MatthewC
Well-known member
I recently just finished my first paid Glidecam gig. I've been operating the Glidecam 4000 without an arm/vest on H/DVXs for around two years, mostly on smaller student indie projects. A friend recently called me and got me hooked up with filming an Aaron Pritchett music video, a very big Canadian country music star. We were going to be shooting on the HVX, hopefully with a 35mm adapter.
I rented a Glidecam V-20 arm/vest from a friend, having never previously used it. It's made for rigs around 15-26 pounds (around there). Never having used a vest or rig, I didn't really have time to practice anything before our first scheduled day of shooting, this made me a bit nervous. Our first day we ended up running out of time however, and I never had a chance to shoot. Back at the hotel, I had a few beers and started setting it up. I was smart and ended up bringing a bunch of weights from y handweights, which I used to make the load a bit heavier and actually bring the HVX down to normal operating level. However, it was still a bit underweight. While running up and down the hotel hallways was neat, the real fun began when we threw the 35mm adapter on it.
Finally our rig was near the V-20 operating level, but I was a bit worried that the bottom part of the Glidecam 4000 sled was going to slide out on my, and the camera was suddenly going to be top heavy and end up smashing on the ground, but this never ended up happening. Using some duct tape and some carefully placed weights, I managed to get the rig running fairly smooth, and after a bit of practice I felt pretty confident with it. However, I never did fully balance the rig to a smooth drop time. I ended up overweighing the bottom to help smoothen out wiggles and because of the current situation for attaching our weights.
The first day of me shooting, we started out in the desert. Long walk and sing shot ,where I had to walk backwards up a sand dune. Instead of walking straight up, our director decided we'd cut across it. So instead of just having each step slip downslope towards the singer, I was slipping sideways as well, every step slip out form under me. I had spotters helping me which was great, but it was quiet interesting working conditions. I believe the heavy weights on the bottom though helped keep things a little bit smoother than normal. We had a few pan to the sky shots but of course, now with the heavier bottom it made things a little bit harder. Overall, I was pleased with the wider shots, however the closeup stuff was never as satisfying. I had a hard time keeping him perfectly framed while I'm slipping and sliding down the slope, but the director didn't care as he would be cutting in and out of the shot anyways. I also had a circular running shot where I shot directly to my left and had to run circles around him trying to keep him framed. Again I was slipping all over and having a ahrd time keeping the circle perfect, it was my first time trying this and it's definitely something I need to work on. I'm curious about Steadycams in sand, how often is this done? It's incredibly hard terrain to try and control a rig in I found, but I was pretty happy with the good material I did get.
My second day was on some railroad tracks, tracking backwards. It was close to the ocean and raining, so I had this giant poncho taped around the Glidecam, and extremely strong gusts of wind coming off the ocean trying to blow me off track. A heavier weighted bottom on the Glidecam helped control these wiggles (or so I think, would an even balanced GC actually be better?).
The close up shots were a little bit hard to control again, as I'm tripping over wood and bolts, and fighting the wind. The wider shows looked extremely smooth and gorgeous though, and I'm excited to see my stuff on the final video.
It was two very interesting days for me. A lot of the stuff was shot at 48 fps, meaning when it's played back normal speed all the bounces and wiggles are way slower and less noticeable. The director likes the shaky stuff also, as it's sort of his style. Personally, if I were him and wanted smooth stuff in the sand or railroad tracks, I would've gone with a dolly, as it's not quite your normal terrain for stabilizer work.
Now am I overanalyzing it? Should all of my footage been perfect, walking sideways on sand dunes with a 50mm lense, or are there situations where environments beyond your control simply shouldn't be attempted? I beat myself up a bit over this, and I'm wondering if I'm just too whiny and new, and normal regular operators wouldn't have a problem with this. Either way, it was a blast and a great start to paid gigs. I fell in love with the rig I rented and will hopefully be using it in the near future now that I'm so comfortable with it.
Handling the rig was interesting while shooting, because I have no external monitor, I am forced to hold it on the right side of my body to view the LCD, instead of more to the left like most people do. It being farther away from my body made it a bit harder to control and hold close, as the weight was farther out. I had the camera start to get away from me and was often having to force it back to the right, and sometimes while it was moving left on me I would start trying to lean to see into the LCD, but after this happened twice I realized my mistake and simply wrestled it back into place. It was quiet the experience but by the 2nd day I felt very comfortable.
