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 House Stuff Works
dot com. 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 stiff you should know. Yeah, still still
(00:20):
pretty sad. Yeah, are you really sure? Alright? You know
what I'm getting the Josh's referencing my last chance garage
hat that I've talked way too much about. Um, I'm
getting the patch remade as we speak. WHOA actually found
one an eBay that had been sold three months ago,
and he's all a big conspiracy? Is that right now? Okay?
(00:44):
But I found a picture of the patch that I
sent to a patchmaker who like, can digitally reproduced this thing.
Nice man. Well then I got to find in the
right hat. It's coming back home. Well that's step one.
That's a big step one. Yeah, I'm getting a few
patches and a few hats this time. I think that's
a good idea. You can name them one through eight.
That's right. Uh, let's see, Chuck, you worked in the
(01:06):
film industry previously, So did you technically? Yeah? Um, you
did more than I did by far. You worked in
front of and behind the camera. Um, did you ever
work with a steadicam at all? Yeah? So, like you've
seen these things up close. I don't recall Scott or
anybody using one. We did not have one on our show.
(01:29):
Okay they're expensive, okay, but I mean there's some pretty
good equipment on set, it seemed like, but there was
no steadicam 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 extendoh arm
camera with like all of the components exploded out in
the different parts of a poll. That didn't happen because
(01:49):
he would have walked in and said, what's that right,
and everyone would have laughed, and you would have been like,
what does everyone make me? Uh? Now, we never is
one on our TV show for science shown because, like
I said, it's pricey to rent um and this is
a bit of a giveaway, but a person steady cam
operator comes with the package with all the equipment. It's
(02:14):
a lot of times their own, and uh it's you know,
it's pricey to pay for that, that lady or that dude.
But the reason it is prices because it's it has
a really good effect and the person who's doing it
really knows what they're doing. Yeah, I don't know, but
(02:34):
just from researching this, it seemed like they were probably
the most skilled tradesperson on the set at any given
time when they were on the set. Is that right? Well,
I think it's just a matter of what skill. Uh,
it's just a different skill. Are they like the highest
stechelon of camera operators? No, it's just different, like a
top nine. Yeah, okay, I got but but you don't
(02:55):
just wade into steadycam and and start getting work the
next day. It does take a lot of work to master.
But like a good Dolly grip, uh is just as skilled.
It just pushing that thing around. But that takes a
very non herky jerky. Well it's not in the herky
jerky anyway, but just to hit the marks right And yeah,
(03:15):
I mean all that stuff takes a great amount of skill. Well,
let's talk about this because stead camp. You know, when
I came of age, it was already invented. It wasn't.
It was basically became commercially available a year I was born.
So I don't really know a world prior to Steady camp.
I've never seen a movie that came up before, and um,
I'm just used to it, right, But it's it's it's
(03:38):
interesting to look back and see that there there actually
is a point in time where this one dude who
was actually kind of an outsider of the movie business,
um basically changed it permanently forever for sure. Yea. His
name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown. Yeah, he's still
around right, Yeah, and he um, he was working for well,
(04:00):
he was working in TV commercials in on Sesame Street
in Philadelphia, and um, he got a little frustrated, as
camera people do, uh pre steadicam with not being able
to accomplish certain shots. Yeah, there's supposedly there were thirty
impossible shots that just based on the the equipment at
(04:22):
the of the day, you just couldn't do right. Yeah. Well,
and a lot of it had to do with like
rough terrain. Staircases were a big one. And the reason
the shots were impossible. It's not like you couldn't log
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 that it would
be unusable. Yeah. And then this was in the day before.
(04:46):
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 because it looked different and people were used
to kind of smoother looking things ings and mainstream movies
at the time. Yeah, it had like a real phrenetic
energy to it. Yeah, which you see all the time now.
(05:07):
It's like a bona fide thing. But it wasn't just
like picking up the movements of the camera. It was
like telegraphing them. As far as the human brains 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
(05:27):
that it offsets the movement and the motion and the
jarring um 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. Yeah, you wouldn't. People
wouldn't jog. They would get sick and vomit every time
they jog, exactly right, and you certainly wouldn't be able
to like read us magazine while you were jogging or
(05:48):
something like that. And the fact that you can it
really is uh, it really shows how incredibly complex and
well developed the system is. Right. That's what the steadicam
that Garrett brown Um created sought to recreate and he
did it. He nailed it, like I'm the first time out. Basically. Yeah,
because we we mentioned a dolly. That is Um, people
(06:10):
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 the movie,
they just think it sounds funny. Um. But the dolly
is how you typically would get a smooth shot. It's
just a big, super super heavy sled with wheels. The
camera sits on and the camera operator sits on, and
(06:31):
it's either on a very smooth floor, it's on a
piece of track like a little railroad car and it
pushes along and that's how you get those nice smooth shots.
