Robert Wall

nope but I'm up for anything!

I'm spending tonight in Hollywood up by the bowl. I just flew in from Portland producing a documentary short - wouldn't mind having a drink with somebody! Again, I'm just a hack but I love chatting with the real deal - all my feature and TV experience is as a teamster!

I'm going to be in LA the 22nd to the 24th as well shooting a documentary short. I'm not a famous or experienced operator but I wouldn't mind meeting some!

So you want to pull focus with an inexperienced AC on a camera with a huge sensor and doesn't want to use a wide lens. I would say good luck. I'm not sure your director understands how difficult what you are talking about is. Offhand I would say you've got a few options if you have to stick with that criterea: 1) the director needs to practice like crazy with the bartech or whatever you get, and somehow try to pick up a skillset that takes a LOT of practice to do well 2) use a camera with a lot smaller sensor than a 5D 3) Light everything like crazy (maybe shoot outside) and then stop down like crazy. Note: there's no reason to use the 5D if you do this - just get a camcorder. 4) design every move so you stay the same distance from the subject. Your hmc has a 1/3" sensor. The difference in DOF between this and a full frame is huge.

Juan - my understanding was the main op on ghostwhisperer was Gavin Ames.

Remember that your reel has one singular purpose: to get you work. Anything that doesn't serve that purpose doesn't belong in it. It's even more that way than a resume - the resume has the purpose to get you an interview, but you never know what little tidbit might get you there ("Oh, he volunteers at the humane society? I like animals too.") But in my opinion, in a reel people are looking at: "is he/she competent at their craft?" and/or "will their work bring a style/quality to my show that I desire or need?" I corresponded with Gavin Ames a bit this year and he sent me his reel - it's longer than yours but shows a huge variety of shots in different environments, and most important it isn't boring. Here it is:

Doug, I think it maybe belongs in "general." First off, the 2 things that strike me without going into the operating: 1, that shot opening of you operating should go. Let's see your operating, not you operating, because that's what counts. 2: using the Tragically Hip song - you've got to balance wanting a cool song with using copyrighted material to try to sell yourself to people who make their living creating content. Some might be cool with it, many would not and you'd have lost yourself a job right away. Straight up, it's not legal; that said, a million people do it, and for much more commercial content than a reel - that doesn't make it right and again, you're trying to sell to people who think about this issue.

Stephen, like James I'm not an experienced pro as an op. The music is a tricky thing, I agree that this is not the right choice. I would either look for some free stuff (there's a lot of classical - not sure if that's the right feel) or buy a clip, you can get some good ones for less than $20. People like Phillip Bloom are using copyrighted music left and right in their pieces, but it could seriously turn off a viewer, and since you're looking to get work from your reel, not a good thing. The shots are really too long for a reel, without a lot happening - I would cut them down and add some more from different productions and emphasize some different types of motion and lock-offs - realistically you've only got what, 5, 6 shots in there? That said, kudos on starting the process of getting a reel together - I know it's hard.

I can say unfortunately from experience it's not just production companies and private clients that do this. I was hired by a city government last year to shoot and produce a short piece. I signed the contract, paid for all the travel and expenses, shot the piece, produced it, handed it over, and foolishly thought I would get paid. They loved the product, it was exactly what they wanted, there was no argument that my editor and I had done exactly what was asked of us, in exactly the time frame. After hundreds of dollars of fees, runarounds, endless signing of forms and 6 months, they finally said they simply couldn't pay. It was for $10,000 so I finally gave up. A producer working on a related project paid me some of it because he felt so bad, he was the one who lined up the job for me in the first place. That's right, he just paid me some of his own money because he felt like he fixed me up with some losers. The city was the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by the way, not improving my impression of Louisianians.

To be honest despite the weird editing, it looks like quite a good gig, especially if it's a repeating thing that you're getting called back for regularly. Congrats on a solid job.

What Ron and James said. Additionally, if you're on a budget, let me introduce you to one of the best deals on weight plates that I think you can find: glidecam weight plates, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/656408-REG/Glidecam_GLCWP_Camera_Weight_Plate.html The price is right and the holes are too.

Nice how they around the :35 sec mark show the bass player clearly playing, but he hasn't even come in yet. Where do they get these editors?

I have the exact same concerns as you've mentioned, Janice, and Robert. One tool that I've started to use is Mint - mint.com. It seems a little scary to link all your accounts and passwords, (let me say that I think it really is safe) but I've found it invaluable to see everything in one place - all my assets and debts. Then I started to go make the budgets, and finally, figured out how much it really takes to run my household on a monthly basis, including the lifestyle things I want to have (putting away every month for vacations, etc). If you don't want to link your accounts you could just use the budgets feature to get those expenses figured out - but if you link in your credit cards, checking, etc, you can see if you're really spending what you think you spend on each category. In a few cases Mint sent me an alert on a fee from a bank that I wouldn't have caught myself because I didn't check the account that often. As far as insurance, I agree it's out of control. I spend (including health, life, house, car, general liability, etc) about exactly what you are saying - 3/4 of the mortgage. If it makes you feel any better, I was having dinner with a friend who has a very stable job as a CFO of a company, full time, it turns out her "benefits" of health insurance cost her in premiums almost exactly the same as my free-lancer's health insurance costs me, but her coverage is much worse - a $10,000 deductible and $15,000 out of pocket max - compared to my $1k/$4k! So many of those with full time jobs (if you've ever found yourself in the "should I just take a regular job" boat) have almost no benefits other than getting to show up to the same place every day. We are basically debt free except for the house, and do have sufficient liquid assets to just pay that off (at the expense of a retirement!) but I still stress all the time - money is a major headache in life, although I think there's also ways to make thinking about it and dealing with it enjoyable and rewarding mentally.

Way cool! I'm also a recovering musician (jazz and classical bassist since I was 8!) and would have given up an eyeball just to be in the same room with a lot of these people!

I bought a zinc coated 1/2 inch dia steel shaft (3 feet, cut it) ($4)- it fits perfectly into the nylon flange bearings in the arm. I got a 1/2 inch shaft collar ($3) and put it inbetween the arm mounts. My gimbal handle is non-standard (larger), a buddy milled a little shaft adapter for it, the regular pilot handle would probably work exactly without, as the 1/2 shaft is the same). Now I can make any post length I want, I plan to get a dog-bone and make a J post next.

Nevermind! Made one that seems to work well!

I realize they don't cost that much...but maybe somebody has an extra as less than retail. What I'd really like is to make several of different lengths...

This is very interesting as I do live in one of those states, but to me the article and the link on it implies that you have to be unemployed in the classic sense - you can't have been self-employed and lost your work to participate. It seems like it operates as an extension for those who want to start a business - quite different than benefits to the self-employed.

Wow - I am flattered by all the responses to my very green question. But I feel less silly that my solution wasn't the "wrong" one - booming up. As Jerry noted, I did basically lock (though I took care not to completely lock it up) the arm boomed all the way up, which made it so very little vibration was being absorbed anymore, which is less than ideal. It was a tiffen arm and I just increased the tension all the way up (well, 95% of the way up) so that the arm sat at the height I wanted without me holding it there - is this correct if you are in this situation and do not have a longer post? With the tension all the way up the arm is not doing much to help vibration at that point, obviously. In the future I should have looked at moving the socket up, though I am most of the way there already, and getting a longer arm post. There was very little movement that I had to do, so the arm problem was minimized, and at the end of the day the producers were happy with the way it looked. However I was aware that there was probably something wrong with what I was doing. Janice, it just felt very high - maybe as a result of how close I needed to stand to the man with a wide lens on. Mike, that is what I was wondering if I should have done - though in the situation I felt I didn't have time to rebalance for a new lens. What a wonderful resource this forum is - anytime any of you very experienced folks tire of visiting it because it seems like the same old issues keep coming up, please know that it is very valuable to the inexperienced that you are here, and it provides this amazing feeling knowing that I can reach folks like the people who commented here directly. Thanks so much to everybody who responded, especially Ron, because as we speak, I trying on all my wife's high heels in preparation for the next show.

Ok, duh, I realized now I should have lengthened the post both directions and rebalanced. This is why it's in newbies.

Yesterday I had to shoot a short studio segment for a TV variety show. It was very straight forward - walk and talk stuff in front of the host, albeit as he wound through and around cars. He was very tall probably 6'4, I'm about 6 feet. I was shooting with a camera with an APS-C sized sensor using a 17mm lens, so about 27mm full frame equiv. I feel like my operational skills are not great going much past around 35mm ff equiv. They wanted a bit of headroom, so I got about 3 feet in front of the host and trimmed the arm all the way up. Is this the right way to do this? It felt somewhat awkward with the arm all the way up. I wasn't sure if I should have used a longer lens and backed off a bunch. Thanks for any advice.

Also with those folks is the "other" Peter at the workshops, Peter Cavaciuti, who must surely be one of the best operators in the world, I've had the pleasure of working with him, and I don't even live in the UK!. So it seems you couldn't possibly go wrong with stopping by.

Diggy I remember reading somewhere by a Tiffen rep that the LE sled was "completely different". That said I think the gimbal is supposed to be better, and as said, it's designed with a bit more weight in mind.

I know this is very much later than this topic was started - but you know these sorts of pages ("how to become a steadicam operator...etc" are generated by a bot that pulls keywords from online articles. As noted before it's just to generate hits for the page that's selling online degrees.

After I got the hang of the very fine adjustments to the gimbal, I was able to pretty quickly (20 mins) bring it back into balance in all axis. All seems fine now and I tightened it down very firmly to hopefully avoid the issue again, but at least I know how to do it now and will make sure that size torx and allen wrenches are with the sled from now on! It's flying on a pilot arm with a custom yoke handle which seems to work very well together. Interestingly, at around 11 lbs total the arm is still not halfway through it's tension adjustment - seems like it's got a lot more beef than advertised.