Finding Gigs / Trying to justify the expense

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

When I was in Hollywood/LA for spring break, I got to fly a high-end rig, with a 35mm camera. Very sweet.

 

I'm anxious to compare when my V25 arrives. Will there be differences? Of course. Without a doubt.

 

I definitly understand the mentality of those who are strongly pro-'Steadicam'. They ARE the biggest, the BEST, the ORIGINAL, and that is my GOAL.

 

The budget just wasn't there for me, and for many others who want to go into Steadicam Operation, thus my purchase of the V25.

 

Owning a 'real' rig will come with time, training, lots of work, and a hefty invoice, but that is what I'm working towards.

 

 

And thus lies the issue.

 

This was supposed to be a forum of Professionals, Discussing Professional gear and Professional issues. Then Tim started to advertise which led to the google search-ability. At first it was fine, then the enthusiast started to get bold and really increase the Noise, That's when I asked Tim for the Steadi-Newbies forum. A place where newbies could respectfully ask questions and get answers. A place where someone could ask questions about the gear and the art that they got to see when they were on "Spring Break"

 

In the mean time most of Us that do this for a living, the ones that really started this place back in the AOL Message board days, started to leave. Departures were fueled by people with little to no experience giving advice, Bad advice, clueless and ill-informed advice (We just had one of those situations happen again) and then those advice givers attempting to argue with those of us that do this for real, with the big rigs on the big shows.

 

I stopped by the set of a show that I dayplayed on covering for their normal operator and guess what he brought up? This issue and he cited it as why he doesn't post anymore. We are busy enough working, yet we make the time to come here and try to give advice but then we get people arguing with us and telling us that we are "Bashing gear" gear that they claim can provide the same results that the "Big Rigs" can. Operators that don't really have the experience to understand what they are feeling and why things happen.

 

Then you want us to educate you...

 

We've been trying. Y'all just aren't listening

[JobScholtze]

Have you tried a Pro? Or an Ultimate? or any of the "Big Rigs"? Have you flown a full production camera on it or has it been smaller cameras? How do you have your rig equipped?

 

I have tried the Glidecam's, Infact I have tried just about everything out that, Hence my informed opinion. So no Job I'm not being funny, I'm being deadly serious here.

 

Good god people wonder why the established rarely post here.

 

 

Yes i did use a pro with a "big" camera on it, and i loved it. ( not the weight tough } But again, i dont compare them. If i could afford it and if it would make sence, i would.

 

 

But to end your quote with "Good god people wonder why the established rarely post here"

If thats the way you want to end an discusion, be my guest. :huh:

[JobScholtze]

And this is the review i did base my desicion on. Thank god for the less arrogant people and those how see things in perspective.

The folks at Glidecam were kind enough to send me a complete Gold Series rig for an extended test drive. I'd checked out the Gold rig at trade shows, but had never really spent more than a few minutes in it. This time I had it for two weeks, and even used it for a couple of jobs. I was confident enough with it after a few days of "playing" that I took it out for some real-world use. Overall, it performed very well.

 

I've spent varying amounts of time in most of the rigs out there: EFP, IIIA, PRO, Ultra, Masters, Ultimate, Provid, Mini, SK and even the Alien, so I've got a pretty good idea of what to expect in a rig, and where the shortcomings usually present themselves. I've flown the Sauve vest and the PRO arm.

 

I've owned a Provid for several years, and that's going to be the main basis for my comparisons with the Gold rig. Of the name-brand Steadicams, the Provid is closest in price to the Glidecam. They both list for around $25K, and they both target a similar type of operator, someone like me who does most of his work in video, HD or 16mm, and rarely has a call for 35mm work.

 

Glidecam sent me a full standard package, with their Gold vest, arm and sled. The sled was configured for NP1 batteries, although an Anton Bauer version is available, too. A Panasonic 7" LCD monitor was part of the package, too. Glidecam also offers a greenscreen, and the system is modular, so you could easily put whatever monitor you choose on the sled.