So that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is
is you can't really lay that track over um, a
rocky terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that. No,
and like you said, you can't push it up and
(06:51):
downstairs just had its limitations, right, it did. So Garrett
Brown said, I'm sick of these limitations. I'm so tired
of being limited by Dolly, stupid Dolly. I'm gonna invent
something better. And so he tinkered around um with his
what was called the Brown Stabilizer at first, which he
later renamed the Steadicam and to show off um, Like,
(07:14):
at first he he was just using him in commercials,
and he was like, this is way bigger than just commercials.
I'm gonna 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 Steadicam,
but he didn't show how it was done. Yeah, and
you can. Um. He was able to save ten of
(07:35):
those shots, uh 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. His wife
and his best friend like just doing stuff while I
was just doing stuff, like you know, like one of
them was swimming. You can't run alongside somebody's swimming. Apparently
was an impossible shot. I'm not quite sure why, Well,
(07:57):
you just couldn't run alongside someone doing anything. Oh okay,
that's what it was, even with a dolly. Uh well, no,
you could have. You could have laid dolly track down
the length of a swimming pool shirt 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 just to kind of ship maybe maybe that was
(08:19):
the impossibility of it. But then his buddy gets out
of the pool and like walking like he's he pivots
around him and I'm sure he When he put this
reel together and he sent it out, the directors are like, uh,
this is magic sorcery. Well it was mind blowing. And
some people say it was the first uh viral video
because it was shared around Hollywood literally in a matter
(08:41):
of days. Everybody in Hollywood was saying, what in the world,
Like you said, what is this sorcery this Garrett Brown
has bestowed upon us? Yeah, it's It was a bit
of a mic drop as far as that real goes.
And Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to
Garrett Brown that said, if you are really concerned about
(09:02):
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
bottom of the pole, which appears to be slowly moving.
All of that is Stanley kubrick Ian for hey, there's
(09:22):
a shadow, and and one of your shots of the steadicamp,
which is pretty cool of him to do, 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 what Garrett Brown had used to
get these shots except in those shadows. So he went
(09:44):
and went and immediately cut those those I think fourteen
seconds out of his reel and then released the second
edition and it it looked pretty good. I mean, it's
it's rough compared to today's standard, sure, but for the
time it was it was like unbelievable. It changed everything.
Um and one of the shots that he got was
(10:04):
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 as 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 spin around you.
And if that's shot sounds familiar. Uh. It actually attracted
(10:27):
a guy, a director named um John what is the
evil Son? Yea, um who said, I like this, I'm
going to use it in this little film I'm directing
called Rocky. And I didn't get whether or not this
was the case. But did they Um, did they locate
Rocky in Philadelphia because of those steps? Because he said,
(10:49):
how did you do that? And Um, where are those steps?
I don't think so, man, because I wondered that too, like,
uh like, did he not have a scene written where
Rocky just runs up those steps? I mean Stallone wrote it. Um,
I think they just have to ask him. Hey, Sly,
I was wondering that was pretty good, I answered in
(11:12):
that little moment. Someone will have to interpret that. Great
movie though. Man. I rewatched that. Yeah, like this year
from beginning to end, just phenomenal movie. I'm trying to
get Emily to watch it. You've never seen the original.
It's its own thing for sure. Like it's not really
(11:32):
it's a love story for the most part. It's a
love story and like, um, the triumph of the little Guy,
Yeah story for sure. Yeah, featuring boxing, that's exactly right.
But two and three and onward it's like a totally
different thing. Yeah, but those are good too. Yeah, they said,
let's take your story, take out the heart and insert
cocaine instead. Insert Mr. T. I don't get the cocaine reference. Oh,
(11:59):
it's just the eighties. Hollywood got hands, you know what
I mean, I got you. Uh. Yeah, that's a good question, though,
I wonder about that if he surely didn't remake it
for Philadelphia just for 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,
(12:21):
and he sent that real out and within that year
I believe ninety six, three Major Motion Pictures hired him
to operate his steadicamp for it. Um, there was Rocky,
there was um what was the one about what he
Guthrie bound for Glory? Yeah, I think that one came
out first, So that was the first actual like, uh,
(12:42):
and that one Uh, the steady came up was Garrett Brown,
I think for all these because he was the only
guy that knew how. He got a lot of work
early on. Yeah, and I think I think the patent
was still pending until ninety seven, so I'm sure the
thing out of his side. Everybody closed your eyes while
I shoot this. But on Bound for Glory, he was
on a crane even that lowered down, stepped off the crane,
(13:04):
so people have 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 world. Right, there would have been a cut
after the crane stopped, and then before you know, they
would have cut and they would have gotten a position
and then started up again. This is one smooth shot.
