Erik Barone

Hi Pedro, Which Winter X Games did you work? Aspen or Tingnes?

Good to Hear Thomas

Yes Old Friend you did a bang up job. And didn't pass out like I did in KC! I had a problem with th e vibration using our Ultra rig at last years Summer X Games. I found that I had the moving part of the top stage adjusted wat too forward. Once I dialed it in better everything seemed to calm down. Good to watch your shots.

Hello Everyone, I know this thread is a bit old but I figured I give my 2 cents. We bought a ZOE unit to replace a old J7 and it worked great....until it started to work like crap. It was drifting and the zoom speed dial fell apart. It basically was not standing up to the daily use it gets here day in and day out. So we purchased a Libec ZC-9Pro. This thing rocks. It seems to be built a bit sturdier than the ZOE. After several monthes of use we have had no drifting with out Fuji lenses. We currently have 3 Libecs in service and all are performing great. The Libec ZC-9Pro is definately the best replacement for the outdated J7 and cheaper that the Zoe.

LOL . . . when I saw you auger into that dirt pile I almost peed myself . . . . Nice stuff this year BTW, it's about time they started using you, unfortunately They still don't have the budget to match your efforts ! If you see Stevie the producer of that 3-D movie tell him I said congrads We'll do. Thanks for the Kudos...now get back to counting all your money :)

Hello everyone!!! I just wanted to let everyone know the X Games 3D movie coming out tomorrow features me flying a very loaded down Ultra. From what I have been told by people who have seen it I should sue to be in the credits :) I hear there's great shot of me trying like hell to get to the top of the step up jump to get up to Ricky Carmichael after he won. One of m friends said I look like a tank trying to get traction the loose dirt. I'm looking forward to seeing hope you guys get a kick out of it. -Erik

very true. the 21st is a busy night. Wish I could have made it out. How did it go? Hopefully I'll be out for summer X.

Your such a techno weenie . . . LOL . . . So Rob did you end up reping these things?

Oh you had to bring that up . . . . !! Ya the vest I had on didn't have the O-Shit cord and it was straight to the bottom of the pool . . . Dec. 3rd, 4pm 2003, 40 degrees and the water was about 45 . . .brrrrrrr in Las Vegas Thanks for bring that back up Eric . . . . LOL . . . . . Sorry bud you're the only guy I know who as had a dunking in the rig......feel free to send copies of me falling up the step up jump this summer at X to everyone on the forum. Erik

We at the World wide leader recently bought 2 of these monitors. One came with our new C312 and one for our EFP upgrade. I agree with all of Rob's findings and have found another potential issue they might want to look into. I was out in Oakland shooting Monday Night Football. I was using a camera RF (Feedom!!!) and found that if I was near anyone using a wakie talkie or other transmitting device my screen would go blue until I could move away or position myself to use my body to block the signal best I could. The RF tech and I though maybe if I terminated the unused inputs on the back of the monitor I would help the monitor deal with interference. But to no luck. So then I thought the maybe the thin coax I was using might not have thick enough shielding to block out the various RF signals I was getting into. So I swapped out to thicker coax for my monitor feeds. But I still kept getting blue screen. Luckly for the most part I was able to get my shots with no issues. My RF tech and I seem to think that the shielding, if any, inside the monitor might not be enough to block random RF signals. But other than that the forn the money this monitor rocks. Hopefully I get the chance to use it at this years Winter X. I will give a full report of the monitors cold weather performance. -Erik

I think Rob Vuona told me a story where he was shooting next to a pool and missed a step and had to yank kinda place the rig on the side as he was falling in......I think it was Rob.....

I liked the vest as well. very customizable.

Good question...Its an operations thing. Since they pay for rental of the package for 4 months essentially, they want zero risk of the rig being lost or damaged. They know if it travels with them, there are no issues. Political mostly...but they pay for that luxury. Is it your rig they are renting? if so it travels with you when you want it too. It's another thing if you don't own the rig and they are renting it from a rental house. Their rig...he who has the gold makes the rules. It would not be an issue any other time during the year but during college football season, it stays on the production truck. I hope it stays on the truck.........

Yeah Poor Maik... i kept getting text messages asking if I was OK?! Everyone always confuses Maik and Me.

Hey Mark, That was me thanks for the cudos. Did you see at the end of Step Up where I tried to follow him up the ramp and augered in the loose dirt up to my knees!!!! Very funny stuff. I got to watch it the other day in a jib shot you see me sink in and plant the base of the sled. Thankfully nonthing broke and I got through the rest of the games with no issues. Anyways thanks -Erik

We have Peter Abraham coming in to give us a in house demo of the 312 at the World Wide Leader next. Looking forward to it. On a side note to Jerry I look forward to meeting you when you come in for our training class in June. OK side note over.

I agree. I go with shorter the better...but you already knew that......