Bonus one-legged Glidecamming photo for you:
I rented a Glidecam V-20 arm/vest from a friend, having never previously used it. It's made for rigs around 15-26 pounds (around there). Never having used a vest or rig, I didn't really have time to practice anything before our first scheduled day of shooting, this made me a bit nervous. Our first day we ended up running out of time however, and I never had a chance to shoot. Back at the hotel, I had a few beers and started setting it up. I was smart and ended up bringing a bunch of weights from y handweights, which I used to make the load a bit heavier and actually bring the HVX down to normal operating level. However, it was still a bit underweight. While running up and down the hotel hallways was neat, the real fun began when we threw the 35mm adapter on it.
Finally our rig was near the V-20 operating level, but I was a bit worried that the bottom part of the Glidecam 4000 sled was going to slide out on my, and the camera was suddenly going to be top heavy and end up smashing on the ground, but this never ended up happening. Using some duct tape and some carefully placed weights, I managed to get the rig running fairly smooth, and after a bit of practice I felt pretty confident with it. However, I never did fully balance the rig to a smooth drop time. I ended up overweighing the bottom to help smoothen out wiggles and because of the current situation for attaching our weights.
The first day of me shooting, we started out in the desert. Long walk and sing shot ,where I had to walk backwards up a sand dune. Instead of walking straight up, our director decided we'd cut across it. So instead of just having each step slip downslope towards the singer, I was slipping sideways as well, every step slip out form under me. I had spotters helping me which was great, but it was quiet interesting working conditions. I believe the heavy weights on the bottom though helped keep things a little bit smoother than normal. We had a few pan to the sky shots but of course, now with the heavier bottom it made things a little bit harder. Overall, I was pleased with the wider shots, however the closeup stuff was never as satisfying. I had a hard time keeping him perfectly framed while I'm slipping and sliding down the slope, but the director didn't care as he would be cutting in and out of the shot anyways. I also had a circular running shot where I shot directly to my left and had to run circles around him trying to keep him framed. Again I was slipping all over and having a ahrd time keeping the circle perfect, it was my first time trying this and it's definitely something I need to work on. I'm curious about Steadycams in sand, how often is this done? It's incredibly hard terrain to try and control a rig in I found, but I was pretty happy with the good material I did get.
My second day was on some railroad tracks, tracking backwards. It was close to the ocean and raining, so I had this giant poncho taped around the Glidecam, and extremely strong gusts of wind coming off the ocean trying to blow me off track. A heavier weighted bottom on the Glidecam helped control these wiggles (or so I think, would an even balanced GC actually be better?).
The close up shots were a little bit hard to control again, as I'm tripping over wood and bolts, and fighting the wind. The wider shows looked extremely smooth and gorgeous though, and I'm excited to see my stuff on the final video.
It was two very interesting days for me. A lot of the stuff was shot at 48 fps, meaning when it's played back normal speed all the bounces and wiggles are way slower and less noticeable. The director likes the shaky stuff also, as it's sort of his style. Personally, if I were him and wanted smooth stuff in the sand or railroad tracks, I would've gone with a dolly, as it's not quite your normal terrain for stabilizer work.
Now am I overanalyzing it? Should all of my footage been perfect, walking sideways on sand dunes with a 50mm lense, or are there situations where environments beyond your control simply shouldn't be attempted? I beat myself up a bit over this, and I'm wondering if I'm just too whiny and new, and normal regular operators wouldn't have a problem with this. Either way, it was a blast and a great start to paid gigs. I fell in love with the rig I rented and will hopefully be using it in the near future now that I'm so comfortable with it.
Handling the rig was interesting while shooting, because I have no external monitor, I am forced to hold it on the right side of my body to view the LCD, instead of more to the left like most people do. It being farther away from my body made it a bit harder to control and hold close, as the weight was farther out. I had the camera start to get away from me and was often having to force it back to the right, and sometimes while it was moving left on me I would start trying to lean to see into the LCD, but after this happened twice I realized my mistake and simply wrestled it back into place. It was quiet the experience but by the 2nd day I felt very comfortable.
Bonus one-legged Glidecamming photo for you:
