Fancy Gimbal Footwork?

[James Jetel]

This may be a better post for SOC, nevertheless, I'm interested how folks here approach delicate/nuanced/slow/elegaic creeper work with the gimbal.
Let's, for conversations sake, assume that further practice and experience is a large component of any advice, so we need not say something to the effect of "Get Good" without providing a path. Any resources are appreciated.
--
We were doing an "improvised scenes" experiment this afternoon, and the director asked me to improvise as well.

Small moves were fine, however, as the takes got longer, my deficiencies became apparent. Most frequently, my feeling was that the gimbal was not the right tool for the job -- for the sake of this, though, it needed to be.

I'm curious how you guys manage your consistency over longer takes -- Avoid ramping in your footwork/manage your step timing, avoid getting in compromising positions, switch between positions, elegantly handle speed variations?

I'm on a Ronin and Ready Rig GS.
Thanks!

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I study To Shin Do Ninjutsu (the fighting art of the Ninja). Ninja are famous for delicate/nuanced/slow/elegiac creeper work long before gimbals were invented. Many of our movements are characterized by: knees bent, back straight, shoulders over hips, elbows over knees, chin facing direction of opponent's center-line, and head level (or remaining on a constant line up or down, not bobbing in between steps).

Last year I invited a ballerina who had been a principal dancer with ABT for more than 20 years, and her mind was blown by how different is the Ninja system of movement compared to everything she knew about both ballet and contemporary dance. Here is a map of dojo locations.

 

[constantine Tirintzis]

Dealing with step absorbing in camera work, is a combination of both operators footwork ability, footwork, body structure, camera support bodymount, and learning how to work with its pros and cons all together with the rest.

Steadicam workshops teach you certain skills on how to walk more carefully, but also in line so you eliminate sise to side errors as well, but all this is related to the steadicam rigs and the mechanics they are related to in terms of how they work, what kind of motion they eliminate better, etc etc.

before this gets too complex to exlain, I think that careful footwork can take care together with a good isoelastic as possible spring bodymount 99% of the vertical and side to side errors with practice and practice again.

Seperating as much as possible your physical connection of your body, to the camera system, when you are working with a capable bodymount is the key to produce less errors.

If the bodymount you work with, doesnt allow you to work just with light finger control, then you are more likely to produce more errors as your body transfers more errors to the camera system when you hard grip the camera system.

with out a bodymount, in pure hand held mode, your arms are both acting as a spring arm as well as an external gimbal that try to keep the camera system in place of all 3 axis. In certain weight they do a pretty good job too, and with practice you get better and better. However when the load is too heavy the ability will be less, and if its too light again your arms will be too powerful to act as a stabilizer.in other words, depending on your human power this can be good at a certain degree with certain camera gimbal weight..

Rapid and sudden motion, like running is much easier to absorb with both a bodymount or your hands, and thats why many systems that arent designed with good mechanics look like they work in that fast action. Its because this kind of motion is easier to deal with and even a very springy system like hard springs or bungees will take care of the action.

Its the slow creepy moves that are very hard to deal wth, and thats when , a good spring system helps you deal with them, together with good footwork and lightweight control.

If your work is based on fast action , running , jumping, etc, I wouldnt really give too much attention as long as the bodymount can act reasonably well, however if you are dealing with slow tracking moves, there is better mechanics needed and better footwork and control, in order to be able to produce smooth shots. Its a combo in between both, and one adds to the other. Some people can do it better than others, but practice and understanding the basic physics , is the key to deal with smooth footage.

even if you have the best system out there, if you dont know how to operate with it, you will produce unstable shots.
The operators ability and experience is mostly the key , as any operator learns how to deal with his system, and with more practice he can actually eliminate the systems errors.

A steadicam workshop is highly advised if you are into it, because not only you learn the basics in operation, you also learn how the stabilizing physics work , and better understanding of this, will make it easier for you to deal with any given system you work with, and start appreciating the good systems from the bad systems, and why.

Good footwork and switches will also give you a better idea in how to work with your own body and abilities against instability and errors.

if you do go for a workshop, make sure its not a college course of some sort, with teachers that dont have any experience with this, and believe me there are many . Choose any of the Tiffen workshops , all the guys teaching are masters of camera work and steadicam operation, and you will learn a lot. Might be a little pricey but its worth it.

kind regards

 

[Nick Gardner]

I think you are running up against the limitations of gimbals. I have come across exactly no shots where a gimbal is the right piece of gear if you have all of the other standard motion picture making tools -ie, dolly, steadicam, jib/techno crane. I can see how it might be useful on a low budget production, but even 99% of the time I feel like a skate board dolly and a couple pieces of track are a better tool. That said, if you are doing wide, short sweeping shots like in a music video, or a commercial, I can see where it would be useful.

Nick

 

[Gene Sung]

I feel like Gimbals are great for straight line type stuff and when there is not a lot of pans, tilts and quick direction changes because the gimbal just reacts too slow.

I recently started using the Devin Graham Glidecam which is a huge improvement over the old Glidecam. You can for sure do more delicate, precise and slow camera moves with a Steadycam. For example, a year ago I shot this comedy Zombie short for SyFy. Once of the shots, the main actor was dodging and ducking through a field of zombies, kind of like a football player scrambling. This would have been really difficult on a Gimbal as it reacts too slow, but was great on a Glidecam because the pan and tile and direction changes are instant.

The other thing I LOVE about GLidecam with a vest, is that you can use it almost like a jib when stationary. Doing little moves and being able to pull focus with the other hand is pretty awesome (not possible with a Gimbal). Of course, if you are moving, you cannot have your hand on the focus ring.

They both have pluses and minuses, but lately I've been just using a Glidecam more.