 

I started building the sled, setting it up on a C-stand with the included Hill docking bracket (a nice touch!). The upper stage mounts solidly to the center post, and there's a multipin connector attached to a coiled cable inside the post that carries all of the electronic signals and power. It attaches easily, and locks down tight. (The Provid's upper stage is not designed to be easily removed from the center post.) The camera mounting plate is large, much larger than the Provids, and the upper stage has a quick release function. Very nice, and something that the Provid lacks. The upper stage has precise X/Y trim adjustment knobs that work independently of the plate's lockdown knob. This is a big improvement over the Provid, where you have to release the fore/aft lock down in order to make a trim adjustment. Overall, the upper stage feels solid and well designed. It locks down much more securely than the Provid, and trim adjustments are faster and more precise.

 

The center post is aluminum, in contrast to the Provid's Carbon Fiber post. The gold rig is indeed heavier than the Provid, but more on that later. The center post is extendable, no-tools. The lower stage attaches in a similar way as the top stage. The rig I was using had some miniscule rotational play in the post-to-lower stage connection. Don't know if it was specific to the rig I had, or a design or manufacturing error, but it needs to be corrected. It didn't affect any of the operating I did, but I could imagine it being a real problem with whip pans. The Provid had a very solid locking mechanism for the lower stage and didn't exhibit this problem. The lower stage houses some of the rig's electronics, and the main battery cage, with room for three NP1s. You can mix and match the number of batteries you want to use, depending on your camera requirements.

 

The Gold sled is 12v and 24v capable with the flick of a switch. Glidecam has also wisely separated the monitor power from the camera power. The Provid runs off a single battery and has no 24V option. The battery cage slides fore and aft for dynamic balance adjustments and for expanding the rig for greater inertial stability. One nitpick here - with the battery cage positioned closest to the center post you can't open the battery doors. They bump up against the side of the cage. Notching out the cage on that side would solve the problem, and probably take all of ten minutes in the machine shop. The monitor mount is fully adjustable, up and down the post, fore and aft. This is another advantage over the Provid, which has the monitor fixed on the curvy lower stage, with only a tilt adjustment.

 

The Gold sled had a full compliment of connectors on both the upper and lower stages. Just about everything you could want is available here, and they've done their homework and stuck to industry standard configurations. Plenty of power taps and video signals available for your transmitter, on board recorder, follow focus, etc. There's a built in video distribution amp in the upper stage. In this department the Gold sled trounces the Provid, which has a single power tap and a single video connection on the upper stage, no spare connectors at all on the lower, and no video DA. The Provid does offer a frameline generator as an option, which the Gold sled does not. The Gold sled has a digital level-horizon meter on the monitor out, the Provid does not. One thing that always frustrated me about the Provid was the curvy shape of the lower stage. It looked cool, but made it almost impossible to mount any accessories down there, like an onboard recorder. The Gold sled is very rectilinear in design, with ample room to mount the required goodies. The Gold Arm is a IIIa style arm, the standard three spring per section design. It's not isoelastic like the current Tiffen arms. I was pleasantly surprised by the arm. Gold series arms I'd tried at trade shows always felt a bit stiff and had some noticeable torsional flexing under load. This one did not, and I'm told that Glidecam has made some adjustments to the arms over time to improve them. The arm is capable of a great weight range than the Provid arm (greater than a IIIa arm, too, I'm told!), and it has a greater boom range. It's also noticeably smoother, particularly when booming over the full range of the arm. The arm segments work together much better than the Provid arm. I always found it hard to do a slow creep (Mickey Rooney) with the Provid, because the arm wouldn't "break" easily enough and I'd end up with some vertical bob in the shot. Not so with the Gold Arm. This is not to say that the Gold Arm is as silky smooth as a PRO arm (it's not) or a well maintained Ultra Arm, but for the price it's hard to beat. It's a huge improvement over the Provid design.

