Lessons

Lesson Info

Camera Support & Lighting

And on to camera support lighting uh this is kind of a beefy part of today in terms of gear uh after this will quickly talk about er what the first ideas versus a producer my favorite ones producer executive producer associate producer uh uh assistant producer uh line producer uh I mean we'll get into that what are the differences and what other people's rules and at the end of it uh the people in the classroom will get together and shoot a short interview about creative live and some b roll we'll talk about how to put it together and you're going to see howto put together a uh interview er with any camera system so before we go in the camera lighting support I'm going to show you the corny video that most of you may already have seen uh the reason I show this is because I tend to be a little lifting people in the smile uh but more to the point we're about to go into gear land we're about to see a lot of really fancy gizmos with a main point for those of you who were not tuned in last ...

yesterday that I started off this entire workshop with is that film in general and hopefully for the most part is not about how polished are sexy your camera moves are it's about the story it's about the concept the video about to show you were shot by one young man not with a five d mark to not with stabilized camera not with any gizmos and what he did is incredibly simple but he struck a cord to the tune of thirty million people that have seen this video on youtube he struck a chord because of what he was trying to say or what he was doing and in effect what's interesting about this pieces this is ah young man named matt you may have heard the of those youtube video called where the hell is matt and uh I apologize for the swearing for those of you that's what he's titled it and he's unapologetic about it um he simply went around the world and photographed himself the local people in different uh you know, postcard settings and what he did is not that original people for their entire for all of history have been traveling around the world and taking photographs of themselves or videos themselves in random places. The fact that he used youtube to distribute that uh kind of shows you the power of social media and youtube and being able to broadcast a I believe it's a two minute video uh other serious have locked off shots with no jip moves no stated cams no chibs uh no giro's no helicopters, no planes trains automobiles just simple content so here you go as you watch this think about the fact that the technique on here is far from impressive shot with a handheld point shoot camera sometimes under on tripod or sticks and, uh hopefully it's a kind of ground you back into I think what this is all about, which is striking some sort of cord with your audience. Wait while he's all over the world you gotta know a few important things shot size is consistent with the angle is consistent durations almost consistent style has a dramatic no line across so shop this wide lens and a tight lands in a side angle top angle would be different. Gentlemen was a software designer built video games where people are shooting each other I think he quit his job. He's got a good one here on the side of start traveling the world with a friend his friend photographed or filmed him dancing like this put on the web got lots of people watching it. Next thing you know, uh, some company sponsored him and traveling or what in the world for over two years on their dime, partly that I don't have that power the way travel the world for ourselves. This guy took it to a new level has been seen by more than thirty million people on youtube just circle where the hell is max and you'll see it makes it really smooth social networking on just simplicity has complex wake phil making out to be all about very basic way not a bad year too for this gentleman and uh good times to be on this earth I think a lot of uh issues that come out technology and a lot of good things too so let's go ahead and jump into the fascinating world of gear let's go ahead with this chair out of the way and pull up the first piece of gear that we're going to show you and that is a slider now you can see right here uh one slider to slider three slider force letter nice letter um there's a reason I'm showing us to you it goes along with the entire um uh serious so far is that I'm trying to show you and educate you uh on the fact that there's seldom ever is the perfect piece of year for anything so when someone asks me what's your favorite lens I'm like there's no such thing there's no such thing as the perfect lands there is no such thing as the perfect camera the red is not a movie camera the canon is not perfect camera if there were a perfect camera would all be using only that one camera all right? The only thing it's gonna be perfect everyone these days is oxygen um now all these different sliders are different price point but they all do the same things differently uh the introductory one that I want to share with you is uh made by uh this gentleman and his family in the uk with parts that can be found online from other manufacturers and it's called black track and when it does, it's simply moves the camera go ahead and loosen this up from right to left as we discussed before from front to back or any angle they're ofyou can also tip this etcetera now uh this is a slider that is extremely basic okay? It has no bells and whistles there are no ball bearings on this connection here um and it's not gonna be a smooth as the other ones the reason I show this one to you is that it's in the five hundred six hundred arrange I believe depending on the pound I can't get to have it for the larger one. Well it's forty two dollars thanks for the conversion there, marcus and uh hundred twelve dollars so it's a good way to start ah, the beauty of this is it's a solid block you can pretty much throw this across the room you can pick it up drop it somewhere you can put it on the ground without tripods you could put one tripod and one model pod you could be risky and only have one tripod in the centre that's very likely gonna teeter back and forth but you got this right on the floor and you get a smaller version a longer version there have different different wits the beauty of this system here is you can put that a backpack has a solo photojournalist with no setup time you pull it out of your backpack you place it on the ground can you do a simple slider move put it back put it back in your backpack you're done here's the negative of this thing it's not as fancy as the other ones there is no ball bearing here so as you push it usually don't push from the top you want push from the base of a slider because the tripods air light and the thing is like it's going to move a little bit more that's just a question of tripods and support it's not a question of the bladder but it is more difficult other sliders to get a perfectly smooth slide okay, that is just a function of a function of how this thing is made and its price point however this is a solid block and lightweight um matthew, you want to come up here quick and, uh give us a go real quick do you want to go and plug it in? But it's okay to slide this guy from right to left? What do you think? Not bad not bad there's noticeable resistance but there are times where you can feel you might not be moving in a linear exactly at the same time I think you'll agree this is built pretty well for two days it's quite lightweight take the camera so that's that product and where it stands so if you're just getting into this and you're asking me what's a cheaper way to start the glad track is a great way to go let's go ahead and immediately jump into uh this guy back here and just stay over