One smooth shot, yeah. And then the other one was
Marathon Man, so another right out of the blue. This
(13:25):
guy who was a commercial director and made short films
for Sesame Street changed filmmaking like single handedly, Yeah, and
won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. I got that
patent in seventy seven, and um, well that's it. That's
the history of the steadicam that's it. Everybody, good night.
(13:46):
But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
everyone how this thing works. Let's do it man, alright, Chuck,
(14:07):
So the city camp. Do you remember when we did
our episode on breathalyzers. Oh boy, that was a long
time ago, and we found out that the breathalyzer is
one of the most complicated machines. Yeah, on the planet.
I kind of hated that one, like there were there
were crystals involved somehow. I hated that one too, dark
crystals or um. This is a bit like that, like
(14:28):
if you really dive into city camps, like this article
on how stuff works does it's it's it's labyrinthine talk
about the dark crystal. We're talking labyrinth instead. Yeah, but
we're gonna simplify it because, uh, you don't need to
break this thing apart and look at every component like
this article does. I mean, it really gets involved. What
you should do is look at a picture of someone
(14:50):
operating one and just because when you look at it,
you go it all makes a lot more sense, 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, which is what the camera
and um it's components are mounted on. Right. Yeah, and
that arm it um I mean, just pick your picture
(15:13):
yourself wearing a uh like a baby beyorn baby carrier,
except for instead of the baby at your stern um,
there's a mechanical arm coming out like a spring arm lamp. Yeah,
like accordion arm or spring arm lamp. Right, and it's
virtually the same thing. Well, yeah, and you guess who
made one of these by himself before they started making
(15:35):
them for at home people. Who? Casey Who? My brother
of course? Really yeah, yeah, my brother made one of
these and like the early nineties out of door hinges
and rubber bands and springs. Does he still have it?
Is it in the Smithsonian? I don't know. It's in
the scott son Ian, which is where all mentioned with
all his pinball machines. Yeah, but he made one. He
(15:56):
basically did the same thing. He looked at it and
looked at these swing arm lamps and accordion arm lamps
and it's like, well, it's the same thing. I'll just
make a version of that. It is, And it worked
pretty good. It's virtually the same thing. So the whole
point of a steadicam is that it basically stimulates to
the arm at least simulates a human arm right to
where it can move around very easily. Um. And it
(16:19):
redistributes the weight of the camera, which can be up
to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more. The whole
unit is pretty heavy and it's not easy to operate,
but 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 so that it offsets
(16:41):
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. Um.
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. Yeah. The traditional it's called high mode
and low mode. And high mode is uh, it doesn't
(17:03):
mean it's high, it just means it's on the top
of the unit. 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 it in
low mode. If you want to film human you put
it in high mode. 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
(17:25):
think he did. Um. And this is the this is
the third part. The camera slit right. The sled is
what holds all the equipment 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. Then you get the pole itself and
(17:48):
then the I guess the arm is connected to the
pole by a a gibble gimbal, A gimble, that's right.
And it's like an old technology. It's basically something that
uses based le a gyroscopic action to um take the
movement of whatever is seeking to move, whatever you want
to hold still, and getting rid of it. Like everything
(18:10):
around it moves except for the thing that you want
to hold still. Yeah, it's pretty neat, 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 to put this together.
(18:31):
It's pretty pretty in depth as far as inventions go. Yeah,
and there's a little science to it. There's 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. Uh, how much mass there is to the object,
(18:53):
and how far that mass is from the uh, from
its own axis of rotation. So by spreading the camera out,
he basically took the you know, 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
(19:16):
takes away the center of gravity from the camera itself. Yeah,
because like with a regular camera where all the components
are in one single unit. That center of gravity is
inside the camera, 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
(19:38):
center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
which makes it very easy to balance. Yeah, and they
do a good job in this article. If you'd like,
just take a broomstick and you find that center of
gravity with your finger. You can hold it with with
your finger and lift it up and down right, and
it's it's just it's balanced on your finger as you're
(20:00):
hitting that center of balance. That's right. It's the same
principle um. And in fact, if you took, uh, if
you took that same broomstick and cut it off and
you just had three ft of broomstick and just took
your SLR camera and screwed that broomstick into the bottom
of your camera instead of a tripod, that would function.
