June 16, 2016 • 34 mins
There have been many inventions that have advanced filmmaking, but maybe none as important as the steadicam. Invented in the mid-70s, it literally changed the way movie making happened, and made the impossible possible. Learn about the fascinating history behind this amazing technology today.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Chuck's wearing a hat,
so it stuff you should know. Yeah, still still pretty sad?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah? Are you really sure?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
All right, Pete?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You know what I'm getting? The Josh is referencing my
last chance garage hat that I've talked way too much about.
I'm getting the patch remade as we speak. Whoa, I actually.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Found one an eBay that had been sold three months ago,
and he's all a big conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Is that right? No?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Okay, but I found.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
A picture of the patch that I sent to a
patchmaker who like, can digitally reproduce this thing?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Nice man.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, then I got to find in the right hat.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's coming back home. Well that's step one. That's a
big step one.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah. I'm getting a few patches and a few hats
this time.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I think that's a good idea. Yeah, you can name
them one through eight.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Let's see, Chuck, you worked in the film industry previously.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, so did you? Technically?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, you did more than I did by far. You
worked it in front of and behind the camera.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Did you ever work with a steady cam at all?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So like you've seen these things up close?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't recall Scott or anybody using one.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We did not have one on our show.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, they're expensive, Okay, but I mean there's some pretty
good equipment on set. It seemed like sure, but there
was no steady cam right, Nope, because I was trying
to recall and I could not, for the life of
me remember a moment when there was an awesome like
extendo arm camera with like all of the components exploded
out into different parts of a polly that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Didn't hapen because he would have walked in and said,
what's that? Right? And everyone would have laughed, and you
would have been like, why does everyone make fun of me?
Would all this stuff? Now?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
We never is one on our TV show for Science
Chowl because, like I said, it's pricey to rent, and
this is a bit of a giveaway, but a person
steadycam operator comes with the package, right, with all the equipment.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's a lot of times their own, and it's you know,
it's pricey, yeah, to pay for that lady or that dude.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Right, But the reason it is price is because it's
it has a really good effect. Yeah, and the person
who's doing it really knows what they're doing. Yeah, I
don't know, but just from researching this, it seemed like
they were probably the most skilled trades person on the
set at any given time when they were on the set.
(02:42):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, I think it's just a matter of what skill.
It's just a different skill.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Are they like the highest echelon of camera operators.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
No, it's just different.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Okay, like a top niche Yeah, okay, I got it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But but you don't just wade into steadycam and start
getting worked the next day. It does take a lot
of work to master. But like a good dolly grip
is just as skilled, right at just pushing that thing around,
But that takes.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
A very non herky jerky Well it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Gonna heirckey jerky anyway, but just to hit the marks
right and oh I see yeah, I mean all that
stuff takes a great amount of skill.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, let's talk about this because STEADI camp, you know,
when I came of age, was already invented. It was
it was basically became commercially available the year I was born,
So I don't really know a world prior to STEADI Camp.
I've never seen a movie that came out before nineteen
seventy six. Funny, and I'm just used to it, right, Yeah,
but it's interesting to look back and see that there
(03:40):
actually is a point in time where this one dude
who was actually kind of an outsider of the movie
business basically changed it permanently forever for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
His name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, he's still around right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And he was working for well, he was working in
TV commercials on Sesame Street in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, and he.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Got a little frustrated, as camera people do pre steady CAM,
with not being able to accomplish certain shots.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, there's supposedly there were thirty impossible shots that just
based on the equipment of the day, you just couldn't
do right.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, and a lot of it had to do with
like rough terrain. Sure, staircases were a big one. Yeah,
and the recent these shots were impossible. It's not like
you couldn't lug a camera around up and down the stairs,
but the movement that the camera recorded would be so
jarring that it would render the film like that it
would be unusable.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, and this was in a day before I mean
there were shaky cam shots and like Cassavettis and all
these early indie filmmakers did a lot of like avant
garde handheld stuff, but it was known as avant garde
right cause it looked different and people were used to
kind of smoother looking things in mainstream movies at the time.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it had like a real phrenetic energy to it, Yeah,
which you see all the time now.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's like a bona fide thing.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But it wasn't just like picking up the movements of
the camera. It was like telegraphing them as far as
the human brain's concerned, because we take it for granted,
but we have in our own brains a pretty complex
system that involves the inner ear coordinating with the movement
of the retina so that it offsets the movement and
(05:30):
the motion and the jarring impact of like just walking. Like,
if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to
focus on anything while we were moving around.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, people wouldn't jog, They would get sick and vomit
every time they.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Job exactly right, and you certainly wouldn't be able to
read US magazine while you were jogging or something like that.
The fact that you can it really is, it really
shows how incredibly complex and well developed the system is. Right. Yes,
that's what the steady cam that Garrett Brown created sought
to recreate and he did it. He nailed it like
(06:04):
on the first time out. Basically.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, because we mentioned a dolly.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That is people that know film know this stuff is
like pretty rudimentary information. But a lot of people don't
know what a dolly is. And they see the word
dolly grip in a movie, they just think it sounds funny.
But the dolly is how you typically would get a
smooth shot. It's just a big, super super heavy sled
with wheels that the camera sits on and the camera
(06:29):
operator sits on, and it's either on a very smooth floor,
it's on a piece of track.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Like a little railroad car.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And it pushes along and that's how you get those
nice smooth shots.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is
is you can't really lay that track over a rocky
terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
No, and like you said, you can't push it up
and downstairs. It just had its limitations, right, it did.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So Garrett Brown said, I'm sick of these limitations. I'm
so tired of being limited by Dolly, stupid Dolly. I'm
going to invent something better. And so he tinkered around
with his what was called the Brown Stabilizer at first, Yeah,
which he later renamed the steady Cam. Yeah, and to
show off, like at first he was just using him
(07:16):
in commercials, and he was like, this is way bigger
than just commercials. Yeah, I'm going to make a sizzle reel.