here. Matthew this is, uh can you guys see this from over there with the two different cameras? This is the senate vote a slider there actually two of them here, um and it's a slightly more expensive model it's a thousand dollars or twelve hundred dollars, I believe for the bigger one, um it's made by a canadian company by a very cool company that sponsors from fantastic projects ah, city of lakes being one of the first wedding slash films being made. If you've heard of this, check it out city of lakes uh, made by two friends of mine that are really talented filmmakers um instead of body was cool enough to sponsor their entire project. I always like to back cos do that. Um, we have a live feed now, uh, I don't think we needed just yet uh, I think we'll just go for this real quick there, if you can see what that camera number two there's a lock over here I highly recommend you lock the slider very tightly. If you ever handle it should worry to pick it up. The slider will go in on its own and and just slam it your finger and pinch it. So go ahead, matthew, and unlock it over there. There you go and go ahead and give us a sliding motion from left to right because I'm not your bearings and there it's noticeably, much smoother, much easier to maintain a linear right. So it's a better quality products in terms of having ball bearings in it. Ah, this is a perfect product for the canon dslr, serious camera and their weight. You'll notice a very big difference between the previous one and this one is this has a bowl on it so you can go ahead and put that man photo flight twenty six head so you can go ahead and not only pull off slider move, but also, uh, pan has you move so you would pan them this way to keep yourself in the center of the frame with a fluid head, which is really quite important to bring us to the next level. You will notice matthew. If you hold your microphone to the, uh, the ball bearings, you can hear this. You never grow you a sliding move like this that's not a fared example but you know, in a very quiet scene this could be an issue for certain people that being said, this thing is also built like a tank it's got little legs down here that allow you to quickly just depending on whether or not you're you're surfaces level or not you can make very quick adjustments and uh it has that lock and that bull attachment uh what I want you to do real quick markets if you don't mind bringing that back is lift that one and I just speaking to the weight yes on the glide track and, uh, matthew not to put you in a spot that key lift that guy with one hand but you can do it right? All right, so I wouldn't put that down. Uh can you can we try to lift that with one hand? No, right, I mean, you can do it, but uh we have to pump you up, you know, um now if you think this is heavy, try and do that. But please don't you're gonna hurt yourself to do that with a bigger model? No way, right? So this is the heavier duty model again, like any glad track they are any track slider they make it longer or shorter rods with anything you buy the longer you have rods that are parallel the more chance there is for flex so that's why you're gonna wanna buy something very high quality this is a slider that I would feel comfortable I think although I have not tried it to put a red camera on a much heavier camera um and again it's it's really built uh this has been like a tank what do you think the weight of this is marcus thirty pounds for a splatter so here again where you have to think of a cz your film as a filmmaker either you know a big production or small uh I'm not gonna want to carry a thirty pounds slatter in my backpack it's gonna kill me I glide track it's something I might want to just go out out ahead and run out and do whereas if I'm shooting a narrative film or commercial I'm not gonna hesitate to use the heaviest thing I could get cause I don't want any movement whatsoever because a glide move is all about extremely smooth and steady okay uh so we're gonna jump from that over to this border jim explorer back here which is a whole different beast coming come over here matt uh mind your head uh around this way and underneath and this is an entirely different beast. This is not something you want to carry in your backpack it does pack down it does require some assembly to put together the beauty of this port a jib explore is that as marcus will show you it's both a slider plus a jib that's a jib back there it's the micro dolly this is a slider energy of in the same model so matthew what do you think of that unit yes, we could do that sure. It's both incredibly smooth and almost silent so it's silent it's smooth and it's rock solid much bigger thing the bigger the heavier the better for film unfortunately, uh as a photojournalist going around the world afghanistan you're not going to do something like this you might do a glide track okay uh just that's just a quick example of what you're going to do what's really great about the system is that it can carry quite a bit of weight you can put two heavy duty tripods on either end uh in this case we have a tripod the center uh that can also go on wheels correct uh and could be configured to be both a dolly or excuse me of sliders kind of same difference and egypt okay. And it's ah, relatively well price at just under forty five hundred bucks all right uh obviously when you want to make a very quick adjustment on your jib serena slider go pick it up one hand, make it quick adjustment this is not something you picked up with one hand and make it quick adjustment you can pull it off but not with a camera on it all right, so it's more of a two person job uh also when you're going to make a move like this uh in some locations they're going to stop you immediately the moment they start seeing you doing this without a permit whereas a glide track you might get a pull out your backpack put on the ground, shoot a quick shot and before they realize what you're doing, you're done it's a big price and cream into that all right and as you've noticed there's also this bullhead one thing I wouldn't mention you always want to be careful as they have locks on the other end you want to make sure they go you mean you put them on because you do not want the dolly to keep going and go right off the slider that is, you know, one of the dangers if you're not careful about this design versus these guys camera's not going anywhere anytime soon but if you know what you're doing not gonna be an issue we're going to jump to the micro dolly with the tracks and just uh tripod that's gonna take mark it's a little bit uh what I will show you however uh is we're gonna plug the video cable into this guy okay? And do we have that hd mic cable ready it's right down here obviously you want to make sure you have some slack in general when you're moving, any camera cables are not really your friends, all right? We'll talk about later today about some wireless solutions so that everything in the camera is absolutely self contained. You don't want cable's loose around anything, people trip over them and they get caught in them. I think we already went over my love of the ht my port designed on these cameras. So here is, um, a good example in general, um on average, you don't want a long lens on a slider unless you really want a specific effect. Okay, you're going tohave to rotate or pan the head as you move a slider to keep the subject the main subject uh in focus, I want you go ahead and john and come right here. If you don't mind so that's a simple slider move without a pan, you will notice that his matthew goes from left to right. John's I appears that's a good little edit segment there and cut you see that the viewfinder is at first blocking the gentleman's eye johns I and then as you keep being