Shane Norton

Hey guys, My Ultra I vest is starting to crack in the plastic at the waist. I've searched through Tiffen's site, but can't seem to find a replacement piece. Anybody know where I can find that or if I'm just being dumb and not seeing it on the site? Thanks in advance for any help, -Shane

Anybody know where I can get a lemo-lemo fiber jumper cable in Los Angeles pretty quickly? Mine just crapped the bed. It's Sunday so I know it'll be tough, but I kinda need this by tomorrow. Any tips would be a huge help.

Ha, yea when I watched it all I thought was "Yea, I really suck at Steadicam."

Not sure where this might still stand, but I'd be interested. Think a few other ESPNers might be as well.

I tried searching around a bit, but couldn't find the answer, so my apologies if this has been discussed. That said, anybody know who shot this:

Two of us from ESPN are hoping to stop by. What do we need? I can't seem to find a way to RSVP, but then again I'm dumb. :-)

And I now realize there was a whole 4th page that I seemed to miss that answered some of these question. lol.

I have nowhere near the experience that a lot of the people on here have, but still I'd like to add my thoughts. Obviously the shot is out of context, plus I didn't have audio while watching. Some questions were raised about the background and where she was and all of that. Those answers very well could have been given before and after this particular shot. Still, it's never an extremely pretty thing to be staring at the back of a person's head for such a prolonged time. If the shot's intention was to make the audience feel as though we were following this girl through this club/party place, I feel we could have been a little less tight on her head. Loosen it up a bit? On top of that, I'm not sure we needed to follow her for so long. This shot just didn't feel like it needed to be a oner. Maybe throw a few cuts in there from alternate angles? The few times we get to see her face seemed like such a relief. It would have been nice to get to that a few more times. Overall, I agree that I'm not sure I see what this particular shot is adding to the film. But again, I have only seen it out of context. My question to the forum. Besides what the shot is and what's happening. Any critique of the actual steadicam work? Clearly the operator is just doing what he/she has been asked. I'm curious what you all might think as far as the operator as opposed to the shot choice that came from the DP/Director/Bossman.

I'll be there. O wait...I'm stuck in Bristol, CT. Where it's snowed for the last 2 days. Dammit.

Working at ESPN, I tend to shoot a lot of monitors. This definitely a great job, and I love all the practice I get inside a steadicam. However, on Friday the 13th, I got to shoot something different and I just wanted to share that experience with anybody who might care. Two good friends at work were putting on a little concert inside our cafeteria. They were set to play for about 40 minutes, performing original songs that were, for the most part, ESPN oriented. Their set-up was actually pretty cool for a such a small-scale performance. A little raised stage, about as high as a regular step, some nice lighting provided by a senior tech, and a pretty big section of the cafe designated for the audience. There was approximately 10-15 ft. of space between the stage and the beginning of the audience. This is where I came in. For the noon Sportscenter, my director sent me to the cafe to shoot the concert. We would have someone rolling on my footage the entire time to be edited and possibly used going into or out of a break for the show. Not entirely relevant to sports, but it mixed things up. My rig was connected via triax. I had the help of my buddy Joe as assist. We used a 500 foot cable from a BSP located near what is called Building 4. The distance between the BSP and the cafe was just about 480 feet, which gave me 20 feet of cable room to walk around with, give or take. This worked out well, given the space I had to work with. For audio purposes, we jerry-rigged a little shotgun mic to the top of my prompter. After some re-balancing this worked pretty well for the right. When the concert started, we immediately ran into audio issues. We were way over-modulated. Thankfully, we had many ESPN employees in the audience and I quickly grabbed a few audio specialists. After about 10 minutes of troubleshooting they were able to present a solution. The next half hour, give or take, was all mine to play with. Now, typically, during my three hours of live television my shooting is more waiting then actual shooting. Then, when I actually shoot, it's usually for no more than 5 minutes. I tend to shoot video in a monitor then maybe break from that to another monitor, and possibly one more break to another monitor. (Exciting, I know.) On a good day, I get to shoot people standing in front of our "magic box" where they do demonstrations or chit chat. So now, here I am with approximately 30 minutes of straight shooting. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. Due to the triax and limited space, what I could play with wasn't all that fantastic, but it was without a doubt the best time I've had in the rig. For the most part, I walked back and forth in front of the stage. I got a lot of two moving two shots of the performers. Quite often I would move in and try to get nice angle of whichever person was carrying that part of the song. There was also a monitor to the right of the stage, from my point of view, which was playing different video of the two singers. I tried to play off of this as much as I can to give the editors something to go with. I attempted to get in the stage at one point, but it was too tight and the triax presented too much of a logistical issue to really pull this off. The audience was actually quite full, so I spent some time trying to get some crowd shots. I couldn't get too deep into the crowd because the leash was a little short, but I could get far enough to make it count. They didn't play the camera very much and really only reacted when a song ended. I only got to see one shot make air. It was a simple shot of me wrapping left to right into one of the singers. I remember when doing this I went into a dutch angle (trying to some fun stuff) and then righted myself as I moved. Of course, the editor chose this shot and at the moment I start the dutch angle it cuts off, which I felt made it look like a mistake. Oh well! Back to the differences between my regular shooting and this concert. Holy crap was I tired! I've been a "real" steadicam operator for about 6 months now. This was something entirely new to me. I was convinced that my assist, Joe, was going to have to throw water on my back because it literally felt like it was on fire. Those poor muscles back there were working oh so hard. I always try to work on my posture, which isn't yet perfected, so I don't know if it was my posture that was killing me or just the fact that I've never shot for such a long period of time. I'm also fairly certain that I could replenish the Grand Canyon with the sweat that poured from me. So in the end, I absolutely had the time of my professional life. The concert was small, and can be described as corny. However, the two guys are very talented friends of mine and it was an honor to be able to do this. I can not wait to get a copy of the raw footage to completely humble any thought I might have had that I'm getting to be a good operator. Hopefully I can post some of it on youtube and see what you guys and gals might think of it. Hopefully someone out there enjoys this little "journal." I really enjoy reading what you all have to say and look forward to any comments some of you may have for me. Thanks!