And he made a sizzle reel of the thirty impossible
shots that you just couldn't do before, and he did
it with the steady cam, but he didn't show how
it was done.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, and you can.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
He was able to save ten of those shots and
digitize them, and a couple of years ago he finally
released online ten of those so you can actually go
see this original reel.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
His wife and his best friend like just doing stuff,
while just doing stuff, like you know, like one of
them was swimming. You can't run alongside somebody swimming apparently
was an impossible shot. I'm not quite sure why.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, you just couldn't run alongside someone doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Oh, okay, that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Even with a.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Dolly Well, no, you could have. You could have laid
dolly track down the length of a swimming pool shirt.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Right, That's why I didn't understand that one was an
impossible shot. But to show off, he goes question, he
goes around a slide.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Just to kind of show maybe maybe that was the
impossibility of it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But then his buddy gets out of the pool and
like walking like he pivots around him. And I'm sure
when he put this reel together and he sent it out,
the directors are like, this is magic sorcery.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Well, it was mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And some people say it was the first viral video
because it was shared around Hollywood literally in a matter
of days. Everybody in Hollywood was saying what in the world,
Like you said, what is this sorcery?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
This Garrett Brown has bestowed upon us?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, it's It was a bit of a mic drop
as far as that reel goes.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to
Garrett Brown that said, if you are really concerned about
protecting its design before you fully patent it, I suggest
you delete the two occasions on the reel where the
shadow on the ground gives the skilled counter intelligence photo
interpreter a fairly clear representation of a man holding a
pole with one hand, with something or other at the
(09:15):
bottom of the pole, which appears to.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Be slowly moving.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
All of that is Stanley Kubrickian for Hey, there's a
shadow in one of your shots.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Of the steady.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Camopea, which is pretty cool of him to do. Sure,
because I'm sure there were plenty of people in Hollywood
who would have been like, Okay, I think I kind
of get the idea of what this was, because there
was no suggestion whatsoever of what Garrett Brown had used
to get these shots except in those shadows. So he
went and went and immediately cut those, yeah, those I
(09:47):
think fourteen seconds out of his reel, and then released
the second edition.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
And it looked pretty good.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I mean, it's rough compared to today's standard, sure, but
for the time it was like unbelievable, right.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It changed everything. Oh yeah, and one of the shots
that he got was his wife Ellen. He said, dear,
why don't you put on your most seventies bell bottoms
you can find and I'm going to run up behind you.
Is you run up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, And maybe when you get to the top,
you can raise your hands in triumph and I will
(10:22):
spin around you. And if that shot sounds familiar, it
actually attracted a guy, a director named John what is
it avilds Son?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, John G.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Avelson, who said, I like this, I'm going to use
it in this little film I'm directing called Rocky.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And I didn't get whether or not this was the case.
But did they Did they locate Rocky in Philadelphia because
of those steps?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Because he said, how did you do that? And where
are those steps?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I don't think so, man, because I wondered that too,
like like, did he not have a scene written where
Rocky just runs up those steps?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I mean Stallone wrote it. I think they al just
have to ask him.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay, hey, Sly, I was wondering if you yeah, that
was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I answered in that little moment. Someone will have to
interpret that. Great movie though.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Man.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I rewatched that Yeah, like this year from beginning to end,
just phenomenal movie.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I'm trying to get Emily to watch it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Has she never seen the original.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
No, it's its own thing for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Like it's not it's a boxing movies.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Really, it's a love story for the most part.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It's a love story and like the triumph of the
little guy. Yeah story for sure, Yeah, featuring boxing, right,
that's exactly right. Yeah, But two and three and on
on word it's like a totally different thing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, but those were good too.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, they said, let's take your story, take out the
heart and insert cocaine.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Instead, insert mister t. I don't get the cocaine reference.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh, it's just the eighties and Hollywood got hands on sure,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I gotcha.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Uh yeah, that's a good question, though, I wonder about
that if he surely didn't remake it for Philadelphia just for.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That well, But the point is is Garrett Brown created
on this sizzle reel, the one of the most iconic
shots in filmmaking history, for sure, and he sent that
reel out and within that year, I believe nineteen seventy six,
three Major Motion Pictures hired him to operate his steady
(12:30):
camp for it. There was Rocky yep, there was what
was the one about Woody.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Guthrie Bound for Glory?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I think that one came out first, so that
was the first actual like h and that one the
steady camop was Garrett Brown, I think for all these huh,
because he was the only guy that knew, he got
a lot of work early on.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, And I think I think the patent was still
pending until nineteen seventy seven, so I'm sure he'p the
thing out of everybody closed your eyes while I shoot this.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
But on Bound for Glory, he was on a crane
even that lowered down, stepped off the crane, so people
had seen crane shots, but then for the crane to
go down, down, down, and then all of a sudden
start following this guy, everyone was like what in the
word right?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There would have been a cut, yeah, after the crane stopped,
and then before you know, they would cut and he
would have gotten a position and then started up again.
This is one smooth shot.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
One smooth shot yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And then the other one was Marathon Man, So.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Another great right out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
This guy who was a commercial director and made short
films for Sestame Street changed filmmaking like single handedly.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, and won an Academy Award nineteen seventy eight for
Technical achievement, got that patent in seventy seven, and.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Well, that's it. That's the history of the steady.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Gam that's it. Everyboding good night.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
everyone how this thing works.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Let's do it man, all right, Chuck? So the STUDI CAAMP.
Do you remember when we did our episode on breathalyzers.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh boy, that was a long time ago, and we.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Found out that the breathalyzer is one of the most
complicated machines. Yeah, on the planet.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I kind of hated that one.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Like there were crystals involved somehow. I hated that one too,
dark crystals. This is a bit like that, Like if
you really dive into steticams, like this article on how
stuff works does it's it's it's labyrinthine talk about the
dark crystal. Yeah, we're talking labyrinth instead.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But we're gonna simplify it because you don't need to
break this thing apart and look at every component like
this article does.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I mean it really gets involved.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
What you should do is look at a picture of
someone operating one. Yeah, and just because when you look
at it, you go it all makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Right, And there's really just three main parts to the
whole thing. There's a vest, there's an arm that's attached
to the vest, and then the other end of the
arm is attached to what's called the sled, yeah, which
is what the camera and its components are mounted on. Right.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, and that arm, I mean just picture yourself wearing
a like a baby Bjorn baby carrier, except for instead
of the baby at your sternum, there's a mechanical arm
coming out.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Like a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, like accordion arm or a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Right, And it's virtually the same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Well, yeah, and guess who made one of these by
himself before they started making them for at home people.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Who? Casey? Who?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
My brother? Of course?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Oh? Did he really? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, my brother made one of these in like the
early nineties out of door hinges and rubber bands and springs.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Does he still have it? Is it in the Smithsonian?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's in the Scotsonian, which is where all his early mentions.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
With all his pinball machines.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, but he made one. He basically did the same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
He looked at it and looked at these swing arm lamps, right,
and accordion arm lamps, and it's like, well, it's the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I'll just make a version of that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It is, and it worked pretty good. It's virtually the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So the whole point of a steady cam is that
it basically stimulates or the arm at least simulates a
human arm right to where it can move around very easily. Yeah,
And it redistributes the weight of the camera, which can
be up to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, the whole unit is pretty heavy, and it's not
easy to operate.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But it'll hold a wear you out.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
It holds it effortlessly, and it holds it in place.
This arm does and it does it by using springs.
And you can adjust the tension of the springs by
using a cable and pulley system. Yes, so that it
offsets the balance of the camera and holds it in
space in front of the camera operator basically so that
they can move it effortlessly up down to the side.
(16:51):
You can put the camera on top of the sled
so that you get high shots. You can switch it
so it goes on the bottom so you can get
low angle shots.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
The traditional it's called high mode and low mode and
high mode is it doesn't mean it's high, it just
means it's on the top.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Of the unit.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And then low mode is when it's on the bottom.
