Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck here with another intro for our summer
Speaker 1: movie playlist. Right now, you're about to listen to how
Speaker 1: Steadycam Works. This one goes all the way back to
Speaker 1: June twenty sixteen. But this was a pretty good one, everybody,
Speaker 1: because a steadycam is one of movies great inventions, quite honestly,
Speaker 1: first used in some of the early movies like Rocky
Speaker 1: and the Shining. We're gonna talk about how it was made,
Speaker 1: how it works, and how it works best. So check
Speaker 1: it out right now. Welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 2: Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Chuck's wearing a hat,
Speaker 2: so it's stubby you should know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's still still pretty sad. Yeah, are you really sure?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: All right, Pete, you know what I'm getting The Josh
Speaker 1: is referencing my last chance garage hat that I've talked
Speaker 1: way too much about. I'm getting the patch remade as
Speaker 1: we speak. WHOA, I actually found one an eBay that
Speaker 1: had been sold three months ago, and he's all a
Speaker 1: big conspiracy?
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: But I found a picture of the patch that I
Speaker 1: sent to a patch maker who like can digitally reproduce
Speaker 1: this thing.
Speaker 2: Nice man.
Speaker 1: Well then I got to find in the right hat it's.
Speaker 2: Coming back home. Well that's step one. That's a big
Speaker 2: step one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm getting a few patches and a few hats
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good idea. Yeah, you can name
Speaker 2: them one through eight.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Let's see, Chuck, you worked in the film industry previously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so did you technically?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did more than I did by far. You
Speaker 2: worked it in front of and behind the camera.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Did you ever work with a steady cam at all?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, like you've seen these things up close?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: I don't recall Scott or anybody using one.
Speaker 1: We did not have one on our show.
Speaker 2: Okay, they're expensive, Okay, but I mean there is some
Speaker 2: pretty good equipment on set. It seemed like sure, but
Speaker 2: there was no steady cam, right, Nope, Because I was
Speaker 2: trying to recall and I could not, for the life
Speaker 2: of me remember a moment when there was an awesome
Speaker 2: like extendo arm camera with like all of the components
Speaker 2: exploded out into different parts of a poll.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen because he would have walked in and
Speaker 1: said what's that right, and everyone would have laughed, and
Speaker 1: you would have been like, why does everyone make fun
Speaker 1: of me? Would have all this stuff?
Speaker 2: Oh uh.
Speaker 1: Now, we never use one on our TV show for
Speaker 1: Science Channel because, like I said, it's pricey to rent.
Speaker 1: And this is a bit of a giveaway, but a
Speaker 1: person steady cam operator comes with the package, right, with
Speaker 1: all the equipment. It's a lot of times their own,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's pricey, yeah, to pay for
Speaker 1: that lady or that dude, right, But.
Speaker 2: The reason it is price is because it's it has
Speaker 2: a really good effect. Yeah, and the person who's doing
Speaker 2: it really knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but just from researching this, it seemed
Speaker 2: like they were probably the most skilled trades person on
Speaker 2: the set at any given time when they were on
Speaker 2: the set. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's just a matter of what skill.
Speaker 1: It's just a different skill.
Speaker 2: Are they like the highest echelon of camera operators?
Speaker 1: No, it's just different Okay, like a top niner.
Speaker 2: Niche Yeah, okay, I got it there.
Speaker 1: But but you don't just wade into steady cam and
Speaker 1: start getting work the next day. It does take a
Speaker 1: lot of work to master. But like a good dolly,
Speaker 1: grip is just as skilled, right, it just pushing that
Speaker 1: thing around, But that takes a.
Speaker 2: Very non herky jerky Well it's not.
Speaker 1: Gonna be herky jerky anyway, but just to hit the marks, right,
Speaker 1: and oh I see yeah, I mean all that stuff
Speaker 1: takes a great amount of skill.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about this because Steadycam, you know, when
Speaker 2: I came of age, was already invented. It was it
Speaker 2: was basically became commercially available the year I was born.
Speaker 2: So I don't really know a world prior to Steady Camp.
Speaker 2: I've never seen a movie that came out before nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six.
Speaker 3: Funny, and I'm just used to it, right, Yeah, But
Speaker 3: it's it's it's interesting to look back and see that
Speaker 3: there there actually is a point in time where this
Speaker 3: one dude who was actually kind of an outsider of
Speaker 3: the movie business basically changed it permanently forever for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. His name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown.
