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Selects: How Steadicams Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, it's your silly pal Josh. And for
0:03
Speaker 1: this week's select, I've chosen our episode on Steadycams. What
0:08
Speaker 1: with it being the beginning of the summer blockbuster movie season,
0:12
Speaker 1: I figured that the chances you want to know how
0:14
Speaker 1: movies are made have gone through the roof, So I'm
0:17
Speaker 1: here to satisfy your curiosity with, like I said, our
0:20
Speaker 1: Steady Cams episode, Enjoy, Welcome to Stuff you should know,
0:29
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
0:38
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant.
0:41
Speaker 1: Jerry's over there. Chuck's wearing a hat, so Steady should know. Yeah,
0:46
Speaker 1: he's still still pretty sad. Yeah, are you really sure?
0:52
Speaker 1: All right, Pete? You know what I'm getting the Josh's
0:55
Speaker 1: referencing my last chance garage hat that I've talked way
0:57
Speaker 1: too much about. Um, I'm getting the patch remade as
1:01
Speaker 1: we speak. WHOA actually found one an eBay that had
1:04
Speaker 1: been sold three months ago, and he's all a big conspiracy?
1:09
Speaker 1: Is that right now? But I found a picture of
1:12
Speaker 1: the patch that I sent to a patchmaker who like,
1:14
Speaker 1: can digitally reproduced this thing? Nice man. Well, then I
1:18
Speaker 1: got to find in the right hats coming back home. Well,
1:21
Speaker 1: that's step one. That's a big step one. Yeah, I'm
1:23
Speaker 1: getting a few patches and a few hats this time.
1:25
Speaker 1: I think that's a good idea. You can name them
1:27
Speaker 1: one through eight. That's right. Uh, let's see, Chuck, you
1:32
Speaker 1: worked in the film industry previously. Yeah, so did you technically? Yeah? Um,
1:40
Speaker 1: you did more than I did by far. You worked
1:42
Speaker 1: in front of and behind the camera, that's right. Um,
1:45
Speaker 1: did you ever work with a steady cam at all? Yeah? So,
1:48
Speaker 1: like you've seen these things up close. I don't recall
1:52
Speaker 1: Scott or anybody using one. We did not have one
1:55
Speaker 1: on our show. Okay they're expensive, Okay, but I mean
1:58
Speaker 1: there's some pretty good equipment, said it seemed like, but
2:02
Speaker 1: there was no steadicam, right, Nope, Because I was trying
2:04
Speaker 1: to recall and I could not, for the life of me,
2:07
Speaker 1: remember a moment when there was an awesome like extendoh
2:11
Speaker 1: arm camera with like all of the components exploded out
2:14
Speaker 1: in the different parts of a poll. That didn't happen
2:16
Speaker 1: because he would have walked in and said, what's that right,
2:19
Speaker 1: and everyone would have laughed, and you would have been like,
2:21
Speaker 1: what does everyone to make fun of me. Stuff dressing room. Uh,
2:26
Speaker 1: now we never use one on our TV show for
2:28
Speaker 1: Science Channel because, like I said, it's pricey to rent
2:31
Speaker 1: um And this is a bit of a giveaway. But
2:33
Speaker 1: a person steadicam operator comes with the package with all
2:39
Speaker 1: the equipment, it's a lot of times their own and
2:43
Speaker 1: uh it's you know, it's pricey to pay for that,
2:46
Speaker 1: that lady or that dude. But the reason it is
2:50
Speaker 1: prices because it's it has a really good effect and
2:56
Speaker 1: the person who's doing it really knows what they're doing.
2:59
Speaker 1: I I don't know, but just from researching this, it
3:02
Speaker 1: seemed like they were probably the most skilled tradesperson on
3:07
Speaker 1: the set at any given time when they were on
3:08
Speaker 1: the set. Is that right, Well, I think it's just
3:11
Speaker 1: a matter of what skill. Uh, it's just a different skill.
3:14
Speaker 1: Are they like the highest echelon of camera operators? No,
3:17
Speaker 1: it's just different. Okay, like a top nine niche Yeah, okay,
3:20
Speaker 1: I got it. But but you don't just wade into
3:23
Speaker 1: steadicam and and start getting work the next day. It
3:26
Speaker 1: does take a lot of work to master. But like
3:29
Speaker 1: a good Dolly grip, uh is just as skilled. It
3:33
Speaker 1: just pushing that thing around. But that takes a very
3:36
Speaker 1: non herky jerky well it's not in the herky jerky anyway,
3:39
Speaker 1: but just to hit the marks right and I see, Yeah,
3:42
Speaker 1: I mean all that stuff takes a great amount of skill. Well,
3:45
Speaker 1: let's talk about this because steadicam. You know, when I
3:47
Speaker 1: came of age, it was already invented. It wasn't It
3:50
Speaker 1: was basically became commercially available a year I was born.
3:53
Speaker 1: So I don't really know a world prior to Steady Camp.
3:56
Speaker 1: I've never seen a movie that came up before six
4:00
Speaker 1: funny and um, I'm just used to it, right, But
4:04
Speaker 1: it's it's it's interesting to look back and see that
4:07
Speaker 1: there there actually is a point in time where this
4:09
Speaker 1: one dude who was actually kind of an outsider of
4:12
Speaker 1: the movie business, um basically changed it permanently forever for sure.