So if you wanted to film a mouse running across
the floor, you would put.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
It in low mode, right. If you want to film
a human, you put it in high mode.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah. And the camera itself is broken out into pieces,
which is kind of an ingenious trick that I guess
Garrett Brown came up with himself. I think he did.
And this is the third part. The camera slid right.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yes, the slid is what holds all the equipment.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Right, And it's basically a pole with a little bit
at the top called the stage. Yeah, and that's where
the camera goes, or it could be at the bottom
wherever the camera is. The camera's mounted to the stage.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Then you get the pole itself and then the I
guess the arm is connected to the pole by a gibble,
a gimbal. A gimbal, that's right. And it's like an
old technology. It's basically sure something that uses base gyroscopic
action to take the movement of whatever is seeking to move,
(18:07):
whatever you want to hold still and getting rid of
it Yeah, like everything around it moves except for the
thing that you want to hold still.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's super neat. And that's just the one arm that's
connected to the pole. Yes, So you can see how
complicated this thing is. That this guy sat back and
I think in a hotel room somewhere he put it together.
Garrett Brown, the first one. There's just the ingenuity it
took to put this together. It's pretty pretty in depth
as far as inventions go.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, and there's a little science to it. There's something
called moment of inertia. It's basically how much that camera
is resistant to rotation. So if you want the camera
to be still, you want to increase that resistance to
the rotation. And this is determined by a couple of
different things. How much mass there is to the object,
and how far that mass is the from its own
(18:56):
axis of rotation. So by spreading the camera out, he
basically took the cameras come with a monitor now, so
you can see what's going on in a big heavy battery.
He took the monitor off of the camera, He took
the battery off of the camera and redistributed that up
and down the pole. So what he ended up doing
was spreading out that mass, which takes away the center
(19:18):
of gravity from the camera itself.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, because like with a regular camera, where all the
components are in one single unit, that center of gravity
is inside the camera. Yeah, so it's easy to rotate.
But since he exploded it out into its various components,
he made that center of gravity land somewhere on the pole, right,
and the gimbal attaches to the pole just above the
center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
(19:41):
pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
which makes it very easy to balance keep balance.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, And they do a good job in this article.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
If you'd like, just take a broomstick and you find
that center of gravity with your finger. You can hold
it with your finger and lift it up and down.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Right, and it just it's balanced on your finger be
you're hitting that center of balance.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
That's right. It's the same principle. Yeah. And in fact,
if you took.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
If you took that same broomstick and cut it off
and you just had three feet of broomstick and just
took your SLR camera and screwed that broomstick into the
bottom of your camera, instead of a.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Tripod that would function.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
You could walk around with that and it would be
steadier than if you just had it in your hand.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I could see that because of the change of the
center of gravity.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Change of the center of gravity, and if you put
a little counterweight at the bottom, it would make it
even more steady. And that's the whole concept of the
steady cam sled. Then attach that to an arm, that
accordion arm, and you're cooking with gas.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, because you were saying, like if you walk around
with just the pole holding or the broomstick, cut off
broomstick and you're holding it just with your hand, Yeah,
it's steady. The point of the arm is it's taking
your hand out of the equation and replacing it with
something that can isolate movement even more. Yeah, so that
your movement of you walking just gets lost within the
(21:04):
arm before it ever gets to the camera and could
shake it.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, like if you did it with a broomstick. Your
arm is the same thing as a steady camra.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Right, it's better if the steadycam arms.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Is better than your human arm, right, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Pretty neat stuff. It is neat stuff, And I think
that's it for the science man. We made it through it.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, I mean it's all got to be very precisely balanced.
You don't just throw the stuff on the pole, willy
nilly no.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And they point out that the balance of the camera
can actually change during filming. Yeah, just from the film
moving from one end to the camera to the other
as it records.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Well, yeah, in the old days when they use film, sure,
nowadays it's just that digital card.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, well not always.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Quinn Tarantino's camera operators have to deal with this.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, And if you've ever been on a job with
a steady cam, there are a lot of there's a
lot of breaks where I mean you can adjust them
on the fly more now, but I remember there just
being a lot of breaks with a steadycam. Up would
say hold on, you know, I need five minutes, and
they go over and they have a little stand that
they put it on to take because you know, it
takes the weight off to a certain degree, but it's
(22:09):
still a lot of weight to be.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Carrying on a vest on your chest.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, and running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, it's a tough gig.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like there's a pretty amazing video. Did you watch it
of that Eurovision shot. No, there's a guy from I
think Baylarus singing and they shot they showed him like
he's like they they showed the shot and then they
showed what somebody filming the shot being done. And the
guy with the SAIDI cam wearing the vest rides down
(22:39):
the aisle on a segue.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Is that what he's on?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, hops off, runs up this ramp and then starts
circling around the guy who's singing, And it's a pretty
amazing thing. It's a great shot. But then when you
see how it's done, Yeah, wow, that guy deserved a
standing ovation.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It would have been more impressive hit it not like
the subject matter have been more interested in the video quality,
but better pretty bad, Like if it was a Scorsese movie,
you'd be like, wow, sure, but it was this you know,
kind of corny. Well, I mean it looked like an
American idol or.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Something it was, but it was American idol. If you
took American idol at its peak and then spread it
out over Eurasia and like it was popular over that
that large of a population, that's what Eurovision is.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So you want to talk about some of the shots
when we come back after a break please, okay, all right,
(23:50):
so Chuck. In addition to that Rocky shot and that
Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots, classic
shots of all time. Yeah, that had to do with
steady cam. It couldn't have been done without steady cam.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Well, The Shining is the first one that pops into
most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick was a
big fan of this invention and immediately started talks with
Garrett Brown on how to help him out with this movie,
The Shining, that he was making. And apparently they kind
of battled one another quite a bit on the set
(24:26):
of The Shining, and Garrett Brown later admitted he said
a lot of that was probably what do you call it,
like inventor's pride or something kind of getting in the
way of this like brilliant all tour. So Kubrick already
had his own ideas on how to best use this
thing that this other guy invented. And you know the Shining,
classic example, those tricycle shots, the famous maze chase.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
At the end, very iconic in motion picture history.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, and I mean the how did they do? You know,
how they did that shot? Behind Danny and his little
big one.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
They probably just went into low mode and.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Like walked behind him or yeah, ran down the.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Hall after him.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's really impressive. Yeah, so the shining's a big one. Sure,
Rocky's a big one. Good Fellows is another classic example, too,
classic where Rayleioda and Lorraine Brocco are going into the
Copa Cabana, but they go through the back yeah, and
they're followed like throughout like the backstairs into the kitchen,
and then they finally come out into their table and
(25:27):
it's like one uninterrupted, like five minute shot or something.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It's amazing, and it's I think when you see this,
you're you might see it and not be a discerning
film viewer and just say, well that I didn't notice
anything right, which is probably good. Yeah, Or you might
be a fan and steady cam and just say, man,
that was amazing. U. Then you have to step back
and look at lighting and realize that how incredibly hard
(25:51):
it is to light a shot like that that takes
place over I don't know how many hundreds of feet.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Well without seeing the lights in the shot.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well that or just consistent lighting and having it look good.