Speaker 2: Yeah he's still around right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he he was working for well, he was
Speaker 1: working in TV commercials on Sesame Street, in Philadelphia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he got a little frustrated, as camera people do
Speaker 1: pre steady cam with not being able to accomplish certain shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's supposedly there were thirty impossible shots that just
Speaker 2: based on the equipment of the day, you just couldn't
Speaker 2: do right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 2: like rough terrain. Sure, staircases were big one. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: the recent these shots were impossible. It's not like you
Speaker 2: couldn't lug a camera around up and down the stairs,
Speaker 2: but the movement that the camera recorded would be so
Speaker 2: jarring that it would render the film like that that
Speaker 2: it would be unusable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was in the day before I mean
Speaker 1: there were shaky cam shots and like Cassavettis and all
Speaker 1: these early indie filmmakers did a lot of like avant
Speaker 1: garde handheld stuff. But it was known as avant garde
Speaker 1: right cause it looked different and people were used to
Speaker 1: kind of smoother looking things in mainstream movies at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it had like a real frenetic energy to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you see all the time now. It's like
Speaker 1: a bona fide thing.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't just like picking up the movements of
Speaker 2: the camera. It was like telegraphing them as far as
Speaker 2: the human brain's concerned, because we take it for granted,
Speaker 2: but we have in our own brains a pretty complex system.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That involves the inner ear coordinating with the movement of
Speaker 2: the retina so that it offsets the movement and the
Speaker 2: motion and the jarring impact of like just walking.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to focus on anything while we were moving around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people wouldn't jog. They would get sick and vomit
Speaker 1: every time they.
Speaker 2: Jog, exactly right, And you certainly wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: read US Magazine while you were jogging or something like that.
Speaker 2: The fact that you can, Yeah, it really is. It
Speaker 2: really shows how incredibly complex and well developed the system is. Right, Yes,
Speaker 2: that's what the steady cam that Garrett Brown created sought
Speaker 2: to recreate and he did it. He nailed it, like
Speaker 2: on the first time out.
Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, because we mentioned a dolli. That is, people
Speaker 1: that know film know this stuff is like pretty rudimentary information,
Speaker 1: But a lot of people don't know what a dolli is.
Speaker 1: And they see the word dolly grip in the movie.
Speaker 1: They just think it sounds funny. But the DOLLI is
Speaker 1: how you typically would get a smooth shot. It's just
Speaker 1: a big, super super heavy sled with wheels right that
Speaker 1: the camera sits on and the camera operator sits on.
Speaker 1: And it's either on a very smooth floor, it's on
Speaker 1: a piece of track like a little railroad car, and
Speaker 1: it pushes along and that's how you get those nice
Speaker 1: smooth shots.
Speaker 2: So that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is
Speaker 2: is you can't really lay that track over a rocky
Speaker 2: terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that.
Speaker 1: No, and like you said, you can't push it up
Speaker 1: and downstairs. It just had its limitations.
Speaker 2: Right, it did. So Garrett Brown said, I'm sick of
Speaker 2: these limitations. I'm so tired of being limited by dolly
Speaker 2: stupid dollies. I'm going to invent something better. And so
Speaker 2: he tinkered around with his what was called the Brown
Speaker 2: Stabilizer at first, Yeah, he later renamed the steady Cam. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and to show off, like at first he was just
Speaker 2: using him in commercials, and he was like, this is
Speaker 2: way bigger than just commercials. Yeah, I'm going to make
Speaker 2: a sizzle reel, and he made a sizzle reel of
Speaker 2: the thirty impossible shots that you just couldn't do before,
Speaker 2: and he did it with the steady cam, but he
Speaker 2: didn't show how it was done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can. He was able to save ten
Speaker 1: of those shots and digitize them, and a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago he finally released online ten of those so
Speaker 1: you can actually go see this original reel. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool.
Speaker 2: His wife and his best friend like just doing stuff,
Speaker 2: while just doing stuff, like, you know, like one of
Speaker 2: them was swimming. You can't run alongside somebody swimming, apparently
Speaker 2: was an impossible shot. I'm not quite sure why.
Speaker 1: Well, you just couldn't run alongside someone doing anything.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that's what it was, even with a dolly.
Speaker 1: Well, no, you could have. You could have laid dolly
Speaker 1: track down the link of a swimming pool.