4:20
Speaker 1: His name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown. Yeah he's
4:23
Speaker 1: still around right, Yeah, and he um he was working,
4:26
Speaker 1: uh for well, he was working in TV commercials in
4:29
Speaker 1: on Sesame Street in Philadelphia, and um, he got a
4:35
Speaker 1: little frustrated, as camera people do, uh pre steadicam with
4:40
Speaker 1: not being able to accomplish certain shots. Yeah, there's supposedly
4:44
Speaker 1: there were thirty impossible shots that just based on the
4:49
Speaker 1: the equipment at the of the day, you just couldn't
4:51
Speaker 1: do right. Yeah. Well, and a lot of it had
4:54
Speaker 1: to do with like rough terrain. Sure, Staircases were a
4:57
Speaker 1: big one. And the reason the shots were impossible not
5:00
Speaker 1: like you couldn't lug a camera around up and down
5:02
Speaker 1: the stairs, but the movement that the camera recorded would
5:05
Speaker 1: be so jarring that it would render the film like
5:08
Speaker 1: that that it would be unusable. Yeah. And then this
5:11
Speaker 1: was in the day before I mean there were shaky
5:14
Speaker 1: cam shots and like Cassavettis and all these early indie
5:17
Speaker 1: filmmakers did a lot of like avant garde handheld stuff,
5:21
Speaker 1: but it was known as avant garde because it looked
5:24
Speaker 1: different and people were used to kind of smoother looking
5:26
Speaker 1: things in mainstream movies at the time. Yeah, it had
5:29
Speaker 1: like a real frenetic energy to it, Yeah, which you
5:32
Speaker 1: see all the time now. It's like a bona fide thing.
5:35
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just like picking up the movements of
5:38
Speaker 1: the camera. It was like telegraphing them as far as
5:42
Speaker 1: the human brains concerned. Because we take it for granted,
5:44
Speaker 1: but we have in our own brains, a pretty complex
5:48
Speaker 1: system that involves the inner ear coordinating with the movement
5:53
Speaker 1: of the retina so that it offsets the movement and
5:57
Speaker 1: the motion in the jarring um impact of like just walking. Like,
6:02
Speaker 1: if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to
6:04
Speaker 1: focus on anything while we were moving around. Yeah, you wouldn't.
6:07
Speaker 1: People wouldn't jog. They would get sick and vomit every
6:10
Speaker 1: time they jog, exactly right. And you certainly wouldn't be
6:12
Speaker 1: able to like read US magazine while you were jogging
6:14
Speaker 1: or something like that. And the fact that you can
6:17
Speaker 1: it really is uh, it really shows how incredibly complex
6:20
Speaker 1: and well developed the system is. Right. Yes, that's what
6:25
Speaker 1: the steadicam that Garrett brown Um created sought to recreate.
6:30
Speaker 1: Any he did it, he nailed it, like on the
6:31
Speaker 1: first time out. Basically, Yeah, because we we mentioned a
6:34
Speaker 1: dolly that is Um, people that no film know this
6:37
Speaker 1: stuff is like pretty rudimentary information. But a lot of
6:40
Speaker 1: people don't know what a dolly is, and they see
6:42
Speaker 1: the word dolly grip in the movie, they just think
6:45
Speaker 1: it sounds funny. Um, But the dolly is how you
6:47
Speaker 1: typically would get a smooth shot. It's just a big,
6:50
Speaker 1: super super heavy sled with wheels that the camera sits
6:55
Speaker 1: on and the camera operator sits on. And it's either
6:58
Speaker 1: on a very smooth floor on a piece of track
7:01
Speaker 1: like a little railroad car, and it pushes along and
7:04
Speaker 1: that's how you get those nice smooth shots. Right. So
7:06
Speaker 1: that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is is
7:08
Speaker 1: you can't really lay that track over um, a rocky
7:12
Speaker 1: terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that. No,
7:15
Speaker 1: and like you said, you can't push it up and
7:18
Speaker 1: downstairs just had its limitations, right, it did. So Garrett
7:21
Speaker 1: Brown said, I'm sick of these limitations. I'm so tired
7:24
Speaker 1: of being limited by dollies, stupid dollies. I'm gonna invent
7:28
Speaker 1: something better. And so he tinkered around um with his
7:33
Speaker 1: what was called the Brown Stabilizer at first, which he
7:37
Speaker 1: later renamed the Steadicam and to show off UM like
7:41
Speaker 1: at first he he was just using him in commercials,
7:43
Speaker 1: and he was like, this is way bigger than just commercials.
7:47
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a sizzle reel. And he made a
7:50
Speaker 1: sizzle reel of the thirty impossible shots that you just
7:54
Speaker 1: couldn't do before, and he did it with the steadicam,
7:56
Speaker 1: but he didn't show how it was done. Yeah, and
7:59
Speaker 1: you can. He was able to save ten of those shots,
8:03
Speaker 1: uh and digitize them, and a couple of years ago
8:06
Speaker 1: he finally released online ten of those so you can
8:09
Speaker 1: actually go see this original reel. His wife and his
8:13
Speaker 1: best friend like just doing stuff, while just doing stuff,
8:16
Speaker 1: like you know, like one of them was swimming. You
8:18
Speaker 1: can't run alongside somebody's swimming, apparently was an impossible shot.
8:22
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure why. Well, you just couldn't run
8:24
Speaker 1: alongside someone doing anything. Oh okay, that's what it was,
8:28
Speaker 1: even with a dolly. Uh, well, no, you could have.
8:31
Speaker 1: You could have laid dolly track down the length of
8:33
Speaker 1: a swimming pool shirt, right, That's why I didn't understand
8:35
Speaker 1: that one was an impossible shot. Um. And to show off,
8:38
Speaker 1: he goes question he goes around a slide just to
8:44
Speaker 1: kind of show maybe maybe that was the impossibility of it.