I mean, that's just Usually you light for like a
room or something, or a hallway, but to light all
those different rooms and hallways and just incredibly, I can't
imagine how long it took to set that up.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know, they were like, wait, what do you want
to do.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, it'll be great, worry about it, stay with me.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
You know, he's making another gangster movie.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, and it may be like the.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Some folks are saying, it's like, you know, his last
big gangster movie, but it's got de Niro again. He
had worked with him in a long time. Paccino and
Joe pesci Is coming out of retirement.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I didn't even know he was retired. I just thought
he wasn't doing stuff anymo.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Man, he retired.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, so's he's got the three heavyweights and supposedly Harvey Cattail.
Of course you got to throw him in there. Sure,
But I'm just like giddy thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, I'm glad he is because his last one was departed.
Right now.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
He's made movies since then, like Wolf of Wall Street Gangster, Yeah,
which I thought was great.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I know you didn't love it. I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I thought everything. But what Jack Nicholson did was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah you didn't like his performance?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
No, I really didn't. Well, sorry Jack, He'll.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Forgive that all right, because you like him as an actor, right, Yeah, okay,
does it gets come on Return of the Jedi nineteen
eighty three, the famous speeder bike chase scene and the indoor. Yeah,
(27:37):
California's Redwood National Park doubled his indoor and that was
Garrett Brown walking and they sped it up.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah. But and then you're just like, wow, who cares.
The reason why it's such an iconic steady cam shot
is because he walked very slowly. Yeah, and when you
speed film up the tiny movements involved they're telegraphed, they
just become much more exaggerated.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So without a setikam when they sped the film up again,
it would have been just so blurry and just jarring.
It would have been unusable.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
The fact that you can see the trees and stuff,
and even at that high speed, it's all steady cam.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, and people, I think it's just so easy to
take it for granted now in movies when you see
these shots. But to pioneer these these things and this
equipment was remarkable. Yeah, and nowadays you can. They're all
manner of at home steady cam. You don't have to
do like my brother and build one out of spare
parts and door hinges.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
No, you can buy one.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
For not too much.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You spend one hundred dollars, Yeah, on a decent enough
little home steady cam.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
This article says that the steady cam curve, which was
made for GoPros, it was like one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, well those are teeny tiny.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And there's one for the iPhone called what's it called
the Smoothie. That one is like it's like, I think
even less than one hundred bucks, and it's just like
a handheld camera stabilizer that works pretty well from what
I can gather.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, we should have had Casey, our video producer Casey.
He's in France right now though, live in the High.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Life, right you should We should have had.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Casey in here just given thumbs up her thumbs down
to each one of these brands of the mentioned and I.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Would trust that is like the gospel truth.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
But Casey's not here, so we're just gonna say read
online reviews.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I also saw that there's like a lot of gimbal
based drone steady cams. Yeah that are just not that expensive.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, amazing they're changing the game again, sure, because then
you can.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Do a shot where you follow someone by the swimming
pool and then fly up into outer space with them
if you want, in one continuous motion.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Like the Cisp monster, the what the Cisp monster? You
remember the alien from Crisp Cereal? Uh?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I do remember Quisp?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Remember the weird alien?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Sort of? I didn't eat Quisp. Wasn't that a Captain
Crunch knock offer? Was it different?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It was different because they were saucer shaped rather than
square waffle cut gotcha? Same thing though, Yeah, same thing.
It was good. It didn't cut the tongue like Captain
Crunch did.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, the roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Uh. And then of course Steatikam is a name brand,
right Seeing Eye Dog.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, it's made Uh who makes it?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Tiffin?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Tiffin?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Now that's what Yeah, I think I think Tiffin does.
They have a pretty good site, like if you are
at all interested in this, like, they've got a great
site and they have all of their steadycam models with
a real like in depth overview of them and yeah, pretty. Uh.
I think it's got all their manuals and everything just
right there for you to read.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, there's other companies making them. There's one called Glidecam
Embara Zoom.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, but you know, Steadikam is still probably the giant.
It's like Dolly's.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
There's only two Dolly Makers, well, or there may be
more now, but it's like Chapman and Fisher and each
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Every Dolly grip has the Dolly Makers.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, Chapman dollies are Fisher dollies kind of like kind
of holding.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Jamison or bush mills, you know, Foodweiser cores neither. And
then Garrett Brown, as if the steady cam wasn't enough
as far as revolutionizing filming goes, he later on invented
something called the skycam, Yeah, which like if you watch
any kind of sporting event now especially it's especially useful
(31:33):
for football. In football, where like it's there's just cables
above the field and there's cameras hanging down that are
just like doing overhead shots following the action.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Like it's nothing, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Garrett Brown invented that too.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I got one more little thing for you. There are
two positions not high mode low mode positions are like
how you're operating the camera. But if you are pointing
for it as an operator and your camera is pointing forward,
you're just walking.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It's called missionary no.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
And then if you are if the operator is forward
and the camera is backward, they call that don Juan.
So leave it to film set goons to think of
sexual names for sex it up camera positions.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Don Juan, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Never heard of that one.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I hadn't either. Well, if you want to know more
about steady cams, including a really really fine grain involved
look at the physics of how the steady cam arm works,
you should go type steadycam into the search part HowStuffWorks
dot Com. Since I said search parts signed for the
listener mail.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I'm going to call this encouragement from a Christian listener.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Okay, Hey guys, I was listening to the Easter Show
and was compelled right in. As a Christian, I've always
appreciated how you make a solid effort to not rail
on the church too hard. I found it humorous and
simultaneously sad when you felt you had to tiptoe around
the pagan traditions that have been integrated with the resurrection.
Find it disheartening to think that other believers can't find
anything better to do than wait to be offended by
(33:10):
something than jump all over you for it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
But based on your years of experience and careful.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Treatment of the subject, it must be the case a
lot of the time. Personally, I just want to say,
I can't think of anything you've ever said to offend me.
I think you've done a stand up job with sensitive
subjects like satanic panic in particular. It's also nice just
to hear you talk about things directly related to my
beliefs without sneering like many others will.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
That's nice Dane in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, for real thing. If you want to get in
touch with this like Dane did and be a super
cool person, you can tweet to us a SYSK podcast.
You can also follow the behind the scenes action of
Chucks in My Life at SYSK podcast on Instagram. You
can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you
Should Know for the hurt, and you can send us
(33:58):
an email this Stuff podcast, that HowStuffWorks dot com. In
the meantime, while you're doing all this, hang out with
us at our home on the web. Stuff youshould Know
dot com.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there. Chuck's wearing a hat,
so it stuff you should know. Yeah, still still pretty sad?