Speaker 2: Shirt, right, That's why I didn't understand that one was
Speaker 2: an impossible shot. But to show off, he goes question
Speaker 2: he goes around a slide just to kind of show.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that was the impossibility of it.
Speaker 2: But then his buddy gets out of the pool and
Speaker 2: like walking like he pivots around him, and I'm sure
Speaker 2: when he put this reel together and he sent it out.
Speaker 2: The directors are like, this is magic sorcery.
Speaker 1: Well, it was mind blowing, and some people say it
Speaker 1: was the first viral video because it was shared around
Speaker 1: Hollywood literally in a matter of days. Everybody in Hollywood
Speaker 1: was saying what in the world, Like you said, what
Speaker 1: is this sorcery?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: This Garrett Brown has bestowed upon us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a bit of a mic drop as
Speaker 2: far as that reel goes.
Speaker 1: And Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to
Speaker 1: Garrett Brown that said, if you are really concerned about
Speaker 1: protecting its design before you fully patent it, I suggest
Speaker 1: you delete the two occasions on the reel where the
Speaker 1: shadow on the ground gives a skilled counter intelligence photo
Speaker 1: interpreter a fairly clear representation of a man holding a
Speaker 1: pole with one hand, with something or other at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the pole, which appears to be slowly moving.
Speaker 1: All of that is Stanley Kubrickian for, Hey, there's a
Speaker 1: shadow in one of your shots of the steady camop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which was pretty cool of him to do. Sure,
Speaker 2: because I'm sure there were plenty of people in Hollywood
Speaker 2: who would have been like Okay, I think I kind
Speaker 2: of get the idea of what this was, because there
Speaker 2: was no suggestion whatsoever of what what Garrett Brown had
Speaker 2: used to get these shots except in those shadows. So
Speaker 2: he went eat and went and immediately cut those, yeah,
Speaker 2: those I think fourteen seconds out of his reel and
Speaker 2: then released the second edition.
Speaker 1: And it looked pretty good. I mean, it's it's rough
Speaker 1: compared to today's standard, sure, but the time it was
Speaker 1: it was like unbelievable, right.
Speaker 2: It changed everything? Oh yeah. And one of the shots
Speaker 2: that he got was his wife Ellen. He said, dear,
Speaker 2: why don't you put on your most seventies bell bottoms
Speaker 2: you can find? And I'm going to run up behind
Speaker 2: you as you run up the steps to the Philadelphia
Speaker 2: Museum of Art, and maybe when you get to the top,
Speaker 2: you can raise your hands in triumph and I will
Speaker 2: spin around you. And if that shot sounds familiar, it
Speaker 2: actually attracted a guy, a director named John what is
Speaker 2: the Avilson?
Speaker 1: Yeah, John G. Avelson, who said I.
Speaker 2: Like this, I'm going to use it in this little
Speaker 2: film I'm directing called Rocky.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I didn't get whether or not this was the case,
Speaker 2: but did they did? They locate Rocky in Philadelphia because
Speaker 2: of those steps. No, because he said, how did you
Speaker 2: do that? And where are those steps?
Speaker 1: I don't think so, man, because I wondered that too, like, like,
Speaker 1: did he not have a scene written where Rocky just
Speaker 1: runs up those steps? Right? I mean Stallone wrote it.
Speaker 1: I think they just have to ask him.
Speaker 2: Okay, hey, Sly, I was wondering if that was pretty good.
Speaker 1: I answered in that little moment. Someone will have to
Speaker 1: interpret that. Great movie though. Man, I rewatched that Rocky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like this year, from beginning to end, just phenomenal movie.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get Emily to watch it.
Speaker 2: Has she never seen the original? No, it's its own
Speaker 2: thing for sure, Like it's it's much like the sequel.
Speaker 1: No, really, it's a love story for the most part.
Speaker 2: It's a love story and like the triumph of the
Speaker 2: Little Guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah story for sure, Yeah, featuring boxing.
Speaker 2: Right, that's exactly right. Yeah, But two and three and
Speaker 2: on onward, it's like a totally different thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but those are good too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They said, let's take your story, take out the
Speaker 2: heart and insert cocaine instead.
Speaker 1: Insert mister t I don't get the cocaine reference.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just the eighties in Hollywood got hands on sure,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, I gotcha.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, that's a good question, though I wonder about
Speaker 1: that if he surely they didn't remake it for Philadelphia
Speaker 1: just for that.