(20:20):
You could walk around with that and it would be
steadier than if you just had it in your hand.
I could see that because of the change of the
center of graphic, 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 steadicamp. Sled then attached that to an
arm that that accordion arm and you're cooking with gas. Yeah,
(20:42):
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, um, just with your hand, 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 so that your movement of
you walking just gets lost within the arm before it
(21:04):
ever gets to the camera and could shake it. Yeah,
like if you did it with a broomstick, your arm
is the same thing as a stead camera, right, because
it's better if the steadicam arms is better than your
human arm, right, Yes, exactly. Pretty neat stuff. It is
neat stuff, um. And I think that's it for the
science man. We made it through it. Yeah, I mean
it's all got to be very precisely balanced. Um, you
(21:26):
don't just throw the stuff on the pole willie nilly
and though, and they point out that the balance of
the camera can actually change during filming, just from the
film moving from one end to the camera to the
other as as it records. Well, yeah, in the old
days when they use film, sure, nowadays it's just that
digital card. Yeah, I'm well not always in Tarantino's camera
operators have to deal with this. Yeah, And if you've
(21:48):
ever been on a job with a steadicam, there are
a lot of uh, 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 the steadicam. 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 still a lot of weight
(22:10):
to be carrying on a vest on your chest and
running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah,
it's it's it's it's a tough gig. Like there's a
pretty amazing video did you watch it of that Eurovision shot.
There's a guy from I think Belarus singing, and they
showed they showed him like he's like they they showed
(22:30):
the shot, and then they showed what somebody filming the
shot being done, and the guy with the set caam
wearing the vest rides down the aisle on a um segue.
Is that what he's on? 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.
(22:52):
But then when you see how it's done, Wow, I
think I deserved a standing ovation. It would have been
more impressive hit it not like the subject matter been
more interesting in the video quality been better. Pretty pretty bad.
Like if it was a Scorsese movie, you would be
like wow, but it was just you know, kind of corny. Well,
I mean it looked like an American idol or something
it was, but it was American idol. If you took
(23:15):
American idol at its peak and then spread it out
over Eurasia and and like it was popular over that
that large of a population. That's what Eurovision is. That's right.
So you want to talk about some of the shots
when we come back after a break, please, Okay, alright,
(23:50):
So Chuck. Um. In addition to that Rocky shot and
that Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots,
classic shots of all time. Uh yeah, that had to
do with steadicam. It couldn't have been done with without
steady cam. Well, The Shining is the first one that
pops into most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick
(24:10):
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 um,
apparently they kind of battled one another quite a bit
on the set 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
(24:33):
of getting in the way of this like brilliant all tour. So, um,
Kubrick already had his own ideas on how to best
use this thing that this other guy invented. Um. And
you know the Shining, classic example, those tricycle shots, the
famous maze chase at the end, uh, very iconic in
motion picture history. And um, I mean the how did
(24:56):
they do? You know how they did that that shot
behind Danny and his a little big. They probably just
went into low mode and uh like walked behind him
or I ran down the hall after him. That's really impressive.
So the shining is a big one. Rocky is a
big one. Good Fellas is another classic example to classic
UM where Rayliota and Lorraine Brocko are going into the
(25:17):
Copa Cabana, but they go through the back and they're
followed like throughout like the backstairs into the kitchen, and
then they finally come out into their table and UM,
it's like one uninterrupted like five minute shot or something.
It's amazing and it's um. I think when you see this,
you're you might see it and not be a discerning
(25:37):
film you were and just say, well that but I
didn't notice anything, which is probably good UM. Or you
might be a fan of steadicam and just say, man,
that was amazing. Uh. Then you have to step back
and look at lighting and realize that how incredibly hard
it is to light a shot like that that takes
place over I don't know how many hundreds of feet
but without seeing the lights in the shot. Well that
(26:00):
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 shot. You know,
they were like, wait, what do you want to do? Yeah,
it would be great, don't worry about it, stay with me. Uh.
(26:21):
You know he's making another gangster movie. No, I didn't
know that. Yeah, and it may be like the some
folks are saying it's like, you know, his last big
gangster movie. Yeah, but it's got de Niro again. Uh,
he had worked with him in a long time. Um
Pacino and Joe Pecci is coming out of retirement. I
(26:42):
didn't even know he was retired. I just thought he
wasn't doing stuff anytham Man he retired. Yeah, so he's
he's got the three heavyweights and supposedly Harvey cut Tail.
Of course you gotta throw him in there. But I'm
just like giddy thinking about this. Yeah, I'm glad he
is because his last one was departed right now. He's
made movies since then, like Wolf of All Street, yeah,
(27:04):
which I thought was great. I know you didn't love it.
I thought it was awesome. I thought everything. But what
Jack Nicholson did was was pretty good. Yeah like his performance. No,
I really didn't. Well, sorry Jack, He'll forgive that all right,
because you like him as an actor, right, okay? Uh,
(27:24):
come on Return of the Jedi, the famous um speeder
bike chase scene and uh yeah, California's Redwood National Park
doubled his indoor and that was Garrett Brown, uh walking
and they sped it up. Yeah. But and then you're
(27:47):
just like, wow, who cares. The reason why it's such
an iconic steadycam shot is because he walked very slowly,
and when you speed film up the tiny movements involved
their telegraphed, they just become much more exaggerated. So without
a steadicam when they sped the film up again, it
would have been just so blurry and just jarring. It
(28:08):
would have been unusable. Yeah. The fact that you can
see the trees and stuff, and even at that high speed,
it's all steady cam. 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. Uh. And nowadays
(28:28):
you can they're all manner of at home steady caam.
You don't have to do like my brother and build
one out of spare parts and door hinges. You can
buy one for not too much. You can. He's been
a hundred dollars on a on a decent enough little home. Steadicam.
They this article says that the UM Steadicam curve, which
(28:51):
was made for Go pros, it was like a hundred bucks. Yeah,
well those are teeny tiny. And there's one for UM
the iPhone called UM what's it called the Smoothie. That
one is like it's like, I think even less than
a hundred bucks, and it's just like a handheld camera
stabilizer that works pretty well from what I can gather. Yeah,
we should have had Casey, our video producer Casey he's
(29:13):
in France right now though, living the high life. We
should have had Casey in here just giving thumbs upper
thumbs down to each one of these brands that you
mentioned and that would trust that is like the gospel truth.
But Casey's not here, so we're just gonna say read
online reviews. I also saw that there's like a lot
(29:34):
of UM Gimbal based drone steady camps. Yeah that are
just not not that expensive. They're changing the game again.
Because then you can 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,
(29:54):
like the Quisp Monster. What the Quisp monster? Remember the
alien from Quisp Cereal? Uh? Do remember quiz? Remember the
weird alien sort of at an eat Quisp? Wasn't that
a Captain Crunch knock offer? It was a different It
was different because they were saucer shaped rather than square
waffle cut got same thing though, Yeah, same thing. It
(30:15):
was good. It didn't cut the tongue like Captain Crunch did. Yeah,
the roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still. Uh.
And then of course, uh, Steadicam is a name brand, right, Yeah,
it's made Uh who makes it? Tiffin? Tiffin? Now that's
what Yeah, I think I think Tiffin does. They have
a pretty good site, like if you alright all interested
(30:38):
in this, Like, they've got a great site and they
have all of their Steadicam 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. Yeah, there's other companies making them.
There's one called gladecam in Verra zoom. Yeah, but you know,
steadicam is still probably the giant. It's like dollies. There's
only two dolly makers, well or there maybe more now,
(31:01):
but it's like Chapman and Fisher and each you know,
every dolly grip has the dolly makers. Yeah, Chapman dollars
or Fisher dollis. It's kind of like Jamison or bush Mills,
you know, food Wiser course neither uh and then um
Garrett Brown, as if the steady cam wasn't enough as
(31:21):
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 for
football in in football, um, 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. Like
(31:44):
it's nothing. It's pretty neat. Garrett Brown invented that too.
I got one more little thing for you. Uh. There
are two positions, uh not high mode. Low mode positions
are like how you're operating the camera, but uh, if
you are pointing for it as an operator and your
camera is pointing forward, you're just walking, It's called missionary No.
(32:06):
And then if you are, uh, if the operators 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 don Juand yeah,
I never heard of that one. I hadn't either. Well,
if you want to know more about steadycams, including a
(32:28):
really really fine grain involved look at the physics of
how the steady cam arm works, you should go type
steady cam into the search part how stuff works dot com.
Since I said search parts sign for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this, uh encouragement from a Christian listening. Hey, guys,
(32:50):
I was listening to the Easter Show and it's 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 simultaneous sad when
you felt you had to tiptoe around the pagan traditions
that have been integrated with the resurrection. Uh. Find it
disheartening to think that other believers can't find anything better
to do than wait to be offended by something then
(33:11):
jump all over you for it. But based on your
years of experience and careful 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. Uh. It's also nice just to hear you
talk about things directly related to my beliefs without sneering. Uh,
(33:32):
like many others will. That's nice Dane in Minnesota. Yeah,
for real thing. If you want to get in touch
of this like Dane did and be a super cool person,
you can tweet to us a s y s K podcast.
You can also follow the behind the scenes action of
Chucks in My Life UM at s y s K
podcast on Instagram. You can join us on Facebook dot
(33:54):
com slash stuff you Should Know for the hurt, and
you can send us an email the Stuff podcast the
house Stuff Works dot Com. In the meantime, while you're
doing all this, hang out with us at our home
on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
(34:14):
Stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. 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 stiff you should know. Yeah, still still
(00:20):
pretty sad. Yeah, are you really sure? Alright? You know
what I'm getting the Josh's referencing my last chance garage
hat that I've talked way too much about. Um, I'm
getting the patch remade as we speak. WHOA actually found
one an eBay that had been sold three months ago,
and he's all a big conspiracy? Is that right now? Okay?
(00:44):
But I found a picture of the patch that I
sent to a patchmaker who like, can digitally reproduced this thing.
Nice man. Well then I got to find in the
right hat. It's coming back home. Well that's step one.
That's a big step one. Yeah, I'm getting a few
patches and a few hats this time. I think that's
a good idea. You can name them one through eight.
That's right. Uh, let's see, Chuck, you worked in the
(01:06):
film industry previously, So did you technically? Yeah? Um, you
did more than I did by far. You worked in
front of and behind the camera. Um, did you ever
work with a steadicam at all? Yeah? So, like you've
seen these things up close. I don't recall Scott or
anybody using one. We did not have one on our show.
(01:29):
Okay they're expensive, okay, but I mean there's some pretty
good equipment on set, it seemed like, but there was
no steadicam 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 extendoh arm
camera with like all of the components exploded out in
the different parts of a poll. That didn't happen because
(01:49):
he would have walked in and said, what's that right,
and everyone would have laughed, and you would have been like,
what does everyone make me? Uh? Now, we never is
one on our TV show for science shown because, like
I said, it's pricey to rent um and this is
a bit of a giveaway, but a person steady cam
operator comes with the package with all the equipment. It's
(02:14):
a lot of times their own, and uh it's you know,
it's pricey to pay for that, that lady or that dude.
But the reason it is prices because it's it has
a really good effect and the person who's doing it
really knows what they're doing. Yeah, I don't know, but
(02:34):
just from researching this, it seemed like they were probably
the most skilled tradesperson on the set at any given
time when they were on the set. Is that right? Well,
I think it's just a matter of what skill. Uh,
it's just a different skill. Are they like the highest
stechelon of camera operators? No, it's just different, like a
top nine. Yeah, okay, I got but but you don't
(02:55):
just wade into steadycam and and start getting work the
next day. It does take a lot of work to master.
But like a good Dolly grip, uh is just as skilled.
It just pushing that thing around. But that takes a
very non herky jerky. Well it's not in the herky
jerky anyway, but just to hit the marks right And yeah,
(03:15):
I mean all that stuff takes a great amount of skill. Well,
let's talk about this because stead camp. You know, when
I came of age, it was already invented. It wasn't.
It was basically became commercially available a year I was born.
So I don't really know a world prior to Steady camp.
I've never seen a movie that came up before, and um,
I'm just used to it, right, But it's it's it's
(03:38):
interesting to look back and see that there there actually
is a point in time where this one dude who
was actually kind of an outsider of the movie business,
um basically changed it permanently forever for sure. Yea. His
name was Garrett Brown. Is Garrett Brown. Yeah, he's still
around right, Yeah, and he um, he was working for well,
(04:00):
he was working in TV commercials in on Sesame Street
in Philadelphia, and um, he got a little frustrated, as
camera people do, uh pre steadicam with not being able
to accomplish certain shots. Yeah, there's supposedly there were thirty
impossible shots that just based on the the equipment at
(04:22):
the of the day, you just couldn't do right. Yeah. Well,
and a lot of it had to do with like
rough terrain. Staircases were a big one. And the reason
the shots were impossible. It's not like you couldn't log
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 that it would
be unusable. Yeah. And then this was in the day before.
(04:46):
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 because it looked different and people were used
to kind of smoother looking things ings and mainstream movies
at the time. Yeah, it had like a real phrenetic
energy to it. Yeah, which you see all the time now.
