My long history with the Steadicam goes back to its commercial introduction by Cinema Products in 1977. There were no Steadicam workshops in '77. Everything to do with the Steadicam in those days was strictly OJT.

I went down to CP when they had the first production units built and asked Ed (DiGiulio) if I could borrow one (he said yes). He had made a long VF extension for use with my S16 Eclair NPR on my Worrall gear head, and then asked if he could use my basic design for his 16CP's, so we had a bit of history at that point.

These days you see "Steadicam Owner/Operator" a lot, but back then, no SteadiOps I knew owned their own rigs. Cinema Products got around $60K a pop for its Universal Model (about the same price as two Arri 35mm BL packages or a lavish house back then).

I learned to fly that borrowed rig over at Cinemobile Location Systems because they had just about every kind of camera model available for me to test this new rig on and I was friends with most of the staff there.

The rig pictured above is a modified for me (by CP) Universal Model 1 (I), and I am flying a 35mm Arri BL w/400' mag up. That sucker was huge and heavy (I used to call it the "Heavycam" - plus the rig itself weighed a ton). Follow-focus was by a 1st AC operated remote box via a tethered cable going to a electromechanical focus unit on the lens.

The arm was non-adjustable and had a camera payload of about 18lbs. My CP tweaked arm could handle about 8lbs more than the stock bones. The fixed P-43 monitor (hard built into the sled) measured just over 3".

Getting the Model I into low mode was a real challenge because it was never designed to fly that way - but I successfully flew that rig in low mode on many, many shows.

Most of the Model I design limitations were later addressed in the Universal Model II, which had a rotatable monitor, an adjustable arm, and a few other tweaks (Cinemobile upgraded to the Model II in 1979, and the much improved Model III in 1983).

From my experience in racing cars, I knew it's best not to fight the equipment, and once I learned how the rig wanted to be handled (using one hand on the arm near the gimbal to control the arm booming and position and the other on the the post grip to control sled pans and tilts) using a very light thumb and three finger hold — the same flying technique I generally use today (see the above & below photos), it was pretty much a done deal.

A few weeks later, Harvey (from Cinemobile) called me and said they had some shows that wanted to try this new Steadicam device, and if they purchased one, would I operate? Right place, right time, right skills, kind of thing.

I was the "house" Steadicam operator (from 1977 to 1984, as an independent contractor) that usually went along with Cinemobile's Steadicam package (unless the production co. wanted to rent the rig dry hire). For much of that first year, Cinemobile would only rent the Steadicam out with their own operator as part of the hire.

In those early days, there were no Steadicams/SteadiOps attached to a show. Most of the jobs were a day or half day gig, and a lot of DP's and 1st AC's asked the producer to just rent the hardware, thinking that all you had to do was strap it on and the rig itself would generate those magical shots they had seen - all by itself.

Most productions thought the Steadicam was just a hardware platform instead of the hardware/human dynamic that it is. I got a lot of calls to work shows that had rented their rigs dry hire after the DP or 1st AC realized there was a bit more to this new technology than "just strapping the rig on".

At about this time, Panavision introduced the Panaglide (Panavision's competing stabilizer rig), which I never much cared for. The Panaglide was certainly slick looking, but not much fun to fly. It was cumbersome and I found it very limiting.

If you watch movies and TV shows from the late 70's and early 80's, and there's a production credit that says "Locations by: Cinemobile Systems" and they have Steadicam shots, the Steadicam Op was most likely me. For some unfathomable reason, Steadicam operators were very rarely (if ever) given a production screen credit in those days.

That first Steadicam (pictured above) looks pretty primitive compared to today's designs and the advent of wireless follow-focus systems, but it all worked, and it worked very, very well. I spent a lot of time strapped into that rig.

There really isn't that much difference in operation or moves from this very first Steadicam model compared to the modern (GPI) Pro II and (Tiffen) Steadicams I fly today. An enduring testament to Garrett's excellent basic design.

The entire "mystic" surrounding the Steadicam and Steadicam operators was born out of the necessity of making the rigs do things they were never designed to do and us operators pushing that envelope time and time again. "That can't be done" is just not in our vocabulary.

 

Santa's Sleigh (Xmas 2009)
(From Steadicam.com - "Santa's on his Sled!")

I have continued to be a professional film and video SteadiOp over the past 33+ years, and now specialize in digital film and video Steadicam work - using my Pro II rig (GPI) with the larger production film and digital cams and the Steadicam Flyer F24 LE and LE RED with the smaller cams.

Although I think Garrett Brown's creation is a terrific contribution to the tools and art of filmmaking, like a lot of other novel inventions in the motion picture business, it tends to be used much too often (and sometimes... not often enough :).

Movie audiences are pretty sophisticated, and whether they realize it or not, understand the language of film much better than they are ever given credit for. Each tool we use in the making of a film has an effect on how and what the audience reacts to in its viewing.

DP's (and directors) shouldn't use a Steadicam when a handheld camera or Fig Rig will better impart on the audience the urgency or chaos of a scene (and the opposite is also true).

Likewise, for certain scenes, a dolly (or tracking shot) using a gear head is the only way to get the subtle focus and perspective changes necessary to give the scene the impact the director is trying to impart on the audience.

These "older" tools are often dismissed as too dated or time consuming, but lazy (and unimaginative) filmmaking never results in a good film, no matter how avant-garde the tools used in the making of it...