Speaker 2: Well, But the point is is Garrett Brown created on
Speaker 2: this sizzle reel the one of the most iconic shots
Speaker 2: in filmmaking history, for sure, and he sent that reel
Speaker 2: out and within that year, I believe nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 2: three Major Motion Pictures hired him to operate his steady
Speaker 2: camp for it. There was Rocky Yep, there was what
Speaker 2: was the one about Woody Guthrie.
Speaker 1: Bound for Glory? Yeah, I think that one came out first,
Speaker 1: So that was the first actual like h and that
Speaker 1: one the steady came up was Garrett Brown, I think
Speaker 1: for all these because he was the only guy that
Speaker 1: knew how. He got a lot of work early on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the operation, I think the patent
Speaker 2: was still pending until nineteen seventy seven, so I'm sure
Speaker 2: he don't play the thing out of everybody closed your
Speaker 2: eyes while I shoot this.
Speaker 1: But on Bound for Glory, he was on a crane
Speaker 1: even that lowered down, stepped off the crane. So people
Speaker 1: had seen crane shots, but then for the crane to
Speaker 1: go down, down, down, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: start following this guy. Everyone was like, what.
Speaker 2: In the world, right, there would have been a cut, Yeah,
Speaker 2: after the crane stopped, and then before you know, they
Speaker 2: would have cut and he would have gotten a position
Speaker 2: and then started up again. This is one smooth shot.
Speaker 1: One smooth shot, yeah, and then.
Speaker 2: The other one was Marathon Man. So right out of
Speaker 2: the blue, this guy who was a commercial director and
Speaker 2: made short films for Same Street, changed filmmaking single handedly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and won an Academy Award nineteen seventy eight for
Speaker 1: Technical Achievement. I got that patent in seventy seven. And well,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's the history of the steadycam.
Speaker 2: That's it. Everybody, good night.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
Speaker 1: everyone how this thing works.
Speaker 2: Let's do it man, all right, Chuck, So the Steadi Camp.
Speaker 2: Do you remember when we did our episode on breathalyzers.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that was a long time ago, and we.
Speaker 2: Found out that the breathalyzer is one of the most
Speaker 2: complicated machines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on the planet. I kind of hated that one.
Speaker 2: Like there were crystals involved somehow I hated that one too,
Speaker 2: dark crystals. This is a bit like that, like if
Speaker 2: you really dive in the steadycams. Like this article on
Speaker 2: how stuff works, does it's labyrinthine talk about the dark crystal? Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're talking labyrinth instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But we're gonna simplify it because you don't need
Speaker 1: to break this thing apart and look at every component
Speaker 1: like this article does.
Speaker 2: I mean, it really gets involved.
Speaker 1: What you should do is look at a picture of
Speaker 1: someone operating one. Yeah, and just because when you look
Speaker 1: at it, you go, it all makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 2: Right, And there's really just three main parts to the
Speaker 2: whole thing. There's a vest, there's an arm that's attached
Speaker 2: to the vest, and then the other end of the
Speaker 2: arm is attached to what's called the sled, yeah, which
Speaker 2: is what the camera and its components are mounted on. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that arm, I mean just picture yourself wearing
Speaker 1: a like a baby Bjorn baby carrier, except for instead
Speaker 1: of the baby at your sternum, there's a mechanical arm
Speaker 1: coming out.
Speaker 2: Like a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like accordion arm or a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 2: Right, and it's virtually the same thing.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and you guess who made one of these
Speaker 1: by himself before they started making them for at home people.
Speaker 2: Who? Casey?
Speaker 1: No, who my brother of course? Oh?
Speaker 2: Did he really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, my brother made one of these in like the
Speaker 1: early nineties.
Speaker 2: Did he really?
Speaker 1: Out of door hinges and rubber bands and springs?
Speaker 2: Does he still have it? Is it in the Smithsonian?
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's in the Scotsonian, nice, which is
Speaker 1: where all his early mentions.
Speaker 2: With all his pinball machines.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he made one. He basically did the same thing.
Speaker 1: He looked at it and looked at these uh swing
Speaker 1: arm lamps and accordion arm lamps, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. I'll just make a version of that.
Speaker 2: It is, and it worked pretty good. It's virtually the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the whole point of a steady cam is that
Speaker 2: it basically simulates or the arm at least simulates a
Speaker 2: human arm right to where it can move around very easily. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And it redistributes the weight of the camera, which can
Speaker 2: be up to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole unit is pretty heavy, and it's not
Speaker 1: easy to operate, but it hold a wear you out.
