Comment from Kit Pasold
Time: April 12, 2008, 7:21 pm

I love his $14 steadycam and feedback regarding criticisms that it doesn’t have a gimbal:

“These gimbals are just two axis hinges that eliminate any control over pitch and roll, (….) A handle with ball joint IS NOTHING like the hinge systems used in professional rigs. They are gross immitations that do more harm than good because they are doing it wrong.”

Anyone who has spent half a shoot balancing one of those $1000 gimbal models only to have their horzion lines swing like a ship deck has to agree with him.

Feel better Robbo

Comment from Robbo
Time: April 12, 2008, 8:10 pm

I thought you’d get a kick out of his steadicam hack.

I find, all too often, that the simple hack is the best approach.

I remember working on the film “Follow That Bird” - which we, at the time, were calling “Swallow That Turd” - it was shot here in Toronto, and there was a scene in a boardroom, with a bunch of birds sitting along this lengthy polished table as the camera pulled back in a long slow low dolly shot. It took ages to set up. The D.O.P. was from the U.S. and had been continually denigrating the quality of the Canadian crew - and he was going overboard bossing everyone around trying to get this shot. They ended up building, from scratch, a cantilevered contraption from cables, 2×4’s, sandbags and all sorts of other shit in order to craft exactly what the D.O.P. insisted was needed to get the shot.

I muttered - while waiting under the table (which is where you can usually find a puppeteer, whether they’re working or not) - that this seemed to be a lot of work and a lot of time for something so simple. One of the grips leaned in close and whispered: “You don’t know the half of it. We’re doing exactly what he says. He’s stopped listening to us so we’ve stopped making suggestions. We could have had this shot hours ago.”

I asked how.

He said: “The same way we did it on the Cronenberg shoot I was on before this. You want the camera traveling along the length of the table? Put a sound blanket on the table, put the camera on the blanket and drag the whole thing back. Voila.”

I was pissing myself laughing from the sheer simple beauty of it. Eventually we got the shot for the film - a few hours after that - and I will always remember how easily it could, and should, have been done.

Less is more.

Cheers.

P.S. Thanks for the well wishes, Kit. I’m on the mend.

Zen Captcha: Charlton sonnets.

Pry loose the gun and wish farewell to Moses.

Comment from Kit
Time: April 14, 2008, 10:35 am

heh, heh… I wonder if he was talking about “The Fly”.

Not sure which was more disturbing though, Brundlefly or those Dodo birds…

Comment from Robbo
Time: April 14, 2008, 2:52 pm

The Dodos were more disturbing - athough it was on that shoot, doing the animatronics for the Dodos, where Karen and I finally got together. Summer of ‘84. Ahhhhhhhh.

crap

now I feel old

Pingback from » Surf Your Worlds With Hacked Wii Balance Board
Time: May 28, 2008, 8:51 am

[...] Just as Johnny Lee hacks the Wii to create cutting edge tech that is more accessible to the unwashed masses (ie. you and me) we’ll be seeing more of this sort of thing as the labs, garages and basements of the world gleefully dig into techno mashups that further accelerate our drive along the path to Kurzweil’s singularity. [...]

Comment from Buy Wii
Time: September 21, 2008, 10:31 am

Those stuff are pretty much hard to come by and innovate but this guy Ted have it all figured in his mind, so well done Ted and hope to see more people use your ideas to sophisticate their world.

Comment from buy wii games
Time: October 24, 2008, 7:01 am

I must say i’m impressed! That looked like a performance of a device that was developed by big company or something, but in fact it’s custom made (adjusted)! who would believed?