 

The gimbal is very nice. It's smooth and solid. I never had trouble with the Provid gimbal, which I understand is the same design as the IIIa. Again, not as silky smooth as a PRO gimbal, but still capable of getting the shot. The demo rig had a little bit of crud in the pan axis, which I suspect a good cleaning would take care of. The gimbal is a no-tools affair, as well.

 

The Gold vest is much larger and more supportive than the Provid vest, and features a standard socket block mount. (You can buy a standard socket with the Provid now, along with a larger vest, but they are both options.) It also has a safety breakaway feature, which the provid also lacks. Glidecam went a bit overboard, in my opinion, with the ratchets on the vest adjustments.

The release levers for the underarm straps end up right where my arms fell, and I would occasionally release one of them unintentionally. Overall, though, the vest is comfortable and more substantial than the Provid vest. In real-world operating I found the Gold rig to be a lot of fun to fly. It's very stable and smooth, and the arm is a huge improvement over the Provid. I felt like the rig was working with me, instead of me having to work around its limitations, a feeling I often had with the Provid. It's heavier than the Provid, but flies so much smoother. The larger vest also does a better job of distributing the weight. I also took advantage of the ability to fly as many batteries as I wanted, cutting down on the overall weight of the sled.

 

Overall I came away feeling very impressed with the rig. It's a tremendous value, with a lot of high-end features in a middle-market price range. I know some of you will disparage me for not comparing the Glidecam to a PRO and an Ultra. But it's not fair to hold it up against rigs that cost twice as much, if not more. Someone looking to invest around $25K on a rig (which is exactly the situation I fall into) have a limited number of options, especially for new equipment. The Provid and the Glidecam are in the same price range, but the Glidecam is, in my opinion, vastly superior. I'm one of the many operators out there for whom buying a film-sized rig makes no sense. The market isn't there for me, but the smaller rigs fit my needs.

 

Granted, the Provid is a much older design, arguably a holdover from a different era in Steadicam, before there was so much competition. The Provid has gone without an upgrade in many years, and it's showing its age. Hopefully competitors like the Glidecam will make others sit up, take notice, and offer more competitive midrange products.

David Bittner

[Brad Grimmett]

Ok, i am not into the big Hollywood productions where the brand cares more than the result.

This just isn't the case. The results are everything. But people DO have first impressions on operators based on the gear they have. There is a reason the top operators in the world all fly one of the three or four "big rigs" (as Eric puts it).....because those three or four rigs have proven themselves over the years, and most of the famous steadicam shots has been done with one of these rigs. And if you show up on a job without one of those rigs people will automatically question how good an operator you are. It's silly that people are judged on this type of thing before they even put the rig on, but that's just the way it is. There's no getting around it.

Also, some of the people involved in this discussion are looking at things from a wildly different perspective. Some have done big hollywood movies and tv shows, and some are working on smaller projects outside of the hollywood system. This doesn't necessarily mean one is better than the other, but their experiences are certainly different. In Eric's case, he works on bigger projects where the whole crew is very familiar with steadicam, and inexperience can be spotted from a mile away by anyone on set, so appearances are very important. In other cases, some of the crew may never have even seen a steadicam before, so the rig you are flying doesn't really "say" anything. As long as you do your job well no one will care what you're flying.

In any case, the operating is certainly the main thing, but from a business standpoint we all need to be aware of how we are perceived. If your operating is good but the bosses perception of you doesn't coincide with your operating, then you may not get another call from them. So while we may agree that the brand of rig doesn't make that much of a difference in your operating, we should all realize that perception and appearance are indeed very important and something to always consider.

[jay kilroy]

When I was in Hollywood/LA for spring break, I got to fly a high-end rig, with a 35mm camera. Very sweet.

 

I'm anxious to compare when my V25 arrives. Will there be differences? Of course. Without a doubt.