Doing a little more research it appears I have seen both Manny's and Dave's work before. Since I started doing Steadi not so long ago it has become insanely interesting to me to learn the names of those I see on television. Anyways, thanks for the info.

Anybody here do the Grammys Concert last night? I got to see a good hours worth before I fell asleep, but out of curiosity and jealousy (I both love LA and Taylor Swift) I wanted to know who might have had the pleasure to shoot that? -Shane

I just wanted to say this thread is great. I've only been doing "real" operating since August of this year (so about 4 months). Obviously I am quite new to the experience but have already come across all of those same questions and comments. One of our talent on a couple different occasions seems to go with this one, "Don't take that thing onto a NY subway. You look like a terrorist." Not entirely flattering :rolleyes: Just wanted to add my two cents. Here's to hoping I'll one day be a solid operator!

I didn't see anyone respond to this... The balls are used for virtual technology. We use a lot of virtual Jib where I work so when CNN debuted this virtual steadi we were all kind of curious. The effect is much better served for a jib than steadi, however. The balls on the rig tell the equipment where the steadi operator is inside of the studio. However, it isn't very accurate and it causes the virtual graphics to float quite a bit. Hey Shane, You say that its not very accurate, is it due to the lack of IR cameras? I did a quick test at this past NAB and one of the issues we experienced was signal drops on the tracking of the balls being obstructed by the operator and simply moving outside of the cameras viewing area (small stage) also there was a need for a higher placement of the antenna with the tracking balls. Do you have and photos or can someone find a screen grab of the rig used? The placement of our antenna was close to the front of the rig near the lens. I would assume that any inaccuracies would come from the placement of the antenna in relationship to the film plain. If they have not accurately accounted for this offset, then this could also contribute to a problem. Or is the floating your speaking of more due to the operators operating? They maybe able to add an some sort of averaging to the math applied to the movement of the rig, especially the markers on the horizontal axis. I would love to talk more about this to you. -Alfeo The only picture I can find is this one: http://www.fxguide.com/qt/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/p18.png I have never worked with the virtual steadi. The only knowledge I really have about it comes from a man I work with. We have spent a few years diving into the virtual technology, primarily for Jib as I mentioned, but we dabbled with the steadi tech as well. At the time the company hadn't quite perfected it all so that it would look good on air. During the CNN bit, the graphics seemed to track a little funny. Now that certainly doesn't mean that the CNN issues were technology problems. Although we have gotten really good at using our Virtual Jib where I work, there are operators on both ends (the jib and the person who punches up the virtual) who don't seem to quite grasp what needs to be done which causes problems on-air. What you mention about obstructions can certainly be a possibility. The tech seems to be making it's way into use so of course there will be kinks like that which will eventually be worked out. I'm going to see if I can't get more precise information for you about it, because I'm quite curious myself. -Shane

I didn't see anyone respond to this... The balls are used for virtual technology. We use a lot of virtual Jib where I work so when CNN debuted this virtual steadi we were all kind of curious. The effect is much better served for a jib than steadi, however. The balls on the rig tell the equipment where the steadi operator is inside of the studio. However, it isn't very accurate and it causes the virtual graphics to float quite a bit.