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah? Are you really sure?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
All right, Pete?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
You know what I'm getting? The Josh is referencing my
last chance garage hat that I've talked way too much about.
I'm getting the patch remade as we speak. Whoa, I actually.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Found one an eBay that had been sold three months ago,
and he's all a big conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Is that right? No?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Okay, but I found.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
A picture of the patch that I sent to a
patchmaker who like, can digitally reproduce this thing?
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Nice man.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Well, then I got to find in the right hat.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
It's coming back home. Well that's step one. That's a
big step one.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah. I'm getting a few patches and a few hats
this time.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I think that's a good idea. Yeah, you can name
them one through eight.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Let's see, Chuck, you worked in the film industry previously.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, so did you? Technically?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, you did more than I did by far. You
worked it in front of and behind the camera.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Did you ever work with a steady cam at all?
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So like you've seen these things up close?
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
I don't recall Scott or anybody using one.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
We did not have one on our show.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, they're expensive, Okay, but I mean there's some pretty
good equipment on set. It seemed like sure, but there
was no steady cam right, Nope, because I was trying
to recall and I could not, for the life of
me remember a moment when there was an awesome like
extendo arm camera with like all of the components exploded
out into different parts of a polly that.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Didn't hapen because he would have walked in and said,
what's that? Right? And everyone would have laughed, and you
would have been like, why does everyone make fun of me?
Would all this stuff? Now?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
We never is one on our TV show for Science
Chowl because, like I said, it's pricey to rent, and
this is a bit of a giveaway, but a person
steadycam operator comes with the package, right, with all the equipment.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's a lot of times their own, and it's you know,
it's pricey, yeah, to pay for that lady or that dude.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Right, But the reason it is price is because it's
it has a really good effect. Yeah, and the person
who's doing it really knows what they're doing. Yeah, I
don't know, but just from researching this, it seemed like
they were probably the most skilled trades person on the
set at any given time when they were on the set.
(02:42):
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, I think it's just a matter of what skill.
It's just a different skill.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Are they like the highest echelon of camera operators.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
No, it's just different.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Okay, like a top niche Yeah, okay, I got it.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
But but you don't just wade into steadycam and start
getting worked the next day. It does take a lot
of work to master. But like a good dolly grip
is just as skilled, right at just pushing that thing around,
But that takes.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
A very non herky jerky Well it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Gonna heirckey jerky anyway, but just to hit the marks
right and oh I see yeah, I mean all that
stuff takes a great amount of skill.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, let's talk about this because STEADI camp, you know,
when I came of age, was already invented. It was
it was basically became commercially available the year I was born,
So I don't really know a world prior to STEADI Camp.
I've never seen a movie that came out before nineteen
seventy six. Funny, and I'm just used to it, right, Yeah,
but it's interesting to look back and see that there
(03:40):
actually is a point in time where this one dude
who was actually kind of an outsider of the movie
business basically changed it permanently forever for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
His name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, he's still around right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And he was working for well, he was working in
TV commercials on Sesame Street in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, and he.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Got a little frustrated, as camera people do pre steady CAM,
with not being able to accomplish certain shots.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah, there's supposedly there were thirty impossible shots that just
based on the equipment of the day, you just couldn't
do right.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well, and a lot of it had to do with
like rough terrain. Sure, staircases were a big one. Yeah,
and the recent these shots were impossible. It's not like
you couldn't lug a camera around up and down the stairs,
but the movement that the camera recorded would be so
jarring that it would render the film like that it
would be unusable.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yeah, and this was in a day before I mean
there were shaky cam shots and like Cassavettis and all
these early indie filmmakers did a lot of like avant
garde handheld stuff, but it was known as avant garde
right cause it looked different and people were used to
kind of smoother looking things in mainstream movies at the time.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it had like a real phrenetic energy to it, Yeah,
which you see all the time now.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's like a bona fide thing.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
But it wasn't just like picking up the movements of
the camera. It was like telegraphing them as far as
the human brain's concerned, because we take it for granted,
but we have in our own brains a pretty complex
system that involves the inner ear coordinating with the movement
of the retina so that it offsets the movement and
(05:30):
the motion and the jarring impact of like just walking. Like,
if we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to
focus on anything while we were moving around.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, people wouldn't jog, They would get sick and vomit
every time they.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Job exactly right, and you certainly wouldn't be able to
read US magazine while you were jogging or something like that.
The fact that you can it really is, it really
shows how incredibly complex and well developed the system is. Right. Yes,
that's what the steady cam that Garrett Brown created sought
to recreate and he did it. He nailed it like
(06:04):
on the first time out. Basically.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, because we mentioned a dolly.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
That is people that know film know this stuff is
like pretty rudimentary information. But a lot of people don't
know what a dolly is. And they see the word
dolly grip in a movie, they just think it sounds funny.
But the dolly is how you typically would get a
smooth shot. It's just a big, super super heavy sled
with wheels that the camera sits on and the camera
(06:29):
operator sits on, and it's either on a very smooth floor,
it's on a piece of track.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Like a little railroad car.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And it pushes along and that's how you get those
nice smooth shots.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
So that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is
is you can't really lay that track over a rocky
terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
No, and like you said, you can't push it up
and downstairs. It just had its limitations, right, it did.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
So Garrett Brown said, I'm sick of these limitations. I'm
so tired of being limited by Dolly, stupid Dolly. I'm
going to invent something better. And so he tinkered around
with his what was called the Brown Stabilizer at first, Yeah,
which he later renamed the steady Cam. Yeah, and to
show off, like at first he was just using him
(07:16):
in commercials, and he was like, this is way bigger
than just commercials. Yeah, I'm going to make a sizzle reel.
And he made a sizzle reel of the thirty impossible
shots that you just couldn't do before, and he did
it with the steady cam, but he didn't show how
it was done.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, and you can.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
He was able to save ten of those shots and
digitize them, and a couple of years ago he finally
released online ten of those so you can actually go
see this original reel.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
His wife and his best friend like just doing stuff,
while just doing stuff, like you know, like one of
them was swimming. You can't run alongside somebody swimming apparently
was an impossible shot. I'm not quite sure why.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Well, you just couldn't run alongside someone doing anything.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Oh, okay, that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Even with a.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Dolly Well, no, you could have. You could have laid
dolly track down the length of a swimming pool shirt.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Right, That's why I didn't understand that one was an
impossible shot. But to show off, he goes question, he
goes around a slide.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Just to kind of show maybe maybe that was the
impossibility of it.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
But then his buddy gets out of the pool and
like walking like he pivots around him. And I'm sure
when he put this reel together and he sent it out,
the directors are like, this is magic sorcery.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Well, it was mind blowing.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
And some people say it was the first viral video
because it was shared around Hollywood literally in a matter
of days. Everybody in Hollywood was saying what in the world,
Like you said, what is this sorcery?
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
This Garrett Brown has bestowed upon us?
