Brian Freesh

Sorry to hear dude, I know your pain. All too well. Scour craigslist and ebay for the next few weeks, it works.

Try Daniel Schade me@danielschade.com

Ozzie Silvera in Miami has the Silvera bracket/plate for sliding on the viewfinder mount.

Pascal, your arm and mine can handle a sled with a 24lb camera on it (~33lbs total on the arm depending on batts). And the F65 build you had came in under 24lbs, a rare build, don't expect to get away with that often. Your actual limit is 19-20lbs on the sled. More than that and you are beyond spec. I damaged the side-side adjustment on my Flyer by flying 20-22lbs on it regularly. It was an easy and cheap fix, but not all of them are. You're also introducing more risk of vibration with more weight, though your sled is undoubtedly stiffer than mine. All of this and more is up to you to worry about or not, and like I did you may well be taking all considerations into account before you accept a gig with a too-heavy camera (in which case sorry for telling you what you already know). I would recommend not taking any gig with a camera that could potentially be built heavier than 20lbs for that gig, unless you can secure a bigger rig for the shoot. My $.02

Apparently, according to Pascal's first post. He's also thrown an F65 up on that thing if memory serves. And people used to think I put a lot on a Flyer! A stripped Alexa with a lightweight prime should be fine though, I just get the impression he's regularly overweighting the rig. As a heads up Pascal, the plate pictured above is too wide for your top stage.

Your Flyer LE dovetail is the same as the second dovetail in the video. The original Flyer dovetail was shorter, but the FLyer LE and Archer 2 plate are the same.

Frederic, I'm confused. Of course the lift of the arm will change per setup, but your socket block adjustments will not change unless you lose or gain weight yourself, or if you stand differently. If the latter, you should be learning to stand the same every time rather than adjusting the socket block to your new stance. To start, If you use a mirror, or better yet another person watching, to line yourself up in the right position, you can adjust the socket block to that. After that, every time you put it on you'll know you're standing correctly when the sled floats in the sweet spot. I think your frustrations would be the same with any rig. Adjusting the socket block daily would be a pain no matter what. Once you get your muscles trained to the stance you should keep every time you'll be much happier.

Frederic, why are you adjusting the socket block so often? Your settings will remain the same on a day-to-day basis. If you share with someone else you can dial in your settings before putting the rig on.

Welcome to the forum, Chauncey. Everyone has their own path, and all but the luckiest will struggle for a while. These days I wouldn't pretend to know which way is best towards your goal, even if it was more specific. The industry has become much more of a 'make your own way' place than it used to be. Kids are coming out of college, buying rigs, and calling themselves operators. And some are succeeding at this. That said, I personally believe the best education is still that of climbing the ladder. If you want to do scripted TV/feature work: PA, Camera PA, Loader/Utility, 2nd AC, 1st AC, Operator. You don't have to hit every rung by any means, or spend a ton of time in any particular position, but the education along the way is priceless. You'll learn set etiquette, how to organize things, how to build the camera in a myriad of ways, how to respect the equipment and your co-workers. You'll learn how different ACs, operators, and DPs like to work. You'll learn about composition and lighting, you'll get opportunities to practice, etc... All without the pressure of doing it right the first time you operate, and all on real sets, doing things the way they are done in the field, not the way they are done in a school. Now, that used to be the way everyone did it. Such is not the case any more and you may find it takes longer than you'd like to get to operating that way. But it is the best education in my opinion. It also gets you on set as soon as you can find your first PA gig. School though, it offers you a stress-free chance to make your own movies and F them up. A comfortable place to just learn with friends with little responsibility. Those friends turn into network contacts as you all leave the school. And as you mentioned, the school itself may have useful contacts for you as well. As to steadicam, you should also look into the Lake Arrowhead workshop. It's closer to you and will teach you the same things. Also The Stabilizer Workshops (banner on the right side of this page). To be a good steadicam operator you need to be a good operator first. You need to have a good sense of framing and timing. You need to know what pieces of a story need to be included in a shot, and how the editor is going to use them. A steadicam is just a tool, an immensely complicated tool. Learning to use the tool before learning the craft is very, very difficult. Photoshop is a complex and useful tool, but no matter how well you know how to use it, you're not going to produce good paintings for a long while if you've never painted before. But a painter can make an awesome photoshop painting on their first day of learning the program.