8:47
Speaker 1: But then his buddy gets out of the pool and
8:49
Speaker 1: like walking like he's he pivots around him and I'm
8:51
Speaker 1: sure he When he put this reel together and he
8:55
Speaker 1: sent it out, the directors are like, uh, this is
8:58
Speaker 1: magic sorcery. Well it was mind blowing, and some people
9:02
Speaker 1: say it was the first UH viral video because it
9:05
Speaker 1: was shared around Hollywood. Literally in a matter of days.
9:09
Speaker 1: Everybody in Hollywood was saying, what in the world, Like
9:13
Speaker 1: you said, what is this sorcery this Garrett Brown has
9:16
Speaker 1: bestowed upon us? Yeah, it's It was a bit of
9:19
Speaker 1: a mic drop as far as that reel goes, and
9:21
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to Garrett
9:25
Speaker 1: Brown that said, if you are really concerned about protecting
9:29
Speaker 1: its design before you fully patent it, I suggest you
9:32
Speaker 1: delete the two occasions on the reel where the shadow
9:34
Speaker 1: on the ground gives the skilled counter intelligence photo interpreter
9:38
Speaker 1: a fairly clear representation of a man holding a pole
9:40
Speaker 1: with one hand, was something or other at the bottom
9:43
Speaker 1: of the pole which appears to be slowly moving. All
9:45
Speaker 1: of that is Stanley kubrick Ian for, hey, there's a
9:49
Speaker 1: shadow and in one of your shots of the steadicam op,
9:54
Speaker 1: which was pretty cool of him to do, because I'm
9:57
Speaker 1: sure there were plenty of people in Hollywood who would
9:59
Speaker 1: have been like, Okay, think I kind of get the
10:00
Speaker 1: idea of what this was, because there was no suggestion
10:04
Speaker 1: whatsoever of what what Garrett Brown had used to get
10:07
Speaker 1: these shots except in those shadows. So he went eat
10:10
Speaker 1: and went and immediately cut those those I think fourteen
10:14
Speaker 1: seconds out of his reel and then released the second
10:17
Speaker 1: edition and it looked pretty good. I mean it's it's
10:19
Speaker 1: rough compared to today's standard. Sure, but in the time
10:23
Speaker 1: it was it was like unbelievable. It changed everything. Um.
10:27
Speaker 1: And one of the shots that he got was his
10:31
Speaker 1: wife Ellen. He said, dear, why don't you put on
10:34
Speaker 1: your most seventies bell bottoms you can find? And I'm
10:38
Speaker 1: going to run up behind you as you run up
10:40
Speaker 1: the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and maybe
10:44
Speaker 1: when you get to the top, you can raise your
10:45
Speaker 1: hands in triumph and I will spin around you. And
10:50
Speaker 1: then if that shot sounds familiar. Uh. It actually attracted
10:54
Speaker 1: a guy, a director named Um John What is the
10:57
Speaker 1: evil Son? Yeah, John Um, who said I like this,
11:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to use it in this little film I'm
11:03
Speaker 1: directing called Rocky. Yeah. And I didn't get whether or
11:07
Speaker 1: not this was the case. But did they Um? Did
11:11
Speaker 1: they locate Rocky in Philadelphia because of those steps? No?
11:15
Speaker 1: Because he said, how did you do that? And? Um,
11:18
Speaker 1: where are those steps. I don't think so, man, because
11:21
Speaker 1: I wondered that too, Like, uh, like, did he not
11:24
Speaker 1: have a scene written where Rocky just runs up those steps?
11:26
Speaker 1: I mean Stallone wrote it. Um, I think they just
11:30
Speaker 1: have to ask him. Hey, Sly, I was wondering if
11:36
Speaker 1: that was pretty good, I answered in that little moment,
11:40
Speaker 1: someone will have to interpret that. Great movie though, Man,
11:44
Speaker 1: I rewatched that. Yeah, like this year, from beginning to end,
11:49
Speaker 1: just phenomenal movie. I'm trying to get Emily to watch it.
11:53
Speaker 1: She never seen the original. No, it's its own thing
11:56
Speaker 1: for sure. Like it's not, it's not really it's a
12:00
Speaker 1: story for the most part. It's a love story and like, um,
12:03
Speaker 1: the triumph of the little Guy story for sure, Yeah,
12:06
Speaker 1: featuring boxing, Right, that's exactly right. But two and three
12:10
Speaker 1: and on onward, it's like a totally different thing. Yeah,
12:15
Speaker 1: but those are good too. Yeah, they said, let's take
12:16
Speaker 1: your story, take out the heart, and insert cocaine instead
12:20
Speaker 1: insert Mr T. I don't get the cocaine reference. Well,
12:25
Speaker 1: it's just the eighties in Hollywood got hands on, you
12:28
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Uh, yeah, that's a good question, though,
12:32
Speaker 1: I wonder about that. If he surely they didn't remake
12:35
Speaker 1: it for Philadelphia just for that well. But the point
12:38
Speaker 1: is is Garrett Brown created on this sizzle reel the
12:44
Speaker 1: one of the most iconic shots in filmmaking history for sure,
12:48
Speaker 1: and he sent that real out and within that year,
12:50
Speaker 1: I believe six three major motion pictures hired him to
12:56
Speaker 1: operate his steadicamp for it. Um, there was Rocky, there
13:00
Speaker 1: was um what was the one about what you Gut
13:02
Speaker 1: Thrie Bound for Glory? Yeah, I think that one came
13:05
Speaker 1: out first, So that was the first actual like uh
13:09
Speaker 1: and that one, uh, the steady came up was Garrett Brown,
13:12
Speaker 1: I think for all these because he was the only
13:14
Speaker 1: guy that knew how. He got a lot of work
13:15
Speaker 1: early on. Yeah, and I think I think the paton
13:17
Speaker 1: was still pending until ninety seven, so I'm sure the
13:20
Speaker 1: thing out of the side everybody closed your eyes while
13:22
Speaker 1: I shoot this. But on Bound for Glory, he was
13:26
Speaker 1: on a crane even that lowered down, stepped off the crane,
13:30
Speaker 1: so people have seen crane shots, but then for the
13:34
Speaker 1: crane to go down, down, down, and then all of
13:35
Speaker 1: a sudden start following this guy, everyone was like, what
13:38
Speaker 1: in the world, right? There would have been a cut
13:40
Speaker 1: after the crane stopped and then before you know, they
13:43
Speaker 1: would have cut and he would have gotten a position
13:44
Speaker 1: and then started up again. This is one smooth shot.
13:47
Speaker 1: One smooth shot. Yeah, and then the other one was
13:49
Speaker 1: Marathon Man. So right out of the blue, this guy
13:52
Speaker 1: who was a commercial director and made short films for
13:55
Speaker 1: Sesame Street changed filmmaking like single handedly. Yeah, and one
13:59
Speaker 1: an Academy award, uh for technical achievement. I got that
14:04
Speaker 1: patent in seventy seven. And um, well that's it. That's
14:09
Speaker 1: the history of the steadicam. That's it. Everybody, good night,
14:13
Speaker 1: But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
14:15
Speaker 1: everyone how this thing works. Let's do it man, alright, Chuck,
14:34
Speaker 1: So the Steady Camp. Do you remember when we did
14:36
Speaker 1: our episode on breathalyzers. Oh boy, that was a long
14:39
Speaker 1: time ago, and we found out that the breathalyzer is
14:42
Speaker 1: one of the most complicated machines. Yeah, on the planet.
14:46
Speaker 1: I kind of hated that one, like there were there
14:48
Speaker 1: were crystals involved somehow. I hated that one too, dark
14:52
Speaker 1: crystals or um. This is a bit like that, like
14:55
Speaker 1: if you really dive into city camps, like this article
14:59
Speaker 1: on how stuff works does it's it's it's labyrinthine talk
15:03
Speaker 1: about the dark crystal. Yeah, we're talking labyrinth instead. Yeah,
15:06
Speaker 1: but we're gonna simplify it because, uh, you don't need
15:09
Speaker 1: to break this thing apart and look at every component
15:11
Speaker 1: like this article does. I mean, it really gets involved.
15:15
Speaker 1: What you should do is look at a picture of
15:16
Speaker 1: someone operating one and just because when you look at it,
15:20
Speaker 1: you go, it all makes a lot more sense, right,
15:23
Speaker 1: And there's really just three main parts to the whole thing.
15:26
Speaker 1: There's a vest, there's an arm that's attached to the vest,
15:29
Speaker 1: and then the other end of the arm is attached
15:31
Speaker 1: to what's called the sled, which is what the camera
15:34
Speaker 1: and um it's components are mounted on. Right, Yeah, and
15:37
Speaker 1: that arm it um, I mean, just pick your picture
15:40
Speaker 1: yourself wearing a uh like a baby beyorn baby carrier,
15:45
Speaker 1: except for instead of the baby at your stern um,
15:48
Speaker 1: there's a mechanical arm coming out like a spring arm lamp. Yeah,
15:53
Speaker 1: like accordion arm or spring arm lamp. Right, and it's
15:55
Speaker 1: virtually the same thing. Well, yeah, and you guess who
15:58
Speaker 1: made one of these by himself before they started making
16:02
Speaker 1: them for at home people. Who? Casey who? My brother
16:06
Speaker 1: of course? Oh did he really. Yeah. Yeah. My brother
16:08
Speaker 1: made one of these in like the early nineties out
16:11
Speaker 1: of door hinges and rubber bands and springs. Does he
16:14
Speaker 1: still have it? Is it in the Smithsonian? I don't know.
16:17
Speaker 1: It's in the scottsn Ian, which is where all mentioned
16:21
Speaker 1: with all his pinball machines. Yeah, but he made one.
16:23
Speaker 1: He basically did the same thing. He he looked at
16:25
Speaker 1: it and looked at these uh swing arm lamps and
16:29
Speaker 1: accordion arm lamps, and it's like, well, it's the same thing.
16:31
Speaker 1: I'll just make a version of that. It is, and
16:33
Speaker 1: it worked pretty good. It's virtually the same thing. Yeah.
16:35
Speaker 1: So the whole point of a steady camp is that
16:38
Speaker 1: it basically simulates or the arm at least simulates a
16:42
Speaker 1: human arm right to where it can move around very easily. Yeah. Um.
16:46
Speaker 1: And it redistributes the weight of the camera, which can
16:49
Speaker 1: be up to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more. Yeah,
16:52
Speaker 1: the whole unit is pretty heavy and it's not easy
16:54
Speaker 1: to operate, but a wary out it holds it effortlessly,
16:57
Speaker 1: and it holds it in place. This arm does and
17:00
Speaker 1: it does it by using springs, and you can adjust
17:03
Speaker 1: the tension of the springs by using a cable and
17:05
Speaker 1: pulley system so that it offsets the balance of the
17:09
Speaker 1: camera and holds it in space in front of the
17:11
Speaker 1: camera operator basically so that they can move it effortlessly
17:16
Speaker 1: up down to the side. Um, you can put the
17:18
Speaker 1: camera on top of the sled so that you get
17:22
Speaker 1: high shots. You can switch it so it goes on
17:23
Speaker 1: the bottom so you can get low angle shots. Yeah,
17:26
Speaker 1: the traditional it's called high mode and low mode, and
17:28
Speaker 1: high mode is uh, it doesn't mean it's high. It
17:31
Speaker 1: just means it's on the top of the unit. And
17:34
Speaker 1: then low mode is when it's on the bottom. So
17:36
Speaker 1: if you wanted to film a mouse running across the floor,
17:39
Speaker 1: you would put it in low mode. Right, if you
17:40
Speaker 1: want to film human you put it in high mode.
17:43
Speaker 1: And the camera itself is broken out into pieces, which
17:46
Speaker 1: is kind of an ingenious trick that I guess Garrett
17:50
Speaker 1: Brown came up with himself. I think he did. Um.
17:53
Speaker 1: And this is the this is the third part. The
17:56
Speaker 1: camera sled. Right. Yes, the sled is what holds all
17:59
Speaker 1: the right and it's basically a pole with a little
18:03
Speaker 1: bit at the top called the stage, and that's where
18:07
Speaker 1: the camera goes or it could be at the bottom
18:09
Speaker 1: wherever the camera is. The camera's mounted to the stage.
18:12
Speaker 1: Then you get the pole itself and then the I
18:16
Speaker 1: guess the arm is connected to the pole by a
18:20
Speaker 1: a gibble gimbal, A gimble, that's right. And it's like
18:24
Speaker 1: an old technology. It's basically something that uses basically a
18:27
Speaker 1: gyroscopic action to um take the movement of whatever is
18:33
Speaker 1: seeking to move, whatever you want to hold still, and
18:35
Speaker 1: getting rid of it. Like everything around it moves except
18:38
Speaker 1: for the thing that you want to hold still. It's
18:40
Speaker 1: pretty neat, it's super neat. And that's just the one
18:43
Speaker 1: arm that's connected to the pole. So you can see
18:46
Speaker 1: how complicated this thing is. That this guy sat back
18:49
Speaker 1: and I think in a hotel room somewhere you put
18:51
Speaker 1: it together, Garrett Brown, the first one. There's just the
18:55
Speaker 1: ingenuity it took to to put this together. It's pretty
18:59
Speaker 1: pretty in depth as far as inventions go. Yeah, and
19:02
Speaker 1: there's a little science to it. There's there's something called
19:04
Speaker 1: moment of inertia. It's basically how much that camera is
19:08
Speaker 1: resistant to rotation. So if you want the camera to
19:11
Speaker 1: be still, you want to increase that resistance to the rotation.
19:15
Speaker 1: And this is determined by a couple of different things, uh,
19:18
Speaker 1: how much mass there is to the object, and how
19:20
Speaker 1: far that mass is from the uh from its own
19:23
Speaker 1: axis of rotation. So by spreading the camera out, he
19:26
Speaker 1: basically took the little you know, cameras come with a
19:28
Speaker 1: monitor now so you can see what's going on in
19:30
Speaker 1: a big heavy battery. He took the monitor off of
19:33
Speaker 1: the camera. He took the battery off of the camera
19:35
Speaker 1: and redistributed that up and down the pole. So what
19:39
Speaker 1: he ended up doing was spreading out that mass, which
19:43
Speaker 1: takes away the center of gravity from the camera itself. Yeah,
19:47
Speaker 1: Because like with a regular camera where all the components
19:49
Speaker 1: are in one single unit, that center of gravity is
19:51
Speaker 1: inside the camera, so it's easy to rotate. But since
19:55
Speaker 1: he exploded it out into its various components, he made
19:59
Speaker 1: that center of gravity land somewhere on the pole, right,
20:02
Speaker 1: and the gimbal attaches to the pole just above the
20:05
Speaker 1: center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
20:08
Speaker 1: pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
20:12
Speaker 1: which makes it very easy to balance keep. Yeah, and
20:15
Speaker 1: they do a good job in this article. If you'd like,
20:18
Speaker 1: just take a broomstick and you find that center of
20:20
Speaker 1: gravity with your finger. You can hold it with with
20:23
Speaker 1: your finger and lift it up and down right, and
20:24
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's balanced on your finger because you're
20:27
Speaker 1: hitting that center of balance. That's right. It's the same principle. Um.
20:31
Speaker 1: And in fact, if you took, uh, if you took
20:34
Speaker 1: that same broomstick and cut it off and you just
20:36
Speaker 1: had three ft of broomstick and just took your SLR
20:41
Speaker 1: camera and screwed that broomstick into the bottom of your
20:44
Speaker 1: camera instead of a tripod, that would function. You could
20:47
Speaker 1: walk around with that and it would be steadier than
20:50
Speaker 1: if you just had it in your hand. I could
20:52
Speaker 1: see that because of the change of the center of
20:55
Speaker 1: change of the center of gravity. And if you put
20:57
Speaker 1: a little counterweight at the bottom, it would make it
20:58
Speaker 1: even more steady. And that's the whole concept of the
21:02
Speaker 1: steadicam sled. Then attached that to an arm, that that
21:06
Speaker 1: accordion arm and you're cooking with gas. Yeah, because you
21:09
Speaker 1: were saying like, if you walk around with just the
21:11
Speaker 1: pole holding or the broomstick, cut off broomstick and you're
21:14
Speaker 1: holding it um just with your hand, it's steady. The
21:19
Speaker 1: point of the arm is it's taking your hand out
21:21
Speaker 1: of the equation and replacing it with something that can
21:25
Speaker 1: isolate movement even more so that your movement of you
21:28
Speaker 1: walking just gets lost within the arm before it ever
21:32
Speaker 1: gets to the camera and could shake it. Yeah, like
21:34
Speaker 1: if you did it with a broomstick. Your arm is
21:36
Speaker 1: the same thing as a stead camera, right, except it's
21:38
Speaker 1: better if the steadicam arms is better than your human arm, right, yes, exactly.
21:43
Speaker 1: Pretty neat stuff. It is neat stuff. Um, and I
21:47
Speaker 1: think that's it for the science man. We made it through. Yeah,
21:50
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all got to be very precisely balanced. Um,
21:53
Speaker 1: you don't just throw the stuff on the pole willy
21:55
Speaker 1: nilly though, And they point out that the balance of
21:58
Speaker 1: the camera can actually change during film, just from the
22:01
Speaker 1: film moving from one end to the camera to the
22:04
Speaker 1: other as as it records. Right. Well, yeah, in the
22:06
Speaker 1: old days when they use film, sure, nowadays it's just
22:09
Speaker 1: that digital card. Yeah, well not always quain Tarantino's camera
22:13
Speaker 1: operators have to deal with this. Yeah, And if you've
22:15
Speaker 1: ever been on a job with a steadicam, there are
22:17
Speaker 1: a lot of uh, there's a lot of breaks where
22:20
Speaker 1: I mean you can adjust them on the fly more now,
22:22
Speaker 1: but I remember there just being a lot of breaks
22:24
Speaker 1: with a steadicam up would say hold on, you know,
22:28
Speaker 1: I need five minutes, and they go over and they
22:30
Speaker 1: have a little stand that they put it on to
22:32
Speaker 1: take because you know, it takes the weight off to
22:35
Speaker 1: a certain degree, but it's still a lot of weight
22:37
Speaker 1: to be carrying on a vest on your chest, um
22:41
Speaker 1: and running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah,
22:44
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's a tough gig. Like there's a
22:45
Speaker 1: pretty amazing video did you watch it of that Eurovision shot.
22:50
Speaker 1: There's a guy from I think Belarus singing and they
22:53
Speaker 1: showed they showed him like he's like they they showed
22:57
Speaker 1: the shot and then they showed it somebody filming the
23:01
Speaker 1: shot being done, and the guy with the seticam wearing
23:04
Speaker 1: the vest rides down the aisle on a um segue.
23:09
Speaker 1: Is that what he's on? Yeah, pops off, runs up
23:12
Speaker 1: this ramp and then starts circling around the guy who's singing,
23:16
Speaker 1: and it's a pretty amazing thing. It's a great shot.
23:19
Speaker 1: But then when you see how it's done, Wow, that
23:22
Speaker 1: guy deserved a standing ovation. It would have been more
23:25
Speaker 1: impressive hit it not like the subject matter have been
23:28
Speaker 1: more interesting in the video quality been better, pretty pretty bad.
23:31
Speaker 1: Like if it was a Scorsese movie, you would be
23:33
Speaker 1: like wow, But it was just, you know, kind of corny. Well,
23:37
Speaker 1: I mean it looked like an American idol or something
23:38
Speaker 1: it was, but it was American idol. If you took
23:42
Speaker 1: American idol at its peak and then spread it out
23:45
Speaker 1: over Eurasia and and like it was popular over that
23:50
Speaker 1: that large of a population. That's what your O vision is.
23:54
Speaker 1: That's right. So you want to talk about some of
23:57
Speaker 1: the shots when we come back after a break, please, okay, alright,
24:17
Speaker 1: So chuck, Um. In addition to that Rocky shot and
24:21
Speaker 1: that Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots,
24:25
Speaker 1: classic shots of all time. Uh yeah, that had to
24:29
Speaker 1: do with steadycam. It couldn't have been done with without
24:31
Speaker 1: steady cam. Well, The Shining is the first one that
24:34
Speaker 1: pops into most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick
24:38
Speaker 1: was a big fan of this invention and immediately started
24:42
Speaker 1: talks with Garrett Brown on how to help him out
24:45
Speaker 1: with this movie, The Shining, that he was making. And um,
24:49
Speaker 1: apparently they kind of battled one another quite a bit
24:52
Speaker 1: on the side of the Shining, and Garrett Brown later
24:55
Speaker 1: admitted he said a lot of that was probably what
24:57
Speaker 1: do you call it, like inventors pride or something kind
25:00
Speaker 1: of getting in the way of this like brilliant all tour.
25:04
Speaker 1: So um, Kubrick already had his own ideas on how
25:07
Speaker 1: to best use this thing that this other guy invented. Um,
25:10
Speaker 1: and you know the shining classic example, those tricycle shots,
25:14
Speaker 1: the famous maze chase at the end, uh, very iconic
25:19
Speaker 1: in motion picture history. And UM, I mean the the
25:23
Speaker 1: how did they do? You know how they did that
25:25
Speaker 1: that shot behind Danny and his a little big wheel.
25:28
Speaker 1: They probably just went into low mode and uh like
25:31
Speaker 1: walked behind him or I ran down the hall after him.
25:33
Speaker 1: That's really impressive. So the Shining is a big one. Sure,
25:37
Speaker 1: Rocky is a big one. Good Fellas is another classic
25:40
Speaker 1: example to classic UM where Rayliota and Lorraine Brocko are
25:44
Speaker 1: going into the Cope cabana, but they go through the
25:47
Speaker 1: back and they're followed like throughout like the backstairs into
25:50
Speaker 1: the kitchen and then they finally come out into their
25:53
Speaker 1: table and UM, it's like one uninterrupted like five minute
25:57
Speaker 1: shot or something. It's amazing and it's um I think
26:00
Speaker 1: when you see this, you're you might see it and
26:04
Speaker 1: not be a discerning film you were and just say
26:06
Speaker 1: well that I didn't notice anything, which is probably good. Um,
26:10
Speaker 1: or you might be a fan of steady cam and
26:12
Speaker 1: just say, man, that was amazing. Uh. Then you have
26:15
Speaker 1: to step back and look at lighting and realize that
26:18
Speaker 1: how incredibly hard it is to light a shot like
26:20
Speaker 1: that that takes place over I don't know how many
26:23
Speaker 1: hundreds of feet but without seeing the lights in the shot.
26:27
Speaker 1: Well that or just consistent lighting and having it look good.
26:30
Speaker 1: I mean that's just usually you light for like a
26:32
Speaker 1: room or something, or a hallway, but to light all
26:35
Speaker 1: those different rooms and hallways and just incredibly I can't
26:39
Speaker 1: imagine how long it took to set that shot. You know,
26:41
Speaker 1: they were like, wait, what do you want to do? Yeah,
26:44
Speaker 1: it would be great. Do'torry about stay with me. Uh.
26:48
Speaker 1: You know he's making another gangster movie. No, I didn't
26:53
Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, and it may be like the some
26:57
Speaker 1: folks are saying it's like, you know, his last Big
26:59
Speaker 1: Gangs your movie. Yeah, but it's got de Niro again. Uh.
27:03
Speaker 1: He had worked with him in a long time. UM
27:05
Speaker 1: Pacino and Joe Pesci is coming out of retirement. I
27:09
Speaker 1: didn't even know he was retired. I just thought he
27:11
Speaker 1: wasn't doing stuff anyway. Man, he retired. Yeah, so he's
27:15
Speaker 1: he's got the three heavy weights and supposedly Harvey cut Tail.
27:18
Speaker 1: Of course you gotta throw him in there. But I'm
27:21
Speaker 1: just like giddy thinking about this. Yeah, I'm glad he
27:24
Speaker 1: is because his last one was departed, right. No, he's
27:27
Speaker 1: made movies since then, like Wolf of Wall Street, Yeah,
27:31
Speaker 1: which I thought was great. I know you didn't love it.
27:35
Speaker 1: I thought it was awesome. I thought everything. But what
27:37
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholson did was was pretty good. Yeah, like his performance, No,
27:40
Speaker 1: I really didn't. Well, sorry, Jack, He'll forgive that because
27:47
Speaker 1: you like him as an actor, right yeah, okay, Uh,
27:51
Speaker 1: come on Return of the Jedi, the famous um Faeder
28:00
Speaker 1: bike chase scene and uh the indoor. Yeah, California's Redwood
28:06
Speaker 1: National Park doubled his indoor and that was Garrett Brown,
28:10
Speaker 1: uh walking and they sped it up. Yeah, but and
28:14
Speaker 1: then you're just like, wow, who cares. The reason why
28:18
Speaker 1: it's such an iconic steadicam shot is because he walked
28:21
Speaker 1: very slowly, and when you speed film up the tiny
28:26
Speaker 1: movements involved their telegraphed, they just become much more exaggerated.
28:30
Speaker 1: So without a steadicam when they sped the film up again,
28:33
Speaker 1: it would have been just so blurry and just jarring.
28:35
Speaker 1: It would have been unusable. Yeah, the fact that you
28:37
Speaker 1: can see the trees and stuff, and even at that
28:40
Speaker 1: high speed, it's all steadicam. Yeah, and people, I think
28:45
Speaker 1: it's just so easy to take it for granted now
28:47
Speaker 1: in movies when you see these shots. But to pioneer
28:50
Speaker 1: these these things and this equipment was remarkable. Uh, and
28:55
Speaker 1: nowadays you can they're all manner of at home steady cam.
29:00
Speaker 1: You don't have to do like my brother and build
29:01
Speaker 1: one out of spare parts and door hinges. You can
29:05
Speaker 1: buy one for not too much. You can. He's spent
29:08
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars on a on a decent enough little
29:12
Speaker 1: home steady cam. The this article says that the steadicam curve,
29:18
Speaker 1: which was made for go pros, it was like a
29:21
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Yeah, well those are teeny tiny. And there's
29:23
Speaker 1: one for um the iPhone called um, what's it called,
29:28
Speaker 1: the Smoothie. That one is like it's like, I think
29:30
Speaker 1: even less than a hundred bucks, and it's just like
29:33
Speaker 1: a handheld camera stabilizer that works pretty well from what
29:37
Speaker 1: I can gather. Yeah, we should have had Casey, our
29:39
Speaker 1: video producer, Casey. He's in France right now though, Live
29:42
Speaker 1: in the High Life. Should we should have had Casey
29:45
Speaker 1: in here. Just given thumbs upper thumbs down to each
29:48
Speaker 1: one of these brands that we mentioned, and I would
29:52
Speaker 1: trust that is like the gospel truth. But Casey's not here,
29:55
Speaker 1: so we're just gonna say read online reviews. I also
29:59
Speaker 1: saw that there's like a lot of um gimbal based
30:04
Speaker 1: drone steady camps. Yeah, they are just not not that expensive.
30:10
Speaker 1: They're changing the game again because then you can do
30:14
Speaker 1: a shot where you follow someone by the swimming pool
30:16
Speaker 1: and then fly up into outer space with them if
30:19
Speaker 1: you want, in one continuous motion, like the Quisp Monster.
30:23
Speaker 1: What the Quisp monster? You remember the alien from Quisp Cereal?
30:27
Speaker 1: Do remember Quisp? Remember the weird alien sort of at
30:31
Speaker 1: an eat Quisp? Wasn't that a Captain crunch knock offer.
30:35
Speaker 1: It was a different It was different because they were
30:37
Speaker 1: saucer shaped rather than square waffle cut got you same
30:41
Speaker 1: thing though, yeah, same thing. It was good. It didn't
30:44
Speaker 1: cut the tongue like Captain crunch did oh yeah, the
30:47
Speaker 1: roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still. Uh.
30:51
Speaker 1: And then of course, uh, steady Cam is a name brand, right, Yeah,
30:56
Speaker 1: it's made who makes it? Tiffin? Tiffin, Now that's what. Yeah,
31:01
Speaker 1: I think I think Tiffin does. They have a pretty
31:03
Speaker 1: good site, like if you alright all interested in this,
31:06
Speaker 1: like they've got a great site and they have all
31:08
Speaker 1: of their Steadicam models with a real like in depth
31:11
Speaker 1: overview of them and yeah pretty Uh. I think it's
31:14
Speaker 1: got all their manuals and everything just right there for
31:16
Speaker 1: you to read. Yeah, there's other companies making them. There's
31:19
Speaker 1: one called Glidecam in Vera Zoom. Yeah, but you know,
31:22
Speaker 1: Steadicam is still probably the giant. It's like dollies. There's
31:25
Speaker 1: only two dolly makers well or there maybe more now,
31:28
Speaker 1: but it's like Chapman and Fisher and each you know,
31:32
Speaker 1: every dolly grip has the dolly makers. Yeah, Chapman Dollies
31:36
Speaker 1: or Fisher Dollies. It's kind of like Jamison or bush Mills,
31:41
Speaker 1: you know, adviser or course neither uh and then um
31:46
Speaker 1: Garrett Brown as if the steady Cam wasn't enough as
31:49
Speaker 1: far as revolutionizing filming goes. He later on invented something
31:53
Speaker 1: called the skycam, yeah, which like if you watch any
31:57
Speaker 1: kind of sporting event now especially it's especially useful for
32:00
Speaker 1: football in in football, um where like it's there's just
32:05
Speaker 1: cables above the field and there's cameras hanging down that
32:09
Speaker 1: are just like doing overhead shots following the action. Like
32:12
Speaker 1: it's nothing. It's pretty neat. Garrett Brown invented that too.
32:15
Speaker 1: I got one more little thing for you. Uh. There
32:18
Speaker 1: are two positions, uh not high mode. Low mode positions
32:22
Speaker 1: are like how you're operating the camera, but uh, if
32:25
Speaker 1: you are pointing forward as the operator and your camera
32:29
Speaker 1: is pointing forward, you're just walking. It's called missionary no.
32:34
Speaker 1: And then if you are uh if the operators forward
32:37
Speaker 1: and the camera is backward, they call that don juan.
32:41
Speaker 1: So leave it to film set goons to think of
32:45
Speaker 1: sexual names for sex it up camera positions, don Juan, Yeah,
32:50
Speaker 1: I never heard of that one. I hadn't either. Well,
32:53
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about steady camps, including
32:55
Speaker 1: a really really fine grain involved look the physics of
33:01
Speaker 1: how the steady cam arm works, you should go type
33:05
Speaker 1: steady cam into the search part how stuff works dot Com.
33:08
Speaker 1: Since I said search part its time for a listener mail.
33:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this, uh encouragement from a Christian listener. Okay,
33:17
Speaker 1: hey guys, I was listening to the Easter Show and
33:19
Speaker 1: was compelled right in. As a Christian, I've always appreciated
33:22
Speaker 1: how you make a solid effort to not rail on
33:24
Speaker 1: the church too hard. I found it humorous and simultaneously
33:27
Speaker 1: sad when you felt you had to tiptoe around the
33:29
Speaker 1: pagan traditions that have been integrated with the resurrection. UH
33:33
Speaker 1: find it disheartening to think that other believers can't find
33:36
Speaker 1: anything better to do than wait to be offended by
33:38
Speaker 1: something then jump all over you for it. But based
33:40
Speaker 1: on your years of experience and careful treatment of the subject,
33:44
Speaker 1: it must be the case a lot of the time. Personally,
33:46
Speaker 1: I just want to say, I can't think of anything
33:47
Speaker 1: you've ever said to offend me. I think you've done
33:49
Speaker 1: a stand up job with sensitive subjects like satanic panic
33:53
Speaker 1: in particular. Uh. It's also nice just to hear you
33:55
Speaker 1: talk about things directly related to my beliefs without sneering
34:00
Speaker 1: like many others will. That's nice. Dane in Minnesota. Yeah,
34:04
Speaker 1: for real, thing, if you want to get in touch
34:06
Speaker 1: of this like Dane did and be a super cool person.
34:09
Speaker 1: Um lay it on us, Send us an email to
34:12
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
34:18
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34:21
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
34:25
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