Excellent

What does the assistant do?

Paul

One time to nail it - but I am sure he took many times to practice it! It was an awesome shot none the less.

Did you guys ever hear of Russian Ark? The entire 90 minute movie is a single steadicam shot.

Cheapest way to visit The Hermitage Museum.

Buster Keaton, I was seeing your films Wednesday nights at the Silent Movie Theatre in LA.

Anyway, Russian Ark, aside it's own fun as a film, is an excellent piece to just sponge great and creative camera work from.

Here's some more great footage from Fluid Images. Based on the link, you may not have to, but just in case... Scroll down to "Hook and Release" and click on the thumbnail then the "Play" button. (At the end you'll see how it works.)

This is a series of commercials shot with the SC operator in a harness suspended from a crane. He is "flown" down to the ground and instantly released upon touchdown, where he then follows the talent.

Talk about timing and practice!

Then scroll down to "Hook and Release Explained."

Here's another link for the Strata crane (100'), that really cool.

What does the assistant do?

He's the focus puller (using a wireless rig).

Mike

Jonathan, I was there too for most of them! I'm hoping they'll do another series like that soon. Maybe a little bit of Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd and Langdon...

Fred

That is simply amazing. Given my vertigo I'll not be trying that system out any time soon though or maybe I'd be OK, so long as I kept my eyes glued to the viewfinder :)

Bob.

Yes, amazing camera work, but I see that Belarus didn't even make the final!

Fred, that's awesome! I was the very enthusiastic twenty-something guy always getting there early to land a sofa seat with my friends. We spent weeks arguing over who the most beautiful woman on the walls was, but after "The Cameraman" we determined that they all paled in comparison to Marceline Day. I also got a chance to repair the computers there once, earning myself red vines and a three month pass. It's doing little things like that which won me my very first copy of Sony Vegas. All in all, Bob Mitchell really rocked, much like these steadicam shots (see how I tied it back) :-P

Nice shot, shame about the song.

The 5-minute continuous shot from the Dunkirk beach scene from Atonement blew me away. The steadicam shot starts at 0:47. Won't let me embed, sorry.

How quickly we forget. Garret Brown's debut with the steadycam, in 1976's Bound for Glory, where the shot starts high above the ground and the crane deposits the operator on the ground of the Okie camp and the camera follows Woodie Guthrie (David Carradine) as he walks through it, still remains as the singular achievement in cinematography of its generation. This was over 33 years ago!

I would not use the term "Greatest steadicam shot ever!" without first looking at what has been achieved before. Technological advances have just made it easier to do today.

And I just found at IMDB that Garret Brown's role went uncredited in the film.

Bas, I didn't forget about Bound for Glory.
I saw it when it first came to the theaters and remember being blown away by that shot and trying to figure out how it was done.
There's also the incredible Steadicam work done on The Shining following the boy through the maze.
However, I've never seen a Steadicam op ride a Segway, jump off of it, run up on stage, run around the performer and keep shooting all the time.
That took a lot of skill and talent.

Mike

The hardest Steadicam shots to do are the slow long ones that include stops and starts. Take a look at some of Larry McConkey's work at http://www.steadishots.org/shots_operator.cfm?opID=2

Each shot is always impeccably framed from start to finish.

And don't forget that a 35mm film camera with a ten minute film load weighs considerably more than a camcorder.

Eurovision started as a television experiment in the 50's and performers are, in a sense, sponsored by various state and private broadcasters in their countries. In large part it's a big video and live performance orgy...that shot demonstrates just how creative the technical crews can be. I mean, let's face it, the performers pretty much stand there or wander around a bit. In the meantime, steadicam/glidecam operators, crane operators, lighting and pyro guys are pulling their hair out translating some pretty fantastic shots.

This was a pretty weak year, I thought, for songs. I wish Andorra or Malta would have won, but that's just me. :-)

I saw the Blu Ray of The Shining recently. One of the commentary tracks is from Garrett Brown. He says he felt The Shining was where he mastered the Steadicam. For one thing, Kubrick liked to do dozens of takes of a scene. Also due to the way they were shooting it, he had to have the camera dead level or the shots looked screwy. (I think it was using very wide angle lens.) Everyone's favorite sound bit from The Shining is when Danny is riding his Big Wheel through the hallways and he rides over carpets and then wood floors and then carpets. Brown says that was a complete surpise to everyone. When the saw it dailies, they freaked out. It was because the camera was mounted so low to the ground, that was all from the camera mike, not done in post. Also the "snow" in the maze was industrial salt and every couple of days you needed new boots because your old ones would rot from the salt.

when I tried to play that url, YouTube gave me this message, "This video is not available in your country." First time I've noticed that.

Amazing shot. I'm tickled that this came as I am in Pennsylvania right now doing a week long Steadicam workshop because of the Handsfree Transporter(which is the modified Segway that they do Steadicam work with) that I saw at NAB. Just got my Steadicam Op certificate about five minuets ago! Whoot!

And speaking of Garrett Brown, he was one of the instructors. So incredible to have him here:

Pic from yesterday of Garrett Brown and I

And here's another Handsfree Transporter vid worth a glance. It was a test shot. Its audioisnt great and there are spots on the lens but cool to see the behind the scenes and then the shot he was able to get from this thing. The guy doing it is Chris Fawcett, he was the guy doing the demo at NAB and also an instructor this week:

Chris Fawcett Segway Test Shot

This stuff is sooo much harderto do than I thought it would be, the pros make it look easy. Was a great but humbling week.

- Ray
Some of my stuff on Video
www.undergroundplanet.com