I don't see how being union has anything to do with it. Undercutting is undercutting, lowballing is lowballing. Doesn't matter if you're union or not, though if it matters I'd argue most people here are not. The union doesn't protect "good" rates anyway, at best they protect against "horrendously terrible" rates, and that's not even all the time, depends on the contract. Of course, "good" is relative anyway. There's nothing here that devalues the work. This guy isn't taking good paying gigs. He's addressing an audience of craigslist, looking for experience and reel footage 6 hours at a time. No one that can afford a good rate is on craigslist looking for this guy. Cragslist is the perfect place for an ad like his. He'll find, if anything, low to know pay gigs run by people with as little experience as him. And eventually he'll feel he has the experience/network/skill to charge for his services. There's no threat here. This guy is just making his way.

Yes, it is.

I would, and do. For the right people and reasons. I'm not trying to split hairs here, you may well have exceptions to your rule, or a stricter definition of "work" than I am assuming. I just want to clarify that there are circumstances where it makes sense. My first two professional gigs 6 years ago were for free. I also did a freebie gig last month, and one last June. All of those have led to paid work (well, not the one last month, yet). All of them were also done as favors to people I know. So like I said, right people, right reasons. This craigslist guy is looking for experience and footage, more power to him. His rules are smart, though his presentation could be more welcoming. He'll learn the ups and downs of offering this, and it'll either work out for him or it won't. Why do we care?

That is a TR-05, just with added power outlets. Jens, when did they stop making it? The catalog online is dated 2013 but still has the TR-05 in it. I love mine, but maybe they just weren't selling enough to keep it in production.

I also have a few of his batteries and have sent many people his way. His communication is fantastic, his batteries perform as promised, I've never heard of anyone having a problem with one. I've heard skepticism in regards to recelling batteries in general, nothing specific to him. I emailed him about it and he gave me a detailed explanation of why he believes there should be no concern. It didn't feel so much like a sales pitch either, more like objective information. Of course, that's the best sales pitch ;) Despite Anton Bauer's amazing sale right now, I'm about to send John some HCs because I got a smoking deal and trust his recells to perform as new.

I like it, but I'd like to see it set up so the battery is vertical so the mass would all be centered over the stand. Ikan makes a rod-mounted battery soultion around $130 that is easy to convert to something similar to this, it's just a bit more bulky. I like how low profile yours is. I'd pay a little bit more for the space savings if it was still vertical.

It was an AR, the Op's first name is Simon IIRC, don't remember last name. The credits were on a web page where I watched the other day.

Mark, you can PM me. I'm in LA, graduated over 8 years ago. So unless you made it out here last quarter it wasn't me ;) You walk in the footsteps of giants doing the demo's for Drop. Hope you're doing us proud.

Mike, Chris, I am a customer, but I also 'do not know' and that's the real problem. I don't think you give your customer's enough credit. You seem to forget that customers are people. And more than that, to you they are customers. Chris I've told you over and over that the problem is lack of communication, but you've refused to acknowledge it. I get... we, the customers, get that you have vendors and that things can get delayed and things can get buggy. But if we don't know what is happening, especially after having already given you money, without a contract because we put our trust and faith in you, then we are bound to get upset. And if a bug needs fixing, we need to know you're on it, or why you are not on it. The PsF issue, which I still have not seen you admit is PsF as a whole, not just 720 (or was it 1080) is extremely legitimate. And if someone says they want that fixed, or even that it is a deal breaker, that's simple, objective honesty, not a judgement. If they say "Chris sucks for not having that working yet" that's a judgement. I have not publicly seen the latter. Publicly I haven't seen much at all in the way of complaints, mostly just people with issues they were not aware of trying to get answers. I'm sure you've had plenty of private encounters, good on the customer for keeping it that way. Until the past few months I've seen a lot more public praise than complaints. Chris, you know how upset I've been in the past, and you know I've kept it between us. That's because I don't think my emotions or your emotions are relevant to this discussion. I try to look at it objectively. I have a person or two I can vent to when necessary, but when I talk about your product on set to people who are interested, I tell them exactly what I told you I say: "It's a great design that is presently coming up short on execution. Don't buy one yet, but look for it in the future." Then I show them the good and the bad. I think the product could be great, but it's not there yet, and neither is your customer service. You're right that it can get better over time. If you discontinue your public emotional responses and start communicating openly and honestly and often with your customers, directly rather than on the forum, I think you'll see an immediate improvement to reaction. Sure, it sucks to have put so much into a product that is unfinished for reasons you're not happy with just to continually hear about the unfinished stuff. But so what? Use that as motivation to get things completed. And promise your customers it's gonna happen. Promising them you're going to stop improving it is the opposite of productive. Even when venting I remind my friends that I wish for only the best for everyone and for you. And it's true, I really want you to succeed for all your efforts, and I want to be proud to own the product of those efforts. I appreciate what you came in to this wanting to accomplish, and I appreciate how far you've come. I don't need the monitor to be perfect today, but I need to be up to date on what is happening. I think your DP analogy is a faulty comparison to begin with, but a worthy effort at trying to help bridge the divide. So to answer your questions honestly: I love when a DP tells me they didn't like a shot and that it could be better. I love it even more when they tell me HOW it could be better. Every time that happens I become a better operator. And sure I disagree with them plenty, but in learning what they like I become more versatile. And yes, sometimes I get pissed about it because they don't understand what I have to work with to get the shot. In fact, this happened yesterday on several shots. I left the emotion inside, told the DP I'd had some struggles with equipment and other complications, and apologized for not communicating these issues in the moment (even though it was often because he did not give me a chance to communicate before going again). He smiled, shook my hand, told me I did a great job and that the shots in the end came out great. We're your customers, we simply want you to treat us like it. Please keep up the hard work. You're so close, why turn back now? Edit to add: I don't think you need to stick religiously to a timeline, I know that's impossible. However, if you made a prioritized plan, based on what you know is likely to happen (unexpected panel delays, unexpected bugs, etc...) and then communicated that plan to the customers, or at least the immediate priority, and then updated us regularly along the way, I think you'd gain a lot of that faith and trust back, and earn it from prospective customers. No need to be super detailed, just: "We're working with the programmer to get the PsF issue solved as quickly as possible. Hoping to have it a firmware fix in a month or two" and then before that month is over: "May be closer to two, or even three, but we're getting there." Etc...