Speaker 2: It holds it flessly, and it holds it in place.
Speaker 2: This arm does and it does it by using springs.
Speaker 2: And you can adjust the tension of the springs by
Speaker 2: using a cable and pulley system. Yes, so that it
Speaker 2: offsets the balance of the camera and holds it in
Speaker 2: space in front of the camera operator basically so that
Speaker 2: they can move it effortlessly up down to the side.
Speaker 2: You can put the camera on top of the sled
Speaker 2: so that you get high shots. You can switch it
Speaker 2: so it goes on the bottom so you can get
Speaker 2: low angle shots.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The traditional it's called high mode and low mode.
Speaker 1: And high mode is it doesn't mean it's high. It
Speaker 1: just means it's on the top of the unit. And
Speaker 1: then low mode is when it's on the bottom. So
Speaker 1: if you wanted to film a mouse running across the floor,
Speaker 1: you would put it in low mode, right, if you
Speaker 1: want to film a human, you'd put it in high mode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the camera itself is broken out into pieces,
Speaker 2: which is kind of an ingenious trick that I guess
Speaker 2: Garrett Brown came up with himself. I think he did.
Speaker 2: And this is the third part the camera sled right.
Speaker 1: Yes, the slid is what holds all the equipment.
Speaker 2: Right, And it's basically a pole with a little bit
Speaker 2: at the top called the stage, and that's where the
Speaker 2: camera goes, or it could be at the bottom wherever
Speaker 2: the camera is. The camera's mounted to the stage. Yes,
Speaker 2: then you get the pole itself and then the I
Speaker 2: guess the arm is connected to the pole by a gibble.
Speaker 1: A gimbal.
Speaker 2: A gimbal, that's right. And that's like an old technology.
Speaker 2: It's basically something that uses basically a gyroscopic action to
Speaker 2: take the movement of whatever is seeking to move, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to hold still and getting rid of it.
Speaker 2: Like everything around it moves except for the thing that
Speaker 2: you want to hold still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: It's super neat. And that's just the one arm that's
Speaker 2: connected to the pole. Yes, So you can see how
Speaker 2: complicated this thing is. That this guy sat back and
Speaker 2: I think in a hotel room somewhere he put it together.
Speaker 2: Garrett Brown, the first one. There's just the ingenuity it
Speaker 2: took to put this together. It's pretty pretty in depth
Speaker 2: as far as inventions go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a little science to it. There's something
Speaker 1: called moment of inertia. It's basically how much that camera
Speaker 1: is resistant to rotation. So if you want the camera
Speaker 1: to be still, you want to increase that resistance to
Speaker 1: the rotation. And this is determined by a couple of
Speaker 1: different things. How much mass there is to the object,
Speaker 1: and how far that mass is from its own axis
Speaker 1: of rotation. So by spreading the camera out, he basically
Speaker 1: took the little cameras come with a monitor now so
Speaker 1: you can see what's going on, and a big heavy battery.
Speaker 1: He took the monitor off of the camera. He took
Speaker 1: the battery off of the camera and redistributed that up
Speaker 1: and down the pole. So what he ended up doing
Speaker 1: was spreading out that mass, which takes away the center
Speaker 1: of gravity from the camera itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like with a regular camera where all the
Speaker 2: components are in one single unit, that center of gravity's
Speaker 2: inside the camera. Yeah, so it's easy to rotate. But
Speaker 2: since he exploded it out into various components, he made
Speaker 2: that center of gravity land somewhere on the pole, right,
Speaker 2: and the gimbal attaches to the pole just above the
Speaker 2: center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
Speaker 2: pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
Speaker 2: which makes it very easy to balance keep balance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they do a good job in this article.
Speaker 1: If you'd like, just take a broomstick and you find
Speaker 1: that center of gravity with your finger. You can hold
Speaker 1: it with your finger and lift it up and down.
Speaker 2: Right and it just it's balance on your finger because
Speaker 2: you're hitting that center of balance.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's the same principle. Yeah. And in fact,
Speaker 1: if you took if you took that same broomstick and
Speaker 1: cut it off and you just had three feet of
Speaker 1: broomstick and just took your SLR camera and screwed that
Speaker 1: broomstick into the bottom of your camera instead of a tripod,
Speaker 1: that would function. You could walk around with that and
Speaker 1: it would be steadier than if you just had it
Speaker 1: in your hand.