Thanks Alec

Well it been a couple of monthes since X. But we ended up using the same set up from the year before. But this year we were HD and the cable runs were so long that that prompter signal was not making from the truck to my positions all over the mountain. So the boys from 3G Wireless ( a great bunch of guys) came to the rescue and gave me a RF reciever that I mounted to the camera and fed the prompter. And the reciever was not very heavy at all. I just made a slight adjustment and all was well. I was asked to write a story about my trip for a work newsletter here it is: X-tremely Steadi ?Welcome X Games? was the sign that greeted me as I walked through the Aspen Airport to claim my luggage. Once I got my equipment together I headed outside to catch the hotel shuttle. The walk got me slightly winded. Ah yes altitude?.nice thin alpine air. I was back in Aspen to operate Steadicam at the Winter X Games. This year the production team wanted to go with a ?man in the middle of the action? style of shooting our host, Sal Masakela. All of our coverage was live, so that mistakes had to be kept in check. This meant I had to shoot through a glass style prompter, similar to what we use in studio. My prompter was not as big as the studio prompters. I used an 8 inch LCD for a monitor. This style of prompter on the steadi presented a few added ?challenges? that normally I wouldn?t have to deal with. The added weight on the sled was more for me to carry up and down all of the X games venues such as the Big Air, Snow Cross, and Superpipe. Did I mention the thin air? The weight also effected how I had to set up the rig. Normally I would lengthen the post of the sled to counter the added weight up top. This made the sled too long for my comfort, so I added more trim weights to the base of the sled to keep the rig at a comfortable length. The other challenge was that the hood of the prompter acted like a sail outside and any gust of wind sent my shot off kilter. I always had to keep a tighter grip on the rig when landing my final shot. This year I was also used as a ?shared asset?. This meant that when I wasn?t shooting the host I would be working with the venue director helping to cover the event. This was a great experience because I would be right there in the action getting some really cool shots. It also meant that breaks would be few and far between, making for long stretches of time working in a pretty heavy rig. I did mention the thin air, right? The first couple of days were used for rig set up and rehearsal time. Since I was outside in an alpine environment, and the weather can change at the drop of a hat, I needed to make sure that all my rain covers were in good shape. This year I didn?t have a cover for my monitor so I made one out of 2 gallon food storage bags and gaffer tape. I was impressed with how it came out. During this time I went through a ?walk though? with the director and the rest of the Host production team. We were dubbed Sal?s SWAT team. We went to all the sites we planned to shoot. Visiting each site let us figure out what needed to be done to make this work such as cables runs, lighting positions, as well as where the best footing was for me to walk. It was also at this time we discovered that the cable runs were too long to get a prompter signal. To fix this we added an RF receiver to the camera so that I could feed the prompter with out having to run a dedicated coax line. It was nice not having to run more cable, but adding the receiver on the camera meant I had to, you guessed it, add more trim weights to the bottom the rig to act as a counter balance. Did I tell you the air was thin up in Aspen? But luckily it was minimal and I got away with a minor adjustment. Our first night of coverage was the Skier Superpipe. We boarded our Sno-Cat, which we dubbed the party bus, and went up the hill. Now to say it was awkward getting in and out of the cat with the rig on is an understatement. It was better than riding up the very bumpy trail on the back of a snowmobile. Our standup position was on the start ramp of the Super Piper, which had a 30 to 35 degree incline to it. I had to put on my crampons to keep from sliding down the pipe in front the hundreds of fans who had turned out for the first night of events. We dug a platform into the ramp for Sal to stand on. My shot had me walk backwards up the ramp to reveal him for his lead in then spin off and go to the first skier dropping in. The shot came out great and was a good way to start of the Games. The biggest thing for me the next day was coverage of Skier Big Air. We had a cool set which consisted of 2 couches made out of logs and a big plasma monitor with its stand buried in the snow. It faced the monster ramp that the athletes would land on after clear a 40ft gap. I was the main camera covering the set. I had to shoot this with my back to the ramp. This could have been a bit hazardous if one of the riders lost control on his landing. I came up with a plan to keep the athletes and myself safe. As soon as the director took the camera at the top of the start ramp I would quickly move behind the set till the rider landed. I then came back out front to shoot the talent and judges comments. A steadi assist, a lighting director along with two more assists holding big LED light panels, and stage manager moved with me. It was pretty funny seeing all of us move around like one big group after every jump. The next night we did Snowboard Big Air with the same set up. This story wouldn?t have been complete without mentioning the snow. It seemed every day at some point the heavens would cloud over and the white stuff would start falling. Being a snowboarder and fan of winter I would normally welcome it. But when you are wearing 70 lbs of gear, it wasn?t a comfortable feeling. The falling snow meant that I had to throw the rain covers on to protect the rig. The covers added to the sail effect that I got from the prompter so I needed to use a tighter grip. Now at time the snow was dumping in biblical sense. I remembered seeing old footage the former Vikings coach Budd Grant on the sideline with about four inches of snow on the bill of his ball cap and thought man that?s crazy?.well now I saw it first hand. It was very cool and made for some great HD shots. It made a mess of my prompter glass. I would have to clean it off every couple of minutes. If any snow melted on the glass it froze almost instantly. I used the edge of my credentials as an ice scraper. The people in the production truck had a good laugh seeing me scrape the glass clear through my camera. In think I heard ?you missed a spot!? more than once. The X games had a couple of great highlights for me. One was shooting a stand up on top of the Big Air landing ramp. While I was up there I got a new appreciation for the mental strength of the athletes. Throwing yourself across a 40ft gap, 30 feet in the air takes a certain level of confidence that few have. Another highlight was shooting Shawn White after his historic 3rd run in Snowboard Superpipe during which he landed a 1260 spin. This had never been done before. Shawn won the gold with that maneuver. It was very cool being right there in the middle of all the high fives and hugs. The best part for me was that I had the first and last shot of Winter X 12. Not a bad day at the office even with the thin air, even with all the added aspects of the job, I was very excited to be part of the greatest winter sports event short of the Olympics. That is all, Erik

I've been trying to get in touch with Howard for the better part of a month now. We have a pretty worn out EFP up here at the World Wide Leader that I want to send to MK-V for the full boat upgrade. I sent him pics of it got a cost code to pay for it but have not heard from him since our initial email exchange. Looks like the whole West Coast Shop/ Lynn thing could be taking up his time. Does anybody recomend another company that could talk a beaten up and I mean beaten EFP and give new life? Thanks for any help, Erik

Looks like Steadicaming has been very very good to ju......Rob. Still Working for Mickey, Erik

Erik and I don't like the rig wobbling around like a kite, but to each his own... ;) Very strong Ant . . . very strong \ . . . Ouch!! :blink: