Super slow walking

[Brant S. Fagan SOC]

Try this one out!

 

Remember that by committing your hand, the one holding the arm, to a line in 3-D space, you also commit the lens to a similar path.

 

Once you can "quiet" your hands down, the lens will move more accurately through 3-D space.

 

This, combined with proper footwork, will improve your slow speed moves dramatically.

 

Best,

 

Brant Fagan, SOC

[Matt Mouraud]

I'll try thaat ! Thanks Brant ! B)

[Nicolas Rome]

Interesting! I don't log on very often but this is a good moment because I did a 20 min. short film which is made of three single steadicam shot aprox 7 min each. But the heard part was that each shot was basically in one room. Very, very slow.

And too make it even harder I was flying a sony pd 150 with a 6 kg weight under it! So... if slow is hard, slow and little weight is a real bitch.Just to say I understand very well what your talking about!

It's all in your mind!!

Use the force!!

I found the tychi (or how you write it)style weight shifting very slowly worked quite well in this case but do not make too long of a step!!

Obviously going forwards.

Backwords I agree with charles

But the most important thing I found is allways think of the shot. Whenever I start thinking of my body parts and mechanics or steps or anything thats not regarding the shot I mess up....

Good luck!!

Nicolas

[Peter Abraham]

Try this as one of the many little things that will help you.....

adjust the arm so that it is slightly weak, ie so that it requires slight up force to place the camera at the desired height. This forces you to remember the importance of participating in the path that the rig takes rather than letting it float along randomely.

 

An excellent point. Before the newer generation of arms, ( pre- Master Series/PRO ), we all dealt with the world of I/II/III/III-A/EFP arms. All of them seemed to be most controllable when adjusted to have a slight drop, so that the Operator had to lift a pound or two.

 

Since moving on to my MS arm, and now my Flyer arm I do not have to do that. I've tried it, and sometimes it helps but not with the consistency that it worked with my older arms. Must look into this more.

 

Peter Abraham

New York

[Paul Kellett]

I found this old thread while using the search function, (some people should try it, it works), anyway, i'm having some trouble with my slow walking, not the vertical bobbing as most of this thread is about, but horizontal.

Here's my problem, say im doing a slow creep, shooting sideways, it's like i can very slightly see my footsteps on the screen, not up and down bobbing but more like when i'm transfering my weight from one foot to the other, the horizontal speeds then slows down slightly each time i step.

I know it's the weight transfer from one foot to the other but i can't seem to stop it getting through, i take little steps and roll from heel to toe.

Am i gripping the gimbal to tight therefore inadvertantly locking my boom arm so that the rig arm doesn't freely float at the same speed in the same horizontal direction ?

I'm a new operator, i haven't done a course yet, the first available course for me is a Tiffen course in March this year, which i'm going on.

I'm using a Pilot with an EX1.

 

Thanks in advance, Paul.

Edited January 31, 2010 by Paul Kellett

[Peter Abraham]

Hi Paul,

Excellent question. Here is the cause for the horizontal roll and a few solutions.

 

Since we (almost) all set our rigs to be bottom-heavy to one degree or another, the rigs are in essence a pendulum. They behave as such when accelerated through space. When walking forwards in the Missionary, we compensate for the pendular effect with placement of pinkie or fingers when starting and stopping.

 

When facing sideways in the much-beloved Tango position ( This is where the rig is facing 90 degrees off axis of the direction you are walking ), the pendular effect becomes apparent when the horizon rolls to and fro. This is because you are pointing the lens to the left, but walking forwards. The gimbal that the centerpost is riding in does not care in which direction you have the lens pointed. It isolates evenly in all axis. When you start to walk forwards, the centerpost rolls as it should within the gimbal. The way to compensate for the roll that in Tango appears as a horizon problem is to place your fingers directly opposite the direction of the roll. So, if you are facing forward and the lens is facing to the left of your body and you start to walk forwards, the camera will tilt away from you as you being to walk and the area of post just below the gimbal will tip towards you.

 

The way to stop this is to place your left pinkie ( which is currently on the far side of the post ) around behind the post, so that if the lens were delineating " 12 noon" on a clock dial and the battery were " 6 o'clock" on a clock dial, you would want your pinkie to be at 9 o'clock. This prevents the centerpost from tipping in this axis as you accelerate.

 

What happens when you slow down? The opposite effect. However, if you are shooting to the left and your left hand is used to operate the centerpost, your 4 fingers are already resting roughly at the 3 o'clock position on the centerpost. Simply hold them there and prevent the post from tipping away from you. ( as you come to rest, the camera would be inclined to tip towards you and the area of post just below the gimbal would push out away from you- right into your waiting fingertips ).

 

Hope this is helpful. The amount the camera deflects from vertical is directly linked to the drop time you use. The more bottom-heavy a rig is ( faster drop time ), the harder the camera deflects out of true when accelerated, decelerated and moved around a turn. The slower the drop time, or less bottom-heavy, the easier the camera pushes out of true. Because your fingers are resting AT the C.G. as you operate, they will only work slightly easier or harder to stop the pendular effect whether it is quite bottom-heavy or barely bottom-heavy.

 

In Previewing, one additional thought. The business of " moved around a turn " deserves some attention. When turning around a corner or negotiating a turn while hard-mounted, the G forces on the rig may be considerable and it takes a bit of practice to learn exactly what to do with your post hand in order to compensate precisely for the roll. If you are taking a turn quickly, the centerpost wants to proscribe an arc beneath your fingers, not just deflect out of true. When you've taken the workshop, any good workshop, and have been shown the techniques, make sure you do practice them. This should include taking turns around corners fairly quickly. The rig feels different against your fingers when the masses are in a rotational path than they do when they are deflecting in a straight line ( as is the case when you start or stop moving in a straight line ). Muscle memory is your friend ! Practice these turns so your hand "knows" what to do.

 

Best,

 

Peter Abraham

 

Director of Technical Services, Steadicam

The Tiffen Company.

 

( 23 years as an Operator )

 

 

[Jerry Holway]

Peter's right about the pendular action, but you may also be asking about speeding up and slowing down with every slow step - so here are some more clues to all the good advice that's in this thread.

 

If you are not in perfect balance with the rig, you will be forcing the rig on a particular path, micro-correcting every deviation from the ideal.

 

The slower you walk, the more your own c.g. speeds up and slows down (as a percent / typically), so these little speed changes are amplified by less than ideal form.

 

The more you are in balance, the more the rig floats along the chosen path, and the better the arm and gimbal can take out the variations in your hips and c.g. in relation to the sled.

 

Similarly, if the sled isn't trimmed or balanced for headroom, you will be applying more force to the sled (micro-correcting, again) with much the same consequence.

 

Along with that idea is the need to have the sled somewhat bottom heavy so that the rig can balance to your frame (a neutral rig needs 100% aiming or correction, also not good).

 

So, be in balance with a balanced rig, move as smoothly as you can, shifting your weight smoothly from foot to foot, and do as little as possible to influence the sled, and practice... it's a learned skill.

 

See you at the workshop!

 

Jerry

[chris fawcett]

Great Tips!

 

Another little one: a slow walk doesn't mean you walk in 'slow motion.' The weight shift from one foot to the other is slow, as you advance forward, but moving your trailing foot to the leading position is done at normal walking speed.

 

Chris

[Douglas John Kropla]

I am practicing this very thing. Can I assume that the more mass a rig has the easier this kind of move is?

[Douglas John Kropla]

I am practicing this very thing. Can I assume that the more mass a rig has the easier this kind of move is?

 

 

Edit addition:

 

Chris can you explain that last tip. Are you talking about moving with your weight evenly distributed between both feet as in a foxtrot, waltz or tango move? As a former ballroom instructor if I can relate this learning with that it will really speed things up for me.

[chris fawcett]

Hi Douglas,

 

It is said that operating Steadicam is like dancing tango with a partner that never lets you lead. I can't comment on the relevant dance style, though I can venture that it is probably not the pogo.

 

In missionary or don juan, most operators walk in a diagonal—anything up to 45 degrees. In tango, most walk straight ahead. Regardless of this angle, you do of course shift your weight from one foot to another—slowly, if you are in a slow walk—as your body and the rig progress forwards. It's just that you don't move like in a slowed-down film. When you lift each foot, you seek to place it again reasonably quickly to maintain your balance. You don't slowly move your foot through the air from one position to another while balancing on one leg.

 

And yes, mass helps. It's like the difference between a canoe and the QE2.

 

That should fill your card for the evening :)

 

Chris

[Douglas John Kropla]

Shall we dance?

 

Got it Chris, thanks. As for the steadicam stance with the upper body tweeked to left or right, that is the same as you would use in what is called promenade in the dance world. And as far as the rig not letting me lead, I like to think of it as gentle persuasion ;)

[Paul Gardner]

Hello all. I took The Guild's & CP's advanced 2 day Workshop last April, and (you guessed it) there was an emphasis on slow walking techniques. Because there were so many advanced operators collected in one place, I was able to glean valuable pointers just by watching the other guys' techniques (the "foot-tucking" was the technique common to the operators who could "slow walk" well). I'm not sure where else you'll be able to find so many operators in one place, but, for me, the cliché "watch and learn" certainly applied to this one.

From the number of responses to this thread, I can see I'm not the only one hell-bent on perfecting this technique. Good stuff! Thanks to everyone for all the tips.

[Peter Abraham]

Great Tips!

 

Another little one: a slow walk doesn't mean you walk in 'slow motion.'

 

Chris

 

 

Not so little. This is quite key. The rig absorbs 1 cycle per second up to hundreds of not thousands per second perfectly well. But doing a shot that is paced as step..........step..........step..........step.......... is beyond complex. MUCH more efficient use of the tool to do a walk that slowly by doing this: stepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstepstep in little precise mincing steps.

 

That way you, your torso and hips and vest and arm and rig and career, are always in motion, in a smooth flow.

 

Peter

[Paul Kellett]

Hi guys, thanks so much for all the replies, i've been out for the day and have come back to all these replies, excellent.

Ok, my problem is not roll, the sled is perfectly balanced, statically and dynamically, i've even adjusted the gimbal with the special little screwdriver, (it was slightly out of alignment)

The problem i have with slow walking/creeping is that my footage looks like move,move,move,move, in the direction i'm walking, it's not a roll, say i'm shooting sideways,lens toward the edge of a table, i've got a good horizon to look at, the table edge is not rolling/tilting, it stays pretty level, it's just the move,move,move which i can see.

I'm sure it's the way i'm shifting from one foot to the other, maybe locking my own arm so not letting the boom freely float along it's path.

If you're going really slow/creeping do you walk heel to toe, no gap at all between footsteps ?

And yes i have noticed how operators walk slowly then quickly move the back foot to the front.

 

Many thanks guys.

Paul.

Edited February 1, 2010 by Paul Kellett