a slider, it is revealed that to me is where you would cut that shot to something else, nice transition, okay, you will also notice if you stop panting that you can use this to start from subject a um let's just say that for some reason the mac book pro was the star okay, you can pan a little bit now you could go ahead and go and start your slider move focus back on the john and that hit subject three which is that red bag right? If we had time to block us out I could put one actor behind on on the left john the center and a third actor and you can communicate some sort of relationship between the three as you do that jib move okay here now, john, if you come much closer to the camera if you would what about their uh now I'm gonna have matthew uh, pan as you go to keep john in the center at all times okay, go for it. Do you notice how that is? Slightly entrancing okay is entrancing because the audience doesn't really know what you're doing with the camera. What they see it is not easy to do is when matthew nails this john should stay in the dead center of the frame so go and stay on the live you let's let's help you here's a little trick you can do okay are we recording this life food, by the way? Awesome! So I'm going to help you and I'm going to use that little that little focusing square and put it dead on boobs johns I let's check the focus who woulda loaned us yesterday right? Punch in ten x look how amazing that is. Punch out and now matthew, take a deep breath. Keep that rectangle exactly on john's I at all time you can't lose it, so try it again. Practice. I practiced that move and you can get two for the price of one. You khun shoot that going the other direction. Okay, so keep doing it right. Could we put a card in that camera, marcus, if that's okay? Not that you're doing much of anything. Uh, can someone hand me a cf cart? Uh, problem. That body right in front of you that someone who knows how to open one day mark four. All right, I hope that you're getting the idea here. I want to record this for a little behind the scenes thing real quick. Um, I was a card in one of these, right? Cool. Here we go. Excuse me a second whenever you put any card in the camera but I recommend you do if you could come back to live you back alive, you gentlemen, there you go, a first press play, no image that means there's nothing on the card, then go back to your menu format every card every single time you put a card in your camera without exception maybe I'm a little bit anal I don't like to mix cards between cameras I don't like the mix card between reds and cannons and icons I think in the sacrosanct and just kind of a safety thing because it forces you to check to see first of all if you have any media on it and be the check uh make sure you have space to record and it's not corrupt so here we go again if you could cut to the live you check the focus of the end of your move so should be point a of your action and point b so in this case when I yell action I'm yelling for matthew to move the slider not for john to move it all who is actually a is gonna be matthew what he would do it really had time mark points on the slider so he knows where his starting point is on the move and his ending point he is only concentrating on that john you're gonna have an action to be right I could be your action b is going to be a blink when I say action be okay are you ready alright roll camera so that would mean you press the smallest but impossible on the cant five d mark the one year mark four all right and you would say speed there you go rolling either way and I would say action one action too all right, we have to work on that acting a little bit to make a little more believable let's try it again what's happened to you are just well uh just um yeah clear your eye just very so very subtle action one sorry my fault I think it'd be a little low on that to start again you don't have to cut right now, okay? Just keep it rolling take you more time to reset everything action one action to know like look at me ready action one action too ok, we'll do one more time I'm gonna make sure my team is ready go backto one matthew you're ready? John you ready? Ready. I want you to cover his eye with that view finer when you're starting there you go ready? Set so said is a good way safe ready set action one action too, right? I wouldn't really nail it. Good job guys cut but um are you feeling all right? Yeah hand holding a camera is not easy, but what I was trying to do is add an extra element to that move. And if we were showing us a slow motion at safety from the second you would see the eye movement gives that extra little tempo on that move here is the most important thing I can share with you um about uh, working with sliders or dollies we all think we're going to that opening scene in full metal jacket on the second half of the movie where your tracking uh matthew it was not matthew modine who is the actor? Er what's up no no um full metal jacket uh the journalist uh wise crack no no full metal jacket stanley kubrick matthew modine yeah, I was, um he is walking through downtown vietnam and the cameras following him very long shot uh the entire time we all think that we're going to do especially when your practice three four, five second jib moves or dolly moves what I can tell you from experience is at least in commercials there are very few shots that last longer than half seconds one second, maybe two seconds. Ah four second shot or mohr is very rare in a narrative film. Definitely it's got a pretty complex okay, so always remember that as you move the camera if you hit a bump somewhere likely cut around it as long as that's not the point of your shot is right when you hit that bump, we're gonna have you transfer off of that camera and marcus, I'm gonna have you take this card and put it with the other cars if you don't mind or put it into that camera there's no card matthew, can I hand you the safety of my cable right there so now we're going to go from deported jib to another device could go tokyo outside real quick called uh the micro dolly go to the king outside real quick guys. Ah, the micro dolly is yet another idea. This is to me I think one of the more affordable there are many models that dolly uh and uh the porter jim and other, uh, spider's, etcetera all work with different types of track. I want to show you the microt, dolly, because it's a relatively easy way of doing a dolly track. Um, the beauty of a dolly track is, as you can see, if we could go to the you have the the handheld camera. Is that it's? Very lightweight. Okay, can we cut to that guy's on those switchboard? We'll rule. Um, we can cut to a shot of the track. It's very thin. Lightweight rail is not something you'd want to use. The very heavy camera. This is meant for our world of h dslr, uh, orr lightweight camcorders. But the idea here is that matthew can go ahead and the two hundred f two is probably the single worst lands to try dolly, move with let's. Go ahead and pull that off switch lenses. What is that, seventy twenty, forty seven great! You're gonna have to have a pretty amazing uh fischer dolly to pull a two hundred millimeters shot that's perfectly stable and get no bumps or vibrations so we're gonna go ahead and cut real quick teo the live you from this camera which I think I just disabled hold on a second okay let's go super wide let's tilt down right over here on the left tilt down a little bit over here and um marcus do you mind being my grip on this move and so we're gonna have a dolly grip would be the term for what marcus is doing his job is to again if you were doing this we had more time we would mark a spot on the dolly track where marcus starts and a spot where he stops the single worst thing you can do as a director a dp is they put the track there and move the dolly we're skipping a step there should be a reason of dolly is here okay, the dollar should be going from point a to point b with purpose all right, well we'll try and cheat that and turn this around and what we're gonna do is going to move the camera from point a on jared stay on jared okay? And as you uh call the dalai sideways you're going to end up we're not gonna think fancy yet on the time coach like okay and we're not gonna do that again with a tilt down all right, so uh let's give that a try matthew tilt the camera a little bit make sure you have there you go and action. So a simple dolly move going from point a to b with a tilt down now stop at point to going to reverse the shot and jared I would like you to bear your your head in your hands okay, but uh uh like you're worried more like you know you just found out that uh the oxygen is running out of the room and bombs go off in thirty seconds. Okay? So let's say as a director we opened with a shot of a ticking time bombs is not a slate. This is a bomb with a clock on it. Okay, so use your imagination you don't have the props. This is a bomb with a countdown timer and I would go ahead and yell action to matthew. Okay, that suggests to me that jared is reacting to his inevitable inevitable doom. If the two of you guys behind you also just lean your head back and kind again to roll we're all gonna die in ten seconds and there's nothing you can do about it and you've been well aware of it for hours auction is running out here in a submarine uh and somehow it knows that in ten seconds gonna die ready, start back from point a and I want you to go significantly sar that you're not dead yet not dead yet uh you seriously get into character you are about to die of oxygen you you're taking your last breasts you're thinking about your family um you're thinking about the fact that you'll never see anyone that you know again and uh you've got three seconds on the timer so uh matthew as you make this move you went very fast in the last one remember this is an inevitable death that can't be stopped and this time you know it's just it's gonna happen no matter what all right so uh I'm gonna let you take all this on your own and try to make the smoothest dolly move left with a slight tilt up and I may ah handle the land stores the end don't be startled by that okay ready and action slow start again have speeds and sets a goal a slower go half speed and action tilt up slowly excellent excellent okay uh there's that shot okay cut I demonstrate something by mistake well, which is that cannon zoom lenses are still zoom lenses. They're not meant to smooth zoom smoothly you saw how that jumped very quickly on the video that was not an effect of the streaming these air not cinema zooms uh but would you agree? I hope they made us on the fly that that help tell the story of the impending doom the three people who are in the background ending on jared who's maybe now we're going to cut to a tight cholla jerry or back to the clock. What did we accomplish besides moving the camera emotion drama uh on more of an economical level what did we accomplish by doing this one move in terms of um shot planning in the amount of time it takes one shot showed the clock. Dale two other gentlemen in one long shot we kind of killed. I know how long that shot was. Seven seconds, eight seconds. Okay, try spending eight seconds. Anyone of these shots? It was like watching paint dry. Try thinking about the amount of setup time it's going to be to go from the ticking time bomb too character to character three character, four that's four shots you gotta set up its four cuts. It's a bit more jarring for is here. We told not the most complex series you know, events, but we did it all in one shot. We implied a relationship between the ticking clock and their fate. When you cut from the clock to them, the audience will get hopefully that they're in the same room and they're related just kind of part of what we learn to do as an audience it's not as clear though the clock if we get a little more sophisticated art directing could actually be an entirely different room when you make that cut will not confusing many people where is here there's actually no doubt left to the audience that these guys and this bomb are in the same room and that their fate, whatever they're upset about somehow relate to that clock whether or not even introduced that clock before the fact it is a bomb that is directing that is hopefully building some tension, not much all right, um, you would add a little more complexity the shot by focusing and using sheldon the field on the clock first and then rack focusing you rack focus of dale and then eventually to jared you do that? Depends. Is dale that important in our story? Or is it just a secondary actor? You're gonna confuse the audience if no one has ever seen dale in that movie for in fact, if you do rack, focus the dale, you're gonna be introducing him as a character whenever you see that random shot of a guy in a film or a woman that just shows up out of nowhere or in a big pan or some move cara mysteriously rack focuses that person for an instant and then back the protagonist that is a director's way of saying, wake up! That person has now been accused the story, whereas if you rack, focus from the uh slate straight to jared or in fact don't change focus at all if you can measure it out the audience is going to know that the only two people that matter in this scene are the bomb injured okay? And maybe if you reverse the shot that show this to the real quick I don't know how effective it's gonna be go back teo your shot number b and make sure that we're at um at two eight okay, I want you to look out the side of your uh look left out of the corner of your eye because you're actually responsible for this all right? And I have a sly smile ok? And go now from point a to point b so from jared two of the clock and you guys are severely depressed okay, we would rack focus to the slate in the end. What does that tell you? Is jared responsible for that clock there? Does he know what's going on with that slight smile? These guys down in the back they're victims he's responsible but I'd like you to start to understand is as a filmmaker we shot this exact same scene with the exact same instrument and the exact same lens in different directions by choosing a change focus or not and we're able to tell a very a very different story with the exact same building blocks that is what directing is it's not about yelling action it's not about screaming at people it's not about making lots of money it's about the nice part if it can happen it's about understanding that when you move the camera when you choose to shift the focal plane where the cameras focused if you choose to pan or not you choose to use a dolly or not you can get very different results and communicate things you're taking your audience on a ride you're taking them on a journey you are directing their emotion, your eye directing their intellect to a certain direction you're creating tension you're creating fear you're creating anticipation we're making people just feel something with moving images and sound and uh that's what's pretty powerful about that so to finish off uh I'm going to give marcus a heart attack because we're not gonna try and transfer this guy into a gypsy you can let that go and take your time on that I'll I'll figure out how to make up for it um no chip you want me to if you don't mind that you're saying don't do yes um we're gonna come back out here the beauty of the micro dolly and it's actually gonna work uh is that let's now go ahead and go over to the gym together, okay, but don't forget to bring her hd mic cable with you and make sure you have enough slack uh what we did not run into with this job with this dolly by the way is that we have very even ground you will notice if you do camera two right here that the dolly is going over that cable did you guys notice a bump in the move I didn't we got lucky usually it's absolutely unforgiving especially the longer lens that is the achilles heel of dolly tracks is they must be absolutely uh even the beauty of this doll I attract you is its linear it's also circular and uh once I stopped overtaxing marcus I'll have them bring out one of the bags this track and the dalai wheels fit in a very small bag they can actually carry by yourself on your bag and in fact it's small enough to go on your overhead there's something to be said about that for photojournalist and documentary filmmakers it's not a fissure that requires a truck cube truck to pull back with the track a few people to assemble it and quite a few hundred pounds to take off the truck and push all right uh as we've been talking about every tool has its pluses and minuses so matthew don't don't uh bother with with marcus we're going talk about the jib real quick and um this gym here again you'll notice I'm trying to show you tools that do more than one thing this is also the micro dolly and you can build upon this system and actually put a heavier set of sticks on those wheels and have a jib on a track you would not want to use this micro dolly with extremely heavy camera it's not meant to support that kind of weight actually is a pretty amazing job of doing what it is for its size but understand you're not going to put a panavision camera on this this micro dolly what's really cool about this micro dolly um is that knowledge is of dolly in by all these in different segments it's also a jib so here we go here's uh not the best lens at the fish islands but it's going to exaggerate motion so I'm gonna do my best not to knock marcus in the head but there you go look at us. We're now floating through the room. This may feel very mtv like because it is all right but um on the simplest level this keeps your audience engaged camera's moving uh do not overuse this alright? Ah, the micro dolly as you see it configured right now has a head on it that can be articulated from behind left and right up and down and I'm operating from back here uh definitely needed practice nothing just to overnight um you do not need that you're head on there um, it has actually a really ingenious system that I'm not going to go into right now that allows you to correct the way without a head that the camera either stays absolutely level as you rise up or down. You seem very ingenious trigonometry and knowledge of angles, so that depending on where you place certain key pieces of micro dolly without a head, you could make sure that as you go up, it tilts down or up mechanically or stays absolutely level that's a re just that's intelligence and engineer uh, in this case, we've got the fancy head, so I'm going to want to again start with the tv, you can cut back to the jib and we're going to pan towards marcus and tilt down. Look up, marcus. Okay, that makes look. Marcus makes marcus look very small and fragile, doesn't it? Because it's a super wide angle lens and look up again. Marcus, if you would. Okay, obviously, you'll see the shadow of the jeb. But you can use this for creative uses. There is a balloon flying out of marcus his hand. Imagine the point of view of the balloon. Let go. Go ahead, ready? Oh, no, my balloon okay, um, this is how you would make that move happen. All right and suddenly you can see as a director of the cut of the kid or marcus let's go the balloon the point of view shot of marcus as he sees the balloon what's missing there marcus's reaction cut back to the balloon active of marcus's reaction you're going to get an emotional reaction from your audience okay uh you can cheat and do a slider move cut back to the camera with a chip kind of a waste of resources okay um also is a very different effect as you try and do this lousy practice you see how the world is rotating around the screen as I jib around it and rotate the head be very careful you do this not to knock people in the head because you're not you're watching the screen and not the jib itself look out close marcus his head is too headship all right but you get the idea of the creative potential of a gyp okay let's stay on marcus and marcus if you stay in position please for one second that you're working or anything uh marcus is world is changing around him and it's revealing someone behind him right there. Okay john q stand right behind marcus I hate this because the fish islands um but uh john stand where the tv is if you don't mind case here uh if you didn't have a fish islands he would be out of frame are you gonna buy that with me right as the gym moves along john is going very much become in frame and directly behind markus okay another storytelling technique the ability to rotate the head has you move it right we're going to stop with the jib we're going to rest it you never ever want to live in a gyp unmanned all right uh which we're gonna do right now and it's a heavy piece of metal that will hurt someone um as you can probably understand it takes a bit of time to mount this and get this ready marcus how how long would you say you spent getting this port of this micro dolly ready with the head fifteen minutes fifteen minutes all right, so when we talked about the risk versus reward you could do some pretty neat moves with this uh jib and pan and tilt head um I don't know if art wolfe is gonna want to bring this to uh tibet with him maybe he has a team of two or three in reality can actually do this with a team of two people that's the beauty of the micro dollar two people can do what you could do with one person six longer but two people is kind of a good critical mass to pull he's kind of cool moves this is not a techno crane you know that's you know hundreds of thousands of dollars or fifty thousand up to paying on what kind of crane you get but it has to be wheeled in on a truck so you can actually in three of those bags that will show you at one point fit with you on your flight. The beauty of both these systems is that you can travel with them by yourself and you do not want travel with a slider and egypt because overweight baggage charges shipping charges if you can get a micro dahlia that's a dolly plus a jib big plus you can get a explore from porta jib that's a slider plus a jib big plus. Fair enough. Uh, so now we should go back to marcus and show how that exact same piece of equipment the slider has now become a jib. Uh, so here is the, uh, port egypt as a um jip that's the explorer who saw it as a flatter a few minutes ago took what, five minutes for you to convert it or so here is the significant difference and that is that, uh there's no geared head on this model right now there has to be operated by matthew, which is good and bad. Um, it can be easier or harder depending on your skill level what you prefer but it's a scientific difference because when you reach all the way up it gets a little harder and we're gonna go back to marshall monitor is here on reference moderates you generally want tohave the monitor within matthews I you don't want him following the motion of anyone these devices and trying to stay up the monitor because it can get a little bit of vertigo almost hard to follow that have a stationary monitor that someone can see and really feel the motion I think you understand what happens uh both these units have counterweights so on this porter jib you have a basket in the back of it john you go and you have tio fill it with some sort of weight so here using diving weights ah the heavier the camera the further outs extended the more weight simple you know physics um you khun get original put lenses in there put batteries um whatever it takes water bottles um this is kind of the point here with the micro dolly uh same thing it has a basket in the back the basket collapses completely flat and you have a water jug in the back that you fill his water if you're going to desert find sand bags that you feel what sand you'll have plenty of readily available sand very easy you know um if you're going to the ocean or the amazon will find water everywhere and uh this also completely collapses so both these manufacturers have spent quite a bit of time thinking about uh making this portable easy as easy as possible but I hope you understand that pulling off a slider or dolly move with either one of these is a very significantly different thing than if quick slider move so a mistake would be by new director to try and do a slider move with one of these versus a quick slider alright uh let's move along I think we're done with these cameras to the steadicam and um thank you, marcus thank you, matthew I'm gonna let actually matthew and marcus take us apart where then if you would all under that thirty seconds flat so matthew you're going to pick up the camera off the sticks once marcus clears you to do so are we on camera two the other camera two there you go. Tilt down a little bit, right? Okay, there you go. So matthew is gonna do the safe way of always, you know, moving a camera you do not pick the camera up on a tripod if you can help it, you will lose parts. You will have it snap and pinch your finger you'll break stuff removed the camera off of the sticks for the device next marcus is going to simply pick up I believe the tripod off the micro dolly and I will help him by picking up the legs can hand that to you thanks to you and I will call her jason from forever now um and then pick up the dog tracks yep. Danger danger uh can you uh quickly market show them how quick media how easy just collapsed these so there you go and let's go to the next dolly shot real quick. Okay, highly portable if you would do me one last favor once you're done with this it just show me the side of the bag that that entire set of tracks goes in okay uh I'm a big can of it uh people say well, it's not this it's not that like I said, we've shown you all different varieties of year you just saw how quickly wants to put that down and take it away. Just keep in mind that dolly tracks are much more susceptible to bumps on the floor on uneven ground uh that's where sliders really kind of rule and that you just need two or three uh foundational points and that is what those track fits that excuse me uh, you know that's in three of them for okay. So everything you saw on this jib for the exception of the head which is comes in its own case fits in three of these so you've got a dolly track set you've got the base for the tripod and you've got the jib into more of these four total you don't really need all of them there's three three total one so one case with power head one case for the track one case for the for the cases okay um pretty portable I mean you'll see and it's you know it's relatively uh not quite not heavy and it fits in the overhead uh so if you want a dolly here you go uh can't do that with a lot of other systems uh last but not least if you go back to the slide we're gonna bring casey in with the old steadicam right uh this device as we mentioned before revolutionized filmmaking uh years ago I was incorrect yesterday when I said that rocky was the first movie the steadicam marcus what was the first movie the steadicam I think it's a marathon man was the first movie the steadicam in nineteen seventy sixty invented by gentlemen who's quite famous in the film world named garrett brown marry someone here knows yes marathon man was actually the first film released released was no so shot you did that on purpose I did okay uh here's kind of a very important point you never wantto have a cable or anything touching your study camp so casey stay perfectly still if you would all right look at what's happening we have a close up of the steadicam camera two here we go let's look what happens right now as I put my finger on the steadicam I get seasick you never touch your steady camp okay? Casey will handle a steadicam with two fingers and the same is true whether you're handling a hundred plus pound camera or a five d mark to it's going to have one hand on his arm and one hand uh right here to try and control the way the camera moves right so uh what we're going to get into later we're gonna talk about wireless can waves and stuff like that uh obviously plugging a cable into this is not a good move so let me try okay yes sir. Also, casey has a very basic steadicam here he does not have a follow focusing unit. We talked about that earlier there's gonna be no way for me to help him adjust focuses he moves around so if I don't have that ability in magnus you win eighty five for a sixteen sixteen millimeter less super wide almost everything's in focus keep an idea of why hyper focal is maybe go to f four five six make a little grainy or a little more noisy high rise so but keep things and focus so here we go we're gonna give it a try with the steadicam no steadicam is a vest on arm and study camp I've used this is a product made by tiffin uh I've used the glide cam as well, which is another competing product I've had success with both and I've had disasters with both that's because I am not a steadicam operator how long have you been doing this casing two years two years all right and you will be able to judge him on how perfect he is this is what you see on movies are we seeing a live you single coming out of that all right so casey do your thing uh casey's job is to float that camera through the scene if he moves too quickly you will see that stutter you will see the inability of the audience to keep following the action okay uh I don't know if that is that video that shopping live or is it just on the streaming streaming streaming okay so um casey is going to do wait really have much room the old hollywood three sixty um scott and since we don't have much room you're gonna plaster yourself on scott's face okay and I mean really plaster yourself on scott's face because you only have this ark so casey's job is to stay and let's let's do this and we have a little more room in case you come right that center here marcus is going to help him with the cable and uh yes yeah so step forward if you would casey okay we're supposed to have a bit more room but we don't okay so do this slowly are we cut to the live view of case of casey hold on uh kate scott and casey were gonna focus on you now basically because we don't have a first day see pulling focus casey's job is to do a perfect circle without changing distance good luck and not run into the obstacles and action not bad for a rehearsal okay that's two years of work you noticed he messed up a little bit in the beginning after two years of doing this let's give it a second try to perfect it you know something else that's very obvious because the cameras so close to casey to scott because you know we don't have room you're going to see the camera shadow in there right now what I would recommend you do is you turn the auto power off on your thing I think is what's getting you uh these cannons have the auto power off thing and they will shut down after one minute not a fun thing to do alright so I'm sure you recognize this shot it's used over and over again to do several things all right again it can convey that someone has arrived in the middle of the scene and the world is swirling around hammer her things are becoming very chaotic or case you start from behind scott ready action stop alright very I would say easy but effective way of showing what someone is looking at a mysterious person from the back and who they are and how they're reacting to it if you get the casey's face at the end and he has fear in his face you know he's not ready for what's in front of him if he looks confident this guy is like the general who's gonna attack that world and vice versa start on casey you don't know what case he's looking at go ahead to the one eighteen reverse direction whichever way you want boom that's what's cost looking at okay, so that's one way of using a steady cam thank you very much. Casey um what I'd like to do before we unplug too late as we're gonna show you some clips that's okay, I'm gonna let casey just without the cord in here scott you sit back down thank you for helping out. Uh casey we're not going to see the live video we're going to see how he could move for the room all right? And you're gonna follow me alright for the room and you just gonna following from behind and at that center point I'm going to pause and you're gonna go in the front ready so marcus, can you, uh, lead him? So can you guys see me away back here with the cameras? Yeah, so, uh he's going to get from behind me? Marcus is going to support him because at one point casey is going to be working walking backwards he can't see where he's going and marcus is going to make sure he doesn't trip or fall you ready? So you cut or you can't cut back imagine if you will what this would look like all right, I'm gonna walk free ready? Casey yes, through the scene you following a character through an environment and you're finding out more and more about the environment at a certain point I'm going to slow down and casey's gonna keep moving around me and now switch of the front and never stop marcus is going to pull him backwards now as I continue progressing board but your feet okay and I may thank you very much not have to stop it all. You might need a very smooth move. We're in a very constrained environment here but think about what that did that allowed you to walk through a scene with the character for all these different obstacles doing that handheld is goingto convey a very different emotion because of the bumpiness in the moving in the steadiness you would use a hand held camera uh in kind of a war scene is falling off whereas here you fall for one of the best scenes that I have seen the steadicam is from goodfellas um okay, we can play that back I didn't think about that cut back to the hd my if you will and here's the playback of that uh do I look like well, that depends I could be afraid to paying on the music, but the way removing is pretty consistent and steady right and now you're going to rotate around and you lost me limits okay? And I'm going to continue walking forward back we go okay depending on how you cut it depending on the music is like, you know, it could be part of someone very comfortably walking through an office environment in control or uh maybe a lower angle might make it more of something that's no danger or, you know, walking through with the character in environment it's uncertain um so that ends this section of what we're doing I'm going to show you very quickly back on the the key note please uh a few shots from casey that'll show you uh, how a steady cam can be used um and you'll see that you know, here he is setting up pans with the subject and follows him pretty much what we just did smooth uh, you know this how steady cam can be used as a fancy slider just to that on the steps and again use the subject to influence the way your camera moves that bike rider made casey follow him and rotate one eighty he didn't just randomly start moving he used the subject to influence his motion casey told me you shot this in grand central with no permit or anything because the camera small enough, the people didn't stop him. You bring a full rig. Steady cam is, you know, casey's living dangerously in new york, especially in chinatown. He's just walking into a store and seconds later, I think they attacked with machetes. Right. Um, so he's on a subway, a steadicam and there's that shot you can an idea of what you could do. A steady cam it's, the fantastic tool. As a filmmaker, I would love to have a steadicam operators skills, because if I'm by myself, I have got no support crew walking around the steadicam all day gives you a tremendous amount of flexibility. And while steadicam may tend to be overkill for a lot of cameras, I think it's one of the very single best platforms of the cannon cameras because their lack of stabilization uh and they're lightweight. You can move around very quickly, effortlessly from scene to scene to scene to scene and knock it out of the ballpark. All right. Uh, let's. Go ahead. Right on time for once at one o'clock and take a lunch break. Uh, actually, I'll do five minutes of questions if that's cool. Um, all right, go ahead, not get up round of applause first, thank you. Yes, I'll start from the chat room there has been a lot of technical questions that have been answered by jay and jason sarah but um there have been some steadicam questions such as how to use the steadicam within a foot off the ground with a foot off the ground how do you use it with yeah low mode. Okay. Uh long story uh low mode is when you flip the camera so that it is not above the arm but below the arm. Okay, not every single study can model does that and sometimes have to buy attachments that allows you to walk with the camera at foot level just pretty cool all right and allows you just have different moves you saw uh casey has a steady cam arm that allows him to go up and down like a small jib move. Okay, so if all you need is a small gin move about this much steadicam is great if you want to go from ground up here you gotta use a gyp okay um but I think that answered that yeah I think so. Yes yes are you uh are you familiar with this? Uh yes, there is a couple of two scenes that were just continuous I think the it was just a combination of everything. Where was it just uh marcus has really helped me out on this. I know atonement had a fifteen minute study can move in it with one cut I think and they'll wipe from one shot to another notice that case he did it on that example video I'll show it to you real quick yeah shots you again going to cycle through back to the keynote uh one point it was a bit of a whip pan whip ass language for a very quick pan left to right right to left like whip um and you'll see it uh case it could you point it out when it comes up and he's actually cutting between two shots seamlessly was going so fast so casey just kind of set it up for us there's again the very simple fake slider move or dolly move look at the bicycle helping the camera are you know um motivating the camera two pan next shot after this one new location. Okay. That's one way of doing one way of doing it um but basically to answer your question fully it's all just dependent upon how much media space you have or for instance, how large of a film role you can actually throw on the film camera because once that film rolls out its out how long your camera operated can handle the rig um and in that sense the emotion six year with film for five demark two's you've got the climate of mars twos you have limitations twelve minutes but I will throw out there that people have gotten around it in the past, not with the five day march, too, but there is a film called the russian ark, which is about an hour and twenty minutes. Something like that just one continuous long shot. One thing. I think they might have cut it once, but, uh, they, uh they're solution was tethering their camera directly to a very large memory source, which allowed them toe should entire film. And again, just because you can doesn't mean you should have an hour plus long shot or a fifty men shot in atonement. Sometimes you do it because it's a fantastic story telling tool. Sometimes you do it just to say you did it on that's when you kind of start going down that slippery slope. But a steady cam is a fantastic tool. Uh, it does require are very skilled operator. It requires a very skilled first a seat, always keep camera and focus. But it's, one of the most powerful tools of filmmaking that all too often is misused. Overused. Um, but, you know, I have a hard time not shooting with it. Whenever I that's an option and um sometimes you run into a problem where people want you to shoot with it all the time and it may not be right for you just like the hd sell ours you know one of our good friends is is a camera filter a dp director and a steadicam operator has been doing it for twenty plus years and uh he will tell us uh that people do not understand how to use a steadicam or what it can do and I'll ask him to do shots that air could be done so much more effectively with a dolly or jib or a slider or even hand help people use the steadicam person operator as a walking tripod you know and you know do you really care about how tired your operator is? I don't know depends what's your priority you know you can knock one shot shot number two shot number three shot number four and very fast session with steadicam operator it's not really what they're meant to do but they are kind of like a floating camera that you can stop and do static shots with very quickly none of this picking up sticks and you know leveling the head and all that um we're going to stop here we have like one or two more questions yes scott so the steadicam rigged that casey had runs roughly casey if you get the monitor at another four to seven you want another quick case you come back here if you don't mind the question then steady can make something like a low end like the merlin with a five d might be them a really nice way to get into a study camp type moved out to make a pilot too which is a little bit smaller this it's around three thousand dollar range and has all the same basically the same features same arm just smaller weight ratio and this part's little bit smaller but yeah same idea with the vest and everything too that my other question vince's all the other items that were de mode like the dolly and the gyms and things can you give price points and some of those you guys weren't able to see hear but every single slide had a price on it and a website to go to uh we haven't done one of slide for the steadicam because there's a number of models against made by tiffin now um that's one company another company is glide cam which is a different product altogether uh try out what you will I know case is a much bigger fan of the steadicam uh this is the original uh but the glide cam can be more affordable to um and like I said try it out in general with camera support system I really recommend you go to your camera store and tried out in person it's a very individual question uh quick thing I want to point out besides this spring he has look at look at this real quick as I do this that's what a steadicam does the camera is not moving okay with garrett brown invented that's what's pretty awesome about it okay do this you see how the camera's shaking that's not a steadicam supposed to you so you know, on a helicopter you don't bring a steadicam on a helicopter okay? You bring a gyro but when you're walking around normal human footsteps are upstairs this is the perfect device that's what you asked me a little earlier and I could show it also casey has batteries down here to power the monitor he is going to be staring the modern the entire time he's not looking back here he's looking down here so he could watch his footsteps and where he's going um and also if you're gonna do something professional more professional with this you're gonna want to add uh either a wireless transmitter so that the director and dp and other people can see what he's shooting had its going on and look at all those details uh, you know is their foot in the frame is it off kilter um and also follow focusing and it's going to be pretty key on this one because you know you're only gonna get away with uh uh not focusing for so long a steady cam uh but uh other question I cut off yes uh, question from online what is that whole unit way from the city camel I was about fifteen pounds this arm khun support nineteen and this came out the new model that can support twenty but you can put basically the maximum would be a red camera with a small lands on semak some sort of camera configuration but this worked really good because like we're in grand central station in new york and I could just pop it off real quick hide behind a wall you know, people are bothered me or something like that but and also it's just super easy to travel with um can hold lighter, lighter rigs and uh yeah, I'd say about twenty pounds is the maximum looks a lot heavier than that. All right? Uh, yes, that is one uh, become a steadicam operator. I think you're saying what? You go to juilliard practice practice practice exactly. You could get a merlin it's all the same. The techniques the same um, there's a lot of glide cam's out there that are like this without the arm. And if you learn how to do it like this and then something you're given an arm, you're so much better than if you just started with the whole rig together so it's all about practice and balance and it also happens when you hold it with your arm by the way get tired very very quick that's where this arm will help you you can only do this for so long before your arm falls off so you need to pull one quick shot off you can get away with that system but if you're gonna do this you know, for an hour to our whole day you need this best around you. Um also mentioned that this is another set of art, eh? Part of the correct is the proteus cage and then the titan matt box and the I think I really like about the matchbox is it swing away so you can switch lines is super fast and you know, a lot of times I should event stuff and it's I don't have time to be mounted and even mount a doughnut in there to see what I just quickly like that switch lines and I'm ready to go and I use it mostly for balance on the study can because it gives a good side to side wait and just a good weight distribution ratio overall and then tomorrow you'll see the system that I use with these cameras it's configured to be able to be on that um really really write stuff quick release plate that will show you a little bit later so you pull this entire rig right off of the steady cam on that base plate and you slapped that down onto the set of sticks and you're ready to go to the next. Shawn sticks, you pulled it off. Really write stuff plate and you slap it down on a handheld rig or a gyp. There you go. Off you go on to your slider. That is priceless. You do not want to have to reconfigure these things when you change from the vice to device device. Okay. And that's what's gotten a heck of a lot better. The last two years of what we started. Last question. No. Yes. What's the purpose of the cage. Ah, the cage here has a number of purposes. One has just wait. Okay? When the camera's bear it's a little bit too light you want to have weight on the steadicam so it kind of fights those physical forces. And two you could mount stuff on it. So when you have to have a follow focusing unit there's not much room to fit it in here, alright, nor the motors or the receivers. So you end up making a christmas tree? Uh, with all of your gear surrounding that cage that just one cages other solution, you'll see mine ah, a little bit later, all right, thanks very much gonna cut for lunch.