling kind of guilty. In this small market it is quite common to do a little bit of everything on set, so taking a break while everyone else is busting their tails is unusual. Anyway, this goes on all day until we finally wrap. As we are doing the end of project photo shoot I overhear the client say to the director, "I have never seen someone work so hard on a set as your camera operator did today." I nod my head in acknowledgment and wipe my brow with the hankie but inside I am laughing. I guess if sweating is counted as working hard I am busting my butt. :P

That's what I was thinking. I'm still a newb but if the camera and teleprompter can't be mounted at CG then you're never going to find dynamic balance. Weight on top behind the camera is the only way to go. I was thinking about some way to rig more height to the camera mount to let the whole thing slide back more but weight will do the trick too.

That is remarkably stable for the amount of wind. If I tried to operate my rig in wind like that I'd look like a sailor returning to shore after a long trip. :P I guess some questions are in order like: What rig are you flying? What Gyros did you get? Look forward to learning more.

White Lithium Grease is definitely the way to go. It will never dry out and it resists moisture very well. Heck, use it on the hinges of the doors of your house and you can sneak around like a ninja. :lol:

How about going to the paper supply store and getting a couple sheets of clear polyester that you can run thru your laser printer? Print whatever you want for safe zones, cross hairs and tape it over your monitor. Cheap, removable, changeable. Not so great for glare outside but certainly functional indoors.

I have experimented with adding weight to my XL-1 by using using gaffers tape to attach two boxes of 9 volt batteries to the small low-mode bracket and attaching the whole monstrosity to the handle of the camera. This added several pounds and made the camera much less susceptible to wind or small unintentional bumps. So far it is working for me.

Here is what I have found to work when trying to get the Flyer into dynamic balance such that you should be able to... "to thrust the rig on the arm forward, backward, and side to side without the it going askew." The first thing to do is find the center of gravity of your camera. Rig everything on the camera the way you are going to fly it, like tape or cards in the camera, lens cap off, viewfinder off, rails attached, focus assist, whatever. Put a pencil on the table and put the camera on top of it. I move it until the camera will balance on top of the pencil. That point is the center of gravity of your camera, so put a piece of gaffers tape or something on the handle above the COG (center of gravity). Next mount your camera on your dovetail plate and then onto the Flyer so that the COG is directly over the center post. This will get you 80% of the way to getting dynamic balance. Attach your video tap cable and power cable. Next, with your batteries installed, you use the swivel of the battery mount to get your front to back balance as close as possible. Adjust your gimble for drop test. Re adjust the swivel position of the battery mount if necessary then make your fine adjustments with the knobs under the dovetail plate. This will get you in the ball park most every time. Dynamic balance makes a HUGE difference with a light rig like the Flyer. Hope that helps.

I have nothing but positives to say about the Flyer. After months of practice and reading everything I can get my hands on, I am really starting to feel as one with my rig. It really is like a ballet, move, counter move. The arm is cranked to the absolute lightest setting for the HVX200 and barely tensed up for the XL2 with an upgraded heavier lens. The literature says 15 pounds but I'm beginning to see why so many people claim 20 + pounds is no problem. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. ;)

That is amazing. Thanks for being an inspiration and pushing the envelope.

Hey Alex, personally I think a Fig Rig is the best option for smaller cameras like you're talking about. Plus it is extremely affordable at around $350. Anyway, google it and I'm sure you'll come up with something.

Thanks for all the great advice. I did manage to get the file re-encoded to a .mov using H.264. I haven't upgraded to FinalCut Studio 2 yet so I just used the export using Quicktime Conversion and fooled around with the settings. Seems to have worked just fine. Holy cow does H.264 look great or what!! I also found a tutorial about using a poster frame movie (single frame .mov file) that people can click on that will then load and play the movie in place without reloading the whole page. I read several tutorials and tag specs and read how I should be able to embed the CONTROLLER and AUTOPLAY tags into a Quicktime movie using a piece of software called "Plug-in Helper". That way I could use HTML to turn the controller and autoplay tags off of the poster frame but have them come on when the actual .mov file was loaded. Plug-In Helper is an OS 9 app and although it loaded under Classic, none of my codecs were loaded into the OS 9 file system so I couldn't embed those tags and resave as H.264. I couldn't find an updated tool for OS X either. Oh, well. I just hope people won't click on the play button at the bottom of the poster frame and get frustrated when nothing happens. Better? :)

Charles, Thanks for the advice. I recut the reel down to 3 minutes, replaced the opening and closing graphics, removed the designations of Finished vs. Raw footage and re-encoded using H.264. You're right, it does look much better. I still need to make a graphic to access the demo reel, the text link looks bad. Also, I don't think I can embed an H.264 in a web page. It will let me place a .mov but not a .m2v. Is downloading the file OK or should I re-encode to some .mov format to embed right on the page? Every .mov format I tried GREATLY increased file size. H.264 is so much more efficient. What do you think? Thanks again, everyone.

Thanks Lukas. I have another question. I have touched up my website ( http://www.spokanesteadicam.com ) but it is really nothing more than an online business card with a demo reel. What else should I put on there or is that enough? I really don't know the mindset of the target audience. I appreciate the advice. Ken

Hey Kyle, I'm pretty much in your same boat. I got a reel posted to YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VXx3nO9BHE ), and a really lousy website ( http://www.SpokaneSteadicam.com ). I've got to work on my website and business cards and such. Since I am in a very small market (Spokane, WA) I plan on contacting every production house and ad agency in town to get my name out there. Then I plan on expanding my reach to Boise, Seattle, Portland and other nearby markets. I am more than willing to travel. So, to the pros on the board, what do new operators like Kyle and I do to begin getting real paying work? What about those of us in smaller markets? Am I on the right track with production houses and ad agencies or should my vision be larger, or different? Perhaps Vancouver, BC? I truly appreciate any advice you can offer and look forward to getting out there and making a go of it. Ken