 

I definitly understand the mentality of those who are strongly pro-'Steadicam'. They ARE the biggest, the BEST, the ORIGINAL, and that is my GOAL.

 

The budget just wasn't there for me, and for many others who want to go into Steadicam Operation, thus my purchase of the V25.

 

Owning a 'real' rig will come with time, training, lots of work, and a hefty invoice, but that is what I'm working towards.

 

 

And thus lies the issue.

 

This was supposed to be a forum of Professionals, Discussing Professional gear and Professional issues. Then Tim started to advertise which led to the google search-ability. At first it was fine, then the enthusiast started to get bold and really increase the Noise, That's when I asked Tim for the Steadi-Newbies forum. A place where newbies could respectfully ask questions and get answers. A place where someone could ask questions about the gear and the art that they got to see when they were on "Spring Break"

 

In the mean time most of Us that do this for a living, the ones that really started this place back in the AOL Message board days, started to leave. Departures were fueled by people with little to no experience giving advice, Bad advice, clueless and ill-informed advice (We just had one of those situations happen again) and then those advice givers attempting to argue with those of us that do this for real, with the big rigs on the big shows.

 

I stopped by the set of a show that I dayplayed on covering for their normal operator and guess what he brought up? This issue and he cited it as why he doesn't post anymore. We are busy enough working, yet we make the time to come here and try to give advice but then we get people arguing with us and telling us that we are "Bashing gear" gear that they claim can provide the same results that the "Big Rigs" can. Operators that don't really have the experience to understand what they are feeling and why things happen.

 

Then you want us to educate you...

 

We've been trying. Y'all just aren't listening

 

Well said Eric, hopefully you won't be one of the ones who stops posting.

[Dave Wowchuk]

We (the new, aspiring operators) ARE listening to what the experienced operators have to say. Like us, you were once a newbie on a quest in order to become a student of your craft. We are looking for the same thing ? but no one benefits from the destructive criticism offered to us who can't afford to spend $75,000 on a "starter system" (although we may lust for one.)

 

When it comes to information, I'm the type of person who wants to know "why". If the "pro-rigs" are better ? then tell me why. If my rig won't cut it on a feature film ? tell me why. If the industry is biased against non-Steadicam gear ? tell me why. All I want to do is understand ? plain and simple.

 

Overall, I'm disappointed by the tone this thread has taken. Maybe this forum is THE place for the "elite" and not a community.

 

Sorry, but I think I'm done here.

 

Dave

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Maybe this forum is THE place for the "elite" and not a community.

 

 

Dave,

 

I took a peek at "The Steadiforums" and you don't see operators Like Chaz, Alec, Brant, Chris H, Ron B, Myself and others that do the bigger shows, that fly rigs everyday, that actually test gear before it's released posting there or anywhere else. This is the forum of the "elite" and we are here to help. But when y'all tell us that we are wrong, when you argue with our experience, and base that on your "Vast" experience or something you read on the web then yes, it causes issues.

 

If you choose to leave, fine your loss. There is no other resource like this on the net.

[Dave Wowchuk]

Wow ... that's all I can say.

[Marc Abernathy]

Eric is on point.. thats why i stopped posting for a long time... inexperienced folks coming in here asking the same questions over an over.

 

this thread took a wrong turn but most of us who have been here for a long while saw it coming... when you ask a question that been beaten to death you are going to get flack!

 

lets face it.. this forum was built BY THE FREAKING ELITE OPERATORS WE ALL WANT TO GROW UP TO BE LIKE!! this was not some forum that was started by some kid in a gaarage. this was a part of garretts dream.. to share knowledge with others foe FREE.

 

i feel i MUST say this again... i am so fascinated and HONORED that i can have a conversation with Jim or larry , Eric, brant, Chas, Dan, erwin, jerry, GB..... at any time thru this site! these guys are the TOP folks!!! so YES we should excercise some courtesy and humbleness and keep them here.. if not for them this site would not have made it this far and we woujld not have learned some good tricks of the trade.