Fair enough, I didn't understand what you meant. What I said is still accurate, depending what point of reference you have. Point is, when you pan the rig, the camera pans with it. When you do not pan the rig, the camera does not pan with it. In a perfect world If your gimbal is failing that test, we're back to what I said before - friction in the gimbal. It may just need to be oiled, it may also not be machined precisely enough to perform very well.

It should not be possible for the gimbal to rotate while the camera does not (or vice versa), they should always be in sync. Sounds like you have slip in your system, like the gimbal itself is slipping on your centerpost. Or maybe the top stage is slipping on the centerpost. That would certainly account for what we are seeing in the video. If you are balanced, the camera is not too light. If the camera is too light you will not be able to balance it with a a reasonable drop time and/or the arm will always be lifting too high.

What camera are you using? Is the OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) on? If so, turn it off. This doesn't necessarily look exactly like that, but it seems similar and could be part of the problem. Maybe there is some friction in the gimbal. Try spinning the rig on the balance spud, does it spin smoothly (regardless of dynamic balance) or get caught at times?

The advertised weight limit of the Flyer LE does not include counterbalance. or the weight of the sled itself. A 14-17lb camera is perfectly fine.

Kevin, If the arm sags at maximum tension, it's overweight, if it floats even you're good. Now... the arm may take more weight than the rig is rated for. One job here or there slightly overweight isn't gonna destroy the sled, but do it a lot and you'll notice extra wear and tear (like I did back when). I was suggesting to move the KiPro to the bottom in conjunction with getting the proper cable to power your bartech from the top stage. Jim Bartell sells this cable, you could order it today and have it tomorrow. They are normally very short though, because the Rx is normally very close to the power port. You'll want one long enough to get to your Rx wherever you mount it. Check with Jim to see what he can do. Alternatively, a cable maker like Terry West or Chris Konash (sp?) can make you a Multitap that powers from the Lemo on your top stage. That way you'll have 4 P-tap ports available every time you shoot, no matter what camera you use. It'll be more expensive than the 3pin-2pin lemo, but ultimately may prove more valuable.

Have you actually weighed the build? That doesn't sound like it would be much over 20lbs, though I admit I do not know the weight of the KiPro. If you lose the KiPro, do you have to lose the AB? The F3 takes an on board battery, so you shouldn't need a cable to power it. You should have a cable to power the bartech from your sled. If you don't have one, you could order one today and have it by tomorrow. Can you leave the KiPro off the sled and cable to it? Not ideal, especially with a lightweight sled, but it'd get the job done. Can you put the KiPro on the bottom of the sled? If you do that you'll be able to remove counterbalance weight, thus making the whole sled lighter. You don't want to be the guy who couldn't get production what they want. I feel like there are several ways to achieve the KiPro, and production isn't responsible for powering your BFD, so just let this be the job that buys you that cable and then you won't have to worry about it in the future (buy two, always have a backup)

You can use mine Brett :)