Specific sports

[Chad Schwartzenberger]

Hey all. Wondering if there is something to help me with my horizon issues when shooting some certain situations. At the moment, being at FSN Detroit, all my Steadicaming is Sports/Features/Weekly shows. I shot a feature today featuring a basketball player. The story isn't important but what I found difficult was keeping my horizon following him around while he was shooting etc...

 

Any tips? I feel like I have gotten very good over the past year but this was the first time I truly shot "sporty" action with the rig and was not happy with how I handled the turning and tilting and such.. Most of what I have done have been walk and talks, Wraps for weekly shows, beauty shots etc.. I am assuming that for the most part it is practice makes perfect.

[Mike Germond SOC]

Subscribe me to this thread because I'll be Steadicam-ing college football this season..

 

Sorry, no pointers tho..

[Janice Arthur]

Charles;

 

I suspect this is a faster subject than you are used to shooting.

 

The changes in the shots, are happening so fast that your post hand is not keeping up.

 

Part of "drama" is that the differences in how and what you are shooting is making your peripheral vision "swim" as things go by quicker thus confusing your post hand on how to correct the "off-level"

situation.

 

Its all about "conditioning" to these new situations. I know that I can filter out things better now than when I was whatever skill level. Steadicam has this ability to keep making the light go on in our brains as we mature into the operating over the years. Also physical fatigue will delay your response time to these things so as you get tired it is harder to fix and focus on.

 

As was said, practice, etc is key. You also need to be exposed to "fast" shots and repeatability on fast shots too. All those subtle tweeks on top to bottom drop time; trim for the shot; and body posture keep getting refined too.

 

Just a bunch of thoughts, hope it helps.

 

JA