 

Example... Eric was so nice to me back on a shoot he was doing.. he contacted ME FIRST!! i did not contact him.. and he welcomed me on set to watch him and to ask questions... DAMN! talk about winining the lottery!! that was exteemely nice of him.. and thats the vision GB had/has in mind..

so if we respect the ELITE here then this site will grow and before long the rest of us will get to that status!

 

i am not afraid to say i am honored to be a member here.

[Eric Fletcher S.O.C.]

Wow ... that's all I can say.

 

 

I thought you were leaving

[JobScholtze]

I dont think GB and Jim and all the rest, would like to end up with ONLY you guys. :D

Like you sad, you are here to help not to bash peoples equipment.

 

I have been lurking this forum for about 3 years now, spoke with all of you, and when it turns in this sort of tread, its always the same people talking this crap.

For the last time, see things in perspective. What line of work are you in, what rigs suits for that kind of work.

Be cool and stay nice.

 

But thanks for all the shared info Eric, much appriciated :rolleyes:

[Matt Burton]

I have been lurking this forum for about 3 years now, spoke with all of you, and when it turns in this sort of tread, its always the same people talking this crap.

For the last time, see things in perspective. What line of work are you in, what rigs suits for that kind of work.

Be cool and stay nice.

 

Gooooo team job :D

 

The major change with steadicam over the past few years is the type of productions using steadicam.

No longer a toy for the big budget feature but now a viable option for indie producers and many more.

Also the learning curve has been changed and shortened, due to more experienced opps teaching and better equipment to learn on. It's all good from an aspiring opps point of view, and also a big head thrash for the founder members and pioneers.

When 2 years ago i found this forum i didn't post for nearly a year until i had questions that i hadn't seen answered before, or i needed something explaining so i could understand it better.

Now i've been operating for about a year and everything is making perfect sense thanks in most part to help from members of this amazing forum.

I'm equally amazed at the fact glidecam is getting a bashing at the moment. Even steadicam has had some shocking steadicams like the steadicam mini ! that was a bunch of crap but evolved into the flyer i own today !

Same goes for glidecam, sure they have had rubbish products in the past but now the have the wonderful v25 and the solid gold system.

these systems deserve some big consideration as they are perfect for low to mid budget productions, music video's short films promos etc.

Personally i'm looking at getting a v25 upgrade yes upgrade from my steadicam flyer. Originally i was going to go straight to a second hand efp or archer with g50.

The reason i'm going for the glidecam is it's a perfect temporary upgrade from my flyer and does everything a bog slandered efp does and more.

One day i'l be shooting features and one day i will have the best equipment money can buy !

For now i'm going for the products that are supporting me on my journey.

When i move to more expensive equipment i will remember those that helped me.

-matt

[Dave Wowchuk]

My apologies to each and everyone, especially you Eric. I respect your advice and opinions, and I have learned a lot from you all in the past 9 months.

 

This thread was a harsh lesson for me ... so I'll accept the thrashing.

 

Dave

[Thomas English]

If your going to take the analogy further... well maybe the major leage guy s gonna say... don t use a piece of wood that can work as well as a bat use a proper old bat.

 

You would not find any of the elite here slagging off an old busted EFP or a mk2 .

 

I do personally think that the glidecam gold is probably a good rig and everyone is entitled to their opinions including those that slag it off! especially considering their qualifications

 

Anyway this argument has been cropping up repeatedly on this forum and is dull as dishwater. I shot a load of stuff on miniDV for ninja tunes last month on a handheld glidecam2000 and once balanced it all looks wicked! but they did not pay me and this site is intended for people and their opinions that charge money.

[Marc Abernathy]

sorry to take this OT...

 

ninjatunes eh? i love the music they pump out. coldcut, hexstatic, blockhead.... love dem cats... im a big fan of them...