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, it's It was a bit of a mic drop
as far as that reel goes.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to
Garrett Brown that said, if you are really concerned about
protecting its design before you fully patent it, I suggest
you delete the two occasions on the reel where the
shadow on the ground gives the skilled counter intelligence photo
interpreter a fairly clear representation of a man holding a
pole with one hand, with something or other at the
(09:15):
bottom of the pole, which appears to.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Be slowly moving.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
All of that is Stanley Kubrickian for Hey, there's a
shadow in one of your shots.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Of the steady.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Camopea, which is pretty cool of him to do. Sure,
because I'm sure there were plenty of people in Hollywood
who would have been like, Okay, I think I kind
of get the idea of what this was, because there
was no suggestion whatsoever of what Garrett Brown had used
to get these shots except in those shadows. So he
went and went and immediately cut those, yeah, those I
(09:47):
think fourteen seconds out of his reel, and then released
the second edition.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
And it looked pretty good.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
I mean, it's rough compared to today's standard, sure, but
for the time it was like unbelievable, right.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
It changed everything. Oh yeah, and one of the shots
that he got was his wife Ellen. He said, dear,
why don't you put on your most seventies bell bottoms
you can find and I'm going to run up behind you.
Is you run up the steps to the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, And maybe when you get to the top,
you can raise your hands in triumph and I will
(10:22):
spin around you. And if that shot sounds familiar, it
actually attracted a guy, a director named John what is
it avilds Son?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, John G.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Avelson, who said, I like this, I'm going to use
it in this little film I'm directing called Rocky.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
And I didn't get whether or not this was the case.
But did they Did they locate Rocky in Philadelphia because
of those steps?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
No?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Because he said, how did you do that? And where
are those steps?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I don't think so, man, because I wondered that too,
like like, did he not have a scene written where
Rocky just runs up those steps?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (11:00):
I mean Stallone wrote it. I think they al just
have to ask him.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay, hey, Sly, I was wondering if you yeah, that
was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
I answered in that little moment. Someone will have to
interpret that. Great movie though.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Man.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
I rewatched that Yeah, like this year from beginning to end,
just phenomenal movie.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
I'm trying to get Emily to watch it.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Has she never seen the original.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
No, it's its own thing for sure.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Like it's not it's a boxing movies.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Really, it's a love story for the most part.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It's a love story and like the triumph of the
little guy. Yeah story for sure, Yeah, featuring boxing, right,
that's exactly right. Yeah, But two and three and on
on word it's like a totally different thing.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, but those were good too.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, they said, let's take your story, take out the
heart and insert cocaine.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Instead, insert mister t. I don't get the cocaine reference.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Oh, it's just the eighties and Hollywood got hands on sure,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
I gotcha.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Uh yeah, that's a good question, though, I wonder about
that if he surely didn't remake it for Philadelphia just for.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That well, But the point is is Garrett Brown created
on this sizzle reel, the one of the most iconic
shots in filmmaking history, for sure, and he sent that
reel out and within that year, I believe nineteen seventy six,
three Major Motion Pictures hired him to operate his steady
(12:30):
camp for it. There was Rocky yep, there was what
was the one about Woody.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Guthrie Bound for Glory?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah, I think that one came out first, so that
was the first actual like h and that one the
steady camop was Garrett Brown, I think for all these huh,
because he was the only guy that knew, he got
a lot of work early on.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, And I think I think the patent was still
pending until nineteen seventy seven, so I'm sure he'p the
thing out of everybody closed your eyes while I shoot this.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
But on Bound for Glory, he was on a crane
even that lowered down, stepped off the crane, so people
had seen crane shots, but then for the crane to
go down, down, down, and then all of a sudden
start following this guy, everyone was like what in the
word right?
Speaker 2 (13:11):
There would have been a cut, yeah, after the crane stopped,
and then before you know, they would cut and he
would have gotten a position and then started up again.
This is one smooth shot.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
One smooth shot yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And then the other one was Marathon Man, So.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Another great right out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
This guy who was a commercial director and made short
films for Sestame Street changed filmmaking like single handedly.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Yeah, and won an Academy Award nineteen seventy eight for
Technical achievement, got that patent in seventy seven, and.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Well, that's it. That's the history of the steady.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Gam that's it. Everyboding good night.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
everyone how this thing works.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Let's do it man, all right, Chuck? So the STUDI CAAMP.
Do you remember when we did our episode on breathalyzers.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Oh boy, that was a long time ago, and we.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Found out that the breathalyzer is one of the most
complicated machines. Yeah, on the planet.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I kind of hated that one.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Like there were crystals involved somehow. I hated that one too,
dark crystals. This is a bit like that, Like if
you really dive into steticams, like this article on how
stuff works does it's it's it's labyrinthine talk about the
dark crystal. Yeah, we're talking labyrinth instead.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
But we're gonna simplify it because you don't need to
break this thing apart and look at every component like
this article does.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I mean it really gets involved.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
What you should do is look at a picture of
someone operating one. Yeah, and just because when you look
at it, you go it all makes a lot more sense.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Right, And there's really just three main parts to the
whole thing. There's a vest, there's an arm that's attached
to the vest, and then the other end of the
arm is attached to what's called the sled, yeah, which
is what the camera and its components are mounted on. Right.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, and that arm, I mean just picture yourself wearing
a like a baby Bjorn baby carrier, except for instead
of the baby at your sternum, there's a mechanical arm
coming out.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Like a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, like accordion arm or a spring arm lamp.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Right, And it's virtually the same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Well, yeah, and guess who made one of these by
himself before they started making them for at home people.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Who? Casey? Who?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
My brother? Of course?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Oh? Did he really? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, my brother made one of these in like the
early nineties out of door hinges and rubber bands and springs.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Does he still have it? Is it in the Smithsonian?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
It's in the Scotsonian, which is where all his early mentions.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
With all his pinball machines.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, but he made one. He basically did the same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
He looked at it and looked at these swing arm lamps, right,
and accordion arm lamps, and it's like, well, it's the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I'll just make a version of that.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It is, and it worked pretty good. It's virtually the
same thing.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
So the whole point of a steady cam is that
it basically stimulates or the arm at least simulates a
human arm right to where it can move around very easily. Yeah,
And it redistributes the weight of the camera, which can
be up to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, the whole unit is pretty heavy, and it's not
easy to operate.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
But it'll hold a wear you out.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
It holds it effortlessly, and it holds it in place.
This arm does and it does it by using springs.
And you can adjust the tension of the springs by
using a cable and pulley system. Yes, so that it
offsets the balance of the camera and holds it in
space in front of the camera operator basically so that
they can move it effortlessly up down to the side.
(16:51):
You can put the camera on top of the sled
so that you get high shots. You can switch it
so it goes on the bottom so you can get
low angle shots.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
The traditional it's called high mode and low mode and
high mode is it doesn't mean it's high, it just
means it's on the top.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Of the unit.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
And then low mode is when it's on the bottom.
So if you wanted to film a mouse running across
the floor, you would put.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
It in low mode, right. If you want to film
a human, you put it in high mode.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah. And the camera itself is broken out into pieces,
which is kind of an ingenious trick that I guess
Garrett Brown came up with himself. I think he did.
And this is the third part. The camera slid right.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yes, the slid is what holds all the equipment.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Right, And it's basically a pole with a little bit
at the top called the stage. Yeah, and that's where
the camera goes, or it could be at the bottom
wherever the camera is. The camera's mounted to the stage.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Then you get the pole itself and then the I
guess the arm is connected to the pole by a gibble,
a gimbal. A gimbal, that's right. And it's like an
old technology. It's basically sure something that uses base gyroscopic
action to take the movement of whatever is seeking to move,
(18:07):
whatever you want to hold still and getting rid of
it Yeah, like everything around it moves except for the
thing that you want to hold still.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Yeah, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's super neat. And that's just the one arm that's
connected to the pole. Yes, So you can see how
complicated this thing is. That this guy sat back and
I think in a hotel room somewhere he put it together.
Garrett Brown, the first one. There's just the ingenuity it
took to put this together. It's pretty pretty in depth
as far as inventions go.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, and there's a little science to it. There's something
called moment of inertia. It's basically how much that camera
is resistant to rotation. So if you want the camera
to be still, you want to increase that resistance to
the rotation. And this is determined by a couple of
different things. How much mass there is to the object,
and how far that mass is the from its own
(18:56):
axis of rotation. So by spreading the camera out, he
basically took the cameras come with a monitor now, so
you can see what's going on in a big heavy battery.
He took the monitor off of the camera, He took
the battery off of the camera and redistributed that up
and down the pole. So what he ended up doing
was spreading out that mass, which takes away the center
(19:18):
of gravity from the camera itself.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Yeah, because like with a regular camera, where all the
components are in one single unit, that center of gravity
is inside the camera. Yeah, so it's easy to rotate.
But since he exploded it out into its various components,
he made that center of gravity land somewhere on the pole, right,
and the gimbal attaches to the pole just above the
center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
(19:41):
pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
which makes it very easy to balance keep balance.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, And they do a good job in this article.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
If you'd like, just take a broomstick and you find
that center of gravity with your finger. You can hold
it with your finger and lift it up and down.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Right, and it just it's balanced on your finger be
you're hitting that center of balance.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
That's right. It's the same principle. Yeah. And in fact,
if you took.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
If you took that same broomstick and cut it off
and you just had three feet of broomstick and just
took your SLR camera and screwed that broomstick into the
bottom of your camera, instead of a.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Tripod that would function.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
You could walk around with that and it would be
steadier than if you just had it in your hand.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
I could see that because of the change of the
center of gravity.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
Change of the center of gravity, and if you put
a little counterweight at the bottom, it would make it
even more steady. And that's the whole concept of the
steady cam sled. Then attach that to an arm, that
accordion arm, and you're cooking with gas.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, because you were saying, like if you walk around
with just the pole holding or the broomstick, cut off
broomstick and you're holding it just with your hand, Yeah,
it's steady. The point of the arm is it's taking
your hand out of the equation and replacing it with
something that can isolate movement even more. Yeah, so that
your movement of you walking just gets lost within the
(21:04):
arm before it ever gets to the camera and could
shake it.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Yeah, like if you did it with a broomstick. Your
arm is the same thing as a steady camra.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Right, it's better if the steadycam arms.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Is better than your human arm, right, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Pretty neat stuff. It is neat stuff, And I think
that's it for the science man. We made it through it.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, I mean it's all got to be very precisely balanced.
You don't just throw the stuff on the pole, willy
nilly no.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
And they point out that the balance of the camera
can actually change during filming. Yeah, just from the film
moving from one end to the camera to the other
as it records.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Well, yeah, in the old days when they use film, sure,
nowadays it's just that digital card.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, well not always.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Quinn Tarantino's camera operators have to deal with this.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yeah, And if you've ever been on a job with
a steady cam, there are a lot of there's a
lot of breaks where I mean you can adjust them
on the fly more now, but I remember there just
being a lot of breaks with a steadycam. Up would
say hold on, you know, I need five minutes, and
they go over and they have a little stand that
they put it on to take because you know, it
takes the weight off to a certain degree, but it's
(22:09):
still a lot of weight to be.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Carrying on a vest on your chest.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, and running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, it's a tough gig.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Like there's a pretty amazing video. Did you watch it
of that Eurovision shot. No, there's a guy from I
think Baylarus singing and they shot they showed him like
he's like they they showed the shot and then they
showed what somebody filming the shot being done. And the
guy with the SAIDI cam wearing the vest rides down
(22:39):
the aisle on a segue.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Is that what he's on?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, hops off, runs up this ramp and then starts
circling around the guy who's singing, And it's a pretty
amazing thing. It's a great shot. But then when you
see how it's done, Yeah, wow, that guy deserved a
standing ovation.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It would have been more impressive hit it not like
the subject matter have been more interested in the video quality,
but better pretty bad, Like if it was a Scorsese movie,
you'd be like, wow, sure, but it was this you know,
kind of corny. Well, I mean it looked like an
American idol or.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Something it was, but it was American idol. If you
took American idol at its peak and then spread it
out over Eurasia and like it was popular over that
that large of a population, that's what Eurovision is.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
So you want to talk about some of the shots
when we come back after a break please, okay, all right,
(23:50):
so Chuck. In addition to that Rocky shot and that
Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots, classic
shots of all time. Yeah, that had to do with
steady cam. It couldn't have been done without steady cam.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Well, The Shining is the first one that pops into
most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick was a
big fan of this invention and immediately started talks with
Garrett Brown on how to help him out with this movie,
The Shining, that he was making. And apparently they kind
of battled one another quite a bit on the set
(24:26):
of The Shining, and Garrett Brown later admitted he said
a lot of that was probably what do you call it,
like inventor's pride or something kind of getting in the
way of this like brilliant all tour. So Kubrick already
had his own ideas on how to best use this
thing that this other guy invented. And you know the Shining,
classic example, those tricycle shots, the famous maze chase.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
At the end, very iconic in motion picture history.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, and I mean the how did they do? You know,
how they did that shot? Behind Danny and his little
big one.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
They probably just went into low mode and.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
Like walked behind him or yeah, ran down the.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Hall after him.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's really impressive. Yeah, so the shining's a big one. Sure,
Rocky's a big one. Good Fellows is another classic example, too,
classic where Rayleioda and Lorraine Brocco are going into the
Copa Cabana, but they go through the back yeah, and
they're followed like throughout like the backstairs into the kitchen,
and then they finally come out into their table and
(25:27):
it's like one uninterrupted, like five minute shot or something.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
It's amazing, and it's I think when you see this,
you're you might see it and not be a discerning
film viewer and just say, well that I didn't notice
anything right, which is probably good. Yeah, Or you might
be a fan and steady cam and just say, man,
that was amazing. U. Then you have to step back
and look at lighting and realize that how incredibly hard
(25:51):
it is to light a shot like that that takes
place over I don't know how many hundreds of feet.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Well without seeing the lights in the shot.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well that or just consistent lighting and having it look good.