(05:07):
It's like a bona fide thing. But it wasn't just
like picking up the movements of the camera. It was
like telegraphing them. As far as the human brains 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
(05:27):
that it offsets the movement and the motion and the
jarring um 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. Yeah, you wouldn't. People
wouldn't jog. They would get sick and vomit every time
they jog, exactly right, and you certainly wouldn't be able
to like read us magazine while you were jogging or
(05:48):
something like that. And the fact that you can it
really is uh, it really shows how incredibly complex and
well developed the system is. Right. That's what the steadicam
that Garrett brown Um created sought to recreate and he
did it. He nailed it, like I'm the first time out. Basically. Yeah,
because we we mentioned a dolly. That is Um, people
(06:10):
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 the movie,
they just think it sounds funny. Um. But the dolly
is how you typically would get a smooth shot. It's
just a big, super super heavy sled with wheels. The
camera sits on and the camera operator sits on, and
(06:31):
it's either on a very smooth floor, it's on a
piece of track like a little railroad car and it
pushes along and that's how you get those nice smooth shots.
So that's a dolly. The problem with the dolly is
is you can't really lay that track over um, a
rocky terrain if you're filming on Mars or something like that. No,
and like you said, you can't push it up and
(06:51):
downstairs just had its limitations, right, it did. So Garrett
Brown said, I'm sick of these limitations. I'm so tired
of being limited by Dolly, stupid Dolly. I'm gonna invent
something better. And so he tinkered around um with his
what was called the Brown Stabilizer at first, which he
later renamed the Steadicam and to show off um, Like,
(07:14):
at first he he was just using him in commercials,
and he was like, this is way bigger than just commercials.
I'm gonna 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 Steadicam,
but he didn't show how it was done. Yeah, and
you can. Um. He was able to save ten of
(07:35):
those shots, uh 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. His wife
and his best friend like just doing stuff while I
was just doing stuff, like you know, like one of
them was swimming. You can't run alongside somebody's swimming. Apparently
was an impossible shot. I'm not quite sure why, Well,
(07:57):
you just couldn't run alongside someone doing anything. Oh okay,
that's what it was, even with a dolly. Uh well, no,
you could have. You could have laid dolly track down
the length of a swimming pool shirt 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 just to kind of ship maybe maybe that was
(08:19):
the impossibility of it. But then his buddy gets out
of the pool and like walking like he's he pivots
around him and I'm sure he When he put this
reel together and he sent it out, the directors are like, uh,
this is magic sorcery. Well it was mind blowing. And
some people say it was the first uh viral video
because it was shared around Hollywood literally in a matter
(08:41):
of days. Everybody in Hollywood was saying, what in the world,
Like you said, what is this sorcery this Garrett Brown
has bestowed upon us? Yeah, it's It was a bit
of a mic drop as far as that real goes.
And Stanley Kubrick being Stanley Kubrick sent a message to
Garrett Brown that said, if you are really concerned about
(09:02):
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
bottom of the pole, which appears to be slowly moving.
All of that is Stanley kubrick Ian for hey, there's
(09:22):
a shadow, and and one of your shots of the steadicamp,
which is pretty cool of him to do, 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 what Garrett Brown had used to
get these shots except in those shadows. So he went
(09:44):
and went and immediately cut those those I think fourteen
seconds out of his reel and then released the second
edition and it it looked pretty good. I mean, it's
it's rough compared to today's standard, sure, but for the
time it was it was like unbelievable. It changed everything.
Um and one of the shots that he got was
(10:04):
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 as 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 spin around you.
And if that's shot sounds familiar. Uh. It actually attracted
(10:27):
a guy, a director named um John what is the
evil Son? Yea, um who said, I like this, I'm
going to use it in this little film I'm directing
called Rocky. And I didn't get whether or not this
was the case. But did they Um, did they locate
Rocky in Philadelphia because of those steps? Because he said,
(10:49):
how did you do that? And Um, where are those steps?
I don't think so, man, because I wondered that too, like,
uh like, did he not have a scene written where
Rocky just runs up those steps? I mean Stallone wrote it. Um,
I think they just have to ask him. Hey, Sly,
I was wondering that was pretty good, I answered in
(11:12):
that little moment. Someone will have to interpret that. Great
movie though. Man. I rewatched that. Yeah, like this year
from beginning to end, just phenomenal movie. I'm trying to
get Emily to watch it. You've never seen the original.
It's its own thing for sure. Like it's not really
(11:32):
it's a love story for the most part. It's a
love story and like, um, the triumph of the little Guy,
Yeah story for sure. Yeah, featuring boxing, that's exactly right.