Speaker 2: I could see that because of the change of the
Speaker 2: center of gravity.
Speaker 1: Change of the center of gravity, and if you put
Speaker 1: little counterweight at the bottom, that would make it even
Speaker 1: more steady. Yeah, And that's the whole concept of the
Speaker 1: steady cam sled. Then attach that to an arm, that
Speaker 1: accordion arm, and you're cooking with gas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because you were saying like, if you walk around
Speaker 2: with just the pole holding or the broomstick cut off
Speaker 2: broomstick and you're holding it just with your hand. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's steady. The point of the arm is it's taking
Speaker 2: your hand out of the equation and replacing it with
Speaker 2: something that can isolate movement even more. Yeah, so that
Speaker 2: your movement of you walking just gets lost within the
Speaker 2: arm before it ever gets to the camera and could
Speaker 2: shake it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like if you did it with a broomstick. Your
Speaker 1: arm is the same thing as a steady cam orm right,
Speaker 1: except it's better.
Speaker 2: The steady cam arms.
Speaker 1: Is better than your human arm, right, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: Pretty neat stuff.
Speaker 1: It is neat stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think that's it for the science man. We
Speaker 2: made it through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's all got to be very precisely balanced.
Speaker 1: You don't just throw the stuff on the pole, willy
Speaker 1: nilly no.
Speaker 2: And they point out that the balance of the camera
Speaker 2: can actually change during filming, Yeah, just from the film
Speaker 2: moving from one end of the camera to the other
Speaker 2: as it records.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, in the old days when they use film,
Speaker 1: for sure. Nowadays it's just that digital card. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: not always.
Speaker 2: Quentin Tarantino's camera operators have to deal.
Speaker 1: With this, Yeah, and if you've ever been on a
Speaker 1: job with a steady caam, there are a lot of uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of breaks where I mean you can
Speaker 1: adjust him on the fly more now, but I remember
Speaker 1: there just being a lot of breaks with a steadycam.
Speaker 1: Up would say hold on, you know, I need five minutes,
Speaker 1: and they go over and they have a little stand
Speaker 1: that they put it on to take because you know,
Speaker 1: it takes the weight off to a certain degree, but
Speaker 1: it's still a lot of weight to be carrying on
Speaker 1: a vest on your chest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a tough gig.
Speaker 2: Like there's a pretty amazing video. Did you watch it
Speaker 2: of that Eurovision shot? No, there's a guy from I
Speaker 2: think Baylarus singing and they showed they showed him. He's
Speaker 2: like they they showed the shot and then they showed
Speaker 2: what somebody filming the shot being done and the guy
Speaker 2: with the SETI cam wearing the vest rides down the
Speaker 2: aisle on a segue.
Speaker 1: Is that what he's on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, hops off, runs up this ramp and then starts
Speaker 2: circling around the guy who's singing, And it's a pretty
Speaker 2: amazing thing. It's a great shot, but then when you
Speaker 2: see how it's done, Yeah, wow, that guy deserved a
Speaker 2: standing ovation.
Speaker 1: It would have been more impressive had it not like
Speaker 1: the subject matter have been more interested in the video
Speaker 1: quality but better pretty bad, Like if it was a
Speaker 1: Scorsese movie, you'd be like, wow, sure, but it was
Speaker 1: this you know, kind of corny. Well, I mean it
Speaker 1: looked like an American idol or something.
Speaker 2: It was, but it was American idol. If you took
Speaker 2: American idol at its peak and then spread it out
Speaker 2: over Eurasia and like it was popular over that that
Speaker 2: large of a population, that's what Eurovision is.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So you want to talk about some of the shots
Speaker 2: when we come back after a break.
Speaker 4: Please, Okay, all.
Speaker 2: Right, so Chuck. In addition to that Rocky shot and
Speaker 2: that Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots,
Speaker 2: classic shots of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that had to.
Speaker 2: Do with steady cam. They couldn't have been done without
Speaker 2: steady cam.
Speaker 1: Well, the Shining is the first one that pops into
Speaker 1: most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick was a
Speaker 1: big fan of this invention and immediately started talks with
Speaker 1: Garrett Brown on how to help him out with this movie,
Speaker 1: The Shining, that he was making, and apparently they kind
Speaker 1: of battled one another quite a bit on the set
Speaker 1: of The Shining, and Garrett Brown later admitted he said
Speaker 1: a lot of that was probably what do you call it,
Speaker 1: like inventor's pride or something kind of getting in the
Speaker 1: way of this like brilliant all tour. So Kubrick already
Speaker 1: had his own ideas on how to best use this
Speaker 1: thing that this other guy invented. And you know, the
Speaker 1: Shinings classic example, those tricycle shots, the famous maze chase
Speaker 1: at the end YEP, very iconic in motion picture history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean the the how did they do?