I mean, that's just Usually you light for like a
room or something, or a hallway, but to light all
those different rooms and hallways and just incredibly, I can't
imagine how long it took to set that up.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You know, they were like, wait, what do you want
to do.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, it'll be great, worry about it, stay with me.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
You know, he's making another gangster movie.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
No, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, and it may be like the.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Some folks are saying, it's like, you know, his last
big gangster movie, but it's got de Niro again. He
had worked with him in a long time. Paccino and
Joe pesci Is coming out of retirement.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I didn't even know he was retired. I just thought
he wasn't doing stuff anymo.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Man, he retired.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, so's he's got the three heavyweights and supposedly Harvey Cattail.
Of course you got to throw him in there. Sure,
But I'm just like giddy thinking about this.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, I'm glad he is because his last one was departed.
Right now.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
He's made movies since then, like Wolf of Wall Street Gangster, Yeah,
which I thought was great.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
I know you didn't love it. I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I thought everything. But what Jack Nicholson did was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah you didn't like his performance?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
No, I really didn't. Well, sorry Jack, He'll.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Forgive that all right, because you like him as an actor, right, Yeah, okay,
does it gets come on Return of the Jedi nineteen
eighty three, the famous speeder bike chase scene and the indoor. Yeah,
(27:37):
California's Redwood National Park doubled his indoor and that was
Garrett Brown walking and they sped it up.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah. But and then you're just like, wow, who cares.
The reason why it's such an iconic steady cam shot
is because he walked very slowly. Yeah, and when you
speed film up the tiny movements involved they're telegraphed, they
just become much more exaggerated.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
So without a setikam when they sped the film up again,
it would have been just so blurry and just jarring.
It would have been unusable.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
The fact that you can see the trees and stuff,
and even at that high speed, it's all steady cam.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Yeah, and people, I think it's just so easy to
take it for granted now in movies when you see
these shots. But to pioneer these these things and this
equipment was remarkable. Yeah, and nowadays you can. They're all
manner of at home steady cam. You don't have to
do like my brother and build one out of spare
parts and door hinges.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
No, you can buy one.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
For not too much.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah, you can.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
You spend one hundred dollars, Yeah, on a decent enough
little home steady cam.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
This article says that the steady cam curve, which was
made for GoPros, it was like one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, well those are teeny tiny.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And there's one for the iPhone called what's it called
the Smoothie. That one is like it's like, I think
even less than one hundred bucks, and it's just like
a handheld camera stabilizer that works pretty well from what
I can gather.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Yeah, we should have had Casey, our video producer Casey.
He's in France right now though, live in the High.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Life, right you should We should have had.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Casey in here just given thumbs up her thumbs down
to each one of these brands of the mentioned and I.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Would trust that is like the gospel truth.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
But Casey's not here, so we're just gonna say read
online reviews.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I also saw that there's like a lot of gimbal
based drone steady cams. Yeah that are just not that expensive.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, amazing they're changing the game again, sure, because then
you can.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Do a shot where you follow someone by the swimming
pool and then fly up into outer space with them
if you want, in one continuous motion.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Like the Cisp monster, the what the Cisp monster? You
remember the alien from Crisp Cereal? Uh?
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I do remember Quisp?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Remember the weird alien?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Sort of? I didn't eat Quisp. Wasn't that a Captain
Crunch knock offer? Was it different?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It was different because they were saucer shaped rather than
square waffle cut gotcha? Same thing though, Yeah, same thing.
It was good. It didn't cut the tongue like Captain
Crunch did.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Yeah, the roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Uh. And then of course Steatikam is a name brand,
right Seeing Eye Dog.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, it's made Uh who makes it?
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Tiffin?
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Tiffin?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Now that's what Yeah, I think I think Tiffin does.
They have a pretty good site, like if you are
at all interested in this, like, they've got a great
site and they have all of their steadycam models with
a real like in depth overview of them and yeah, pretty. Uh.
I think it's got all their manuals and everything just
right there for you to read.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah, there's other companies making them. There's one called Glidecam
Embara Zoom.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, but you know, Steadikam is still probably the giant.
It's like Dolly's.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
There's only two Dolly Makers, well, or there may be
more now, but it's like Chapman and Fisher and each
you know.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Every Dolly grip has the Dolly Makers.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, Chapman dollies are Fisher dollies kind of like kind
of holding.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Jamison or bush mills, you know, Foodweiser cores neither. And
then Garrett Brown, as if the steady cam wasn't enough
as far as revolutionizing filming goes, he later on invented
something called the skycam, Yeah, which like if you watch
any kind of sporting event now especially it's especially useful
(31:33):
for football. In football, where like it's there's just cables
above the field and there's cameras hanging down that are
just like doing overhead shots following the action.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Like it's nothing, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Garrett Brown invented that too.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
I got one more little thing for you. There are
two positions not high mode low mode positions are like
how you're operating the camera. But if you are pointing
for it as an operator and your camera is pointing forward,
you're just walking.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
It's called missionary no.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
And then if you are if the operator is forward
and the camera is backward, they call that don Juan.
So leave it to film set goons to think of
sexual names for sex it up camera positions.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Don Juan, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Never heard of that one.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
I hadn't either. Well, if you want to know more
about steady cams, including a really really fine grain involved
look at the physics of how the steady cam arm works,
you should go type steadycam into the search part HowStuffWorks
dot Com. Since I said search parts signed for the
listener mail.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I'm going to call this encouragement from a Christian listener.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Okay, Hey guys, I was listening to the Easter Show
and was compelled right in. As a Christian, I've always
appreciated how you make a solid effort to not rail
on the church too hard. I found it humorous and
simultaneously sad when you felt you had to tiptoe around
the pagan traditions that have been integrated with the resurrection.
Find it disheartening to think that other believers can't find
anything better to do than wait to be offended by
(33:10):
something than jump all over you for it.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
But based on your years of experience and careful.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
Treatment of the subject, it must be the case a
lot of the time. Personally, I just want to say,
I can't think of anything you've ever said to offend me.
I think you've done a stand up job with sensitive
subjects like satanic panic in particular. It's also nice just
to hear you talk about things directly related to my
beliefs without sneering like many others will.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
That's nice Dane in Minnesota.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, for real thing. If you want to get in
touch with this like Dane did and be a super
cool person, you can tweet to us a SYSK podcast.
You can also follow the behind the scenes action of
Chucks in My Life at SYSK podcast on Instagram. You
can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you
Should Know for the hurt, and you can send us
(33:58):
an email this Stuff podcast, that HowStuffWorks dot com. In
the meantime, while you're doing all this, hang out with
us at our home on the web. Stuff youshould Know
dot com.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.