But two and three and onward it's like a totally
different thing. Yeah, but those are good too. Yeah, they said,
let's take your story, take out the heart and insert
cocaine instead. Insert Mr. T. I don't get the cocaine reference. Oh,
(11:59):
it's just the eighties. Hollywood got hands, you know what
I mean, I got you. Uh. Yeah, that's a good question, though,
I wonder about that if he surely didn't remake it
for Philadelphia just for 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,
(12:21):
and he sent that real out and within that year
I believe ninety six, three Major Motion Pictures hired him
to operate his steadicamp for it. Um, there was Rocky,
there was um what was the one about what he
Guthrie bound for Glory? Yeah, I think that one came
out first, So that was the first actual like, uh,
(12:42):
and that one Uh, the steady came up was Garrett Brown,
I think for all these because he was the only
guy that knew how. He got a lot of work
early on. Yeah, and I think I think the patent
was still pending until ninety seven, so I'm sure the
thing out of his side. Everybody closed your eyes while
I shoot this. But on Bound for Glory, he was
on a crane even that lowered down, stepped off the crane,
(13:04):
so people have 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 world. Right, there would have been a cut
after the crane stopped, and then before you know, they
would have cut and they would have gotten a position
and then started up again. This is one smooth shot.
One smooth shot, yeah. And then the other one was
Marathon Man, so another right out of the blue. This
(13:25):
guy who was a commercial director and made short films
for Sesame Street changed filmmaking like single handedly, Yeah, and
won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. I got that
patent in seventy seven, and um, well that's it. That's
the history of the steadicam that's it. Everybody, good night.
(13:46):
But we're gonna should we take a break and tell
everyone how this thing works. Let's do it man, alright, Chuck,
(14:07):
So the city camp. Do you remember when we did
our episode on breathalyzers. Oh boy, that was a long
time ago, and we found out that the breathalyzer is
one of the most complicated machines. Yeah, on the planet.
I kind of hated that one, like there were there
were crystals involved somehow. I hated that one too, dark
crystals or um. This is a bit like that, like
(14:28):
if you really dive into city camps, like this article
on how stuff works does it's it's it's labyrinthine talk
about the dark crystal. We're talking labyrinth instead. Yeah, but
we're gonna simplify it because, uh, you don't need to
break this thing apart and look at every component like
this article does. I mean, it really gets involved. What
you should do is look at a picture of someone
(14:50):
operating one and just because when you look at it,
you go it all makes a lot more sense, 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, which is what the camera
and um it's components are mounted on. Right. Yeah, and
that arm it um I mean, just pick your picture
(15:13):
yourself wearing a uh like a baby beyorn baby carrier,
except for instead of the baby at your stern um,
there's a mechanical arm coming out like a spring arm lamp. Yeah,
like accordion arm or spring arm lamp. Right, and it's
virtually the same thing. Well, yeah, and you guess who
made one of these by himself before they started making
(15:35):
them for at home people. Who? Casey Who? My brother
of course? Really yeah, yeah, my brother made one of
these and like the early nineties out of door hinges
and rubber bands and springs. Does he still have it?
Is it in the Smithsonian? I don't know. It's in
the scott son Ian, which is where all mentioned with
all his pinball machines. Yeah, but he made one. He
(15:56):
basically did the same thing. He looked at it and
looked at these swing arm lamps and accordion arm lamps
and it's like, well, it's the same thing. I'll just
make a version of that. It is, And it worked
pretty good. It's virtually the same thing. So the whole
point of a steadicam is that it basically stimulates to
the arm at least simulates a human arm right to
where it can move around very easily. Um. And it
(16:19):
redistributes the weight of the camera, which can be up
to like seventy pounds I imagine probably more. The whole
unit is pretty heavy and it's not easy to operate,
but 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 so that it offsets
(16:41):
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. Um.
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. Yeah. The traditional it's called high mode
and low mode. And high mode is uh, it doesn't
(17:03):
mean it's high, it just means it's on the top
of the unit. 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 it in
low mode. If you want to film human you put
it in high mode. 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
(17:25):
think he did. Um. And this is the this is
the third part. The camera slit right. The sled is
what holds all the equipment 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. Then you get the pole itself and
(17:48):
then the I guess the arm is connected to the
pole by a a gibble gimbal, A gimble, that's right.
And it's like an old technology. It's basically something that
uses based le a gyroscopic action to um take the
movement of whatever is seeking to move, whatever you want
to hold still, and getting rid of it. Like everything
(18:10):
around it moves except for the thing that you want
to hold still. Yeah, it's pretty neat, 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 to put this together.
(18:31):
It's pretty pretty in depth as far as inventions go. Yeah