Speaker 2: You know how they did that shot behind Danny on
Speaker 2: his little big wheel.
Speaker 1: They probably just went into low mode and.
Speaker 2: Like walked behind him or yeah, ran down the hall
Speaker 2: after him. That's really impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So The.
Speaker 2: Shining's a big one. Sure, Rocky's a big one. Goodfellows
Speaker 2: is another classic example too, classic where Rayleioda and Lorraine
Speaker 2: Brocco are going into the Copa Cabana, but they go
Speaker 2: through the back yeah, and they're followed like throughout like
Speaker 2: the backstairs into the kitchen and then they finally come
Speaker 2: out into their table and it's like one uninterrupted, like
Speaker 2: five minute shot or something.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, and it's I think when you see the
Speaker 1: you're you might see it and not be a discerning
Speaker 1: film viewer and just say well that I didn't notice anything,
Speaker 1: which is probably good, or you might be a fan
Speaker 1: in steady cam and just say, man, that was amazing.
Speaker 1: Then you have to step back and look at lighting
Speaker 1: and realize that how incredibly hard it is to light
Speaker 1: a shot like that that takes place over I don't
Speaker 1: know how many hundreds of feet.
Speaker 2: But without seeing the lights in the shot.
Speaker 1: Well that or just consistent lighting and having it look good.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just usually you light for like a
Speaker 1: room or something, or a hallway, but to light all
Speaker 1: those different rooms and hallways and just incredibly I can't
Speaker 1: imagine how long it took to set that shot.
Speaker 2: You know, they were like, wait, what do you want
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it'll be great, don worry about it, stay with me.
Speaker 1: You know, he's making another gangster movie.
Speaker 2: No I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it may be like the some folks are saying,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, his last big gangster movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's got de Niro again. Okay, he hadn't worked
Speaker 1: with him in a long time. Paccino and Joe pesci
Speaker 1: Is coming out of retirement.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know he was retired. I just thought
Speaker 2: he wasn't doing stuff anymo. Man, he retired, I didn't
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so's he's got the three heavyweights and supposedly Harveycattail.
Speaker 1: Of course you got to throw him in there. Sure,
Speaker 1: but I'm just like giddy thinking about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm glad he is because his last one was departed, right.
Speaker 1: No, he's made movies since then, like Wolf of Wall Streets, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which I thought was great. I know you didn't love it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 2: I thought everything. But what Jack Nicholson did was was
Speaker 2: pretty good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like his performance.
Speaker 2: No, I really didn't.
Speaker 1: Well, sorry Jack, He'll forgive that, all right, because you
Speaker 1: like him as an actor, right, Yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, uh, who's a git? Come on.
Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi nineteen eighty three, the famous speeder
Speaker 1: bike chase scene.
Speaker 2: And find the indoor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, California's Redwood National Park doubled his indoor and that
Speaker 1: was Garrett Brown walking and they sped it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but and you're just like, wow, who cares. The
Speaker 2: reason why it's such an iconic steady cam shot is
Speaker 2: because he walked very slowly. Yeah, and when you speed
Speaker 2: film up the tiny movements involved their telegraphed, they just
Speaker 2: become much more exaggerated.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So without a setikam, when they sped the film up again,
Speaker 2: it would have been just so blurry and just jarring.
Speaker 2: It would have been unusable.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The fact that you can see the trees and stuff,
Speaker 2: and even at that high speed, it's all steady cam.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people, I think it's just so easy to
Speaker 1: take it for granted now in movies when you see
Speaker 1: these shots. But to pioneer these these things and this
Speaker 1: equipment was remarkable. Yeah, and nowadays you can they're all
Speaker 1: manner of at home steady cam. You don't have to
Speaker 1: do like Myra and build one out of spare parts
Speaker 1: and door hinges. No, you can buy one for not
Speaker 1: too much. Yeah, you can. You spend one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: on a on a decent enough little home steady cam.
Speaker 2: This article says that the steady cam curve, which was
Speaker 2: made for GoPros, it was like one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well those are teeny tiny.
Speaker 2: And there's one for the iPhone called what's it called
Speaker 2: the Smoothie. That one is like it's like, I think,
Speaker 2: even less than a hundred bucks and it's just like
Speaker 2: a handheld camera stabilizer that works pretty well from what
Speaker 2: I can gather.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should have had Casey, our video producer, Casey.
Speaker 1: He's in France right now though YE live in the
Speaker 1: high life, right he should We should have had Casey
Speaker 1: in here just given thumbs up, her thumbs down to
Speaker 1: each one of these brands that we mentioned, and I
Speaker 1: would trust that is like the gospel truth, right, But
Speaker 1: Casey's not here, so we're just gonna say read online reviews.
Speaker 2: I also saw that there's like a lot of gimbal
Speaker 2: based drone steady cams. Yeah, they are just not not
Speaker 2: that expensive.
Speaker 1: They're changing the game again, sure, because then you can
Speaker 1: do a shot where you follow someone by the swimming
Speaker 1: pool and then fly up into outer space with them
Speaker 1: if you want, in one continuous motion.
Speaker 2: Like the Cisp Monster, the what the Cisp monster? You
Speaker 2: remember the alien from Cisp Cereal?
Speaker 1: Do remember Crisp?
Speaker 2: Remember the weird alien?
Speaker 1: Sort of? I didn't eat Cuisp. Wasn't that a Captain
Speaker 1: Crunch knock offer. Was it different?
Speaker 2: It was different because they were saucer shaped rather than
Speaker 2: square waffle cut.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, same thing though, yeah, same thing.
Speaker 2: It was good. It didn't cut the tongue like Captain
Speaker 2: Crunch did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then of course Steady Cam is a name brand,
Speaker 1: right do. Yeah, it's made who makes it?
Speaker 2: Tiffin? Tiffin, Now that's what Yeah, I think Tiffin does.
Speaker 2: They have a pretty good site, like if you are
Speaker 2: at all interested in this, like they've got a great
Speaker 2: site and they have all of their Steadycam models with
Speaker 2: a real like in depth overview of them and yeah,
Speaker 2: pretty uh. I think it's got all their manuals and
Speaker 2: everything just right there for you to read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's other companies making them. Uh, there's one called
Speaker 1: Glidecam and Vara Zoom. Yeah, but you know, Steadycam is
Speaker 1: still probably the giant. It's like dollies. There's only two
Speaker 1: dolly makers. Well, well there may be more now, but
Speaker 1: it's like Chapman and Fisher and each you know, every.
Speaker 2: Dolly grip has the dolly makers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Chapman dollies are Fisher dollies.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like kind of holding Jamison or bush mills. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Budweiser cores neither.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then Garrett Brown, as if the steady cam wasn't
Speaker 2: enough as far as revolutionizing filming goes, he later on
Speaker 2: invented something called the skycam, Yeah, which like if you
Speaker 2: watch any kind of sporting event now especially, it's especially
Speaker 2: useful for football and in football where like there's just
Speaker 2: cables above the field and there's cameras hanging down that
Speaker 2: are just like doing overhead shots following the action. Like
Speaker 2: it's nothing.
Speaker 1: It's pretty neat.
Speaker 2: Garrett Brown invented that too.
Speaker 1: I got one more little thing for you. There are
Speaker 1: two positions, not high mode. Low mode positions are like
Speaker 1: how you're operating the camera. But if you are pointing
Speaker 1: forward as the operator and your camera is pointing forward,
Speaker 1: you're just walking. It's called missionary no. And then if
Speaker 1: you are if the operator is forward and the camera
Speaker 1: is backward, they call that don juan. So leave it
Speaker 1: to film set goons to think of sexual names for
Speaker 1: sex it up camera positions. Don Juan, Yeah, I never
Speaker 1: heard of that one.
Speaker 2: I hadn't either. Well, if you want to know more
Speaker 2: about steady cams, including a really really fine grain involved
Speaker 2: look at the physics of how the steady cam arm works.
Speaker 2: You should go type steadycam into the search part HowStuffWorks
Speaker 2: dot com. Since I said search parts, time for a
Speaker 2: listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this encouragement from a Christian listener. Okay,
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I was listening to the Easter Show and
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Speaker 1: how you make a solid effort to not rail on
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Speaker 1: pagan traditions that have been integrated with the Resurrection. I
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Speaker 1: anything better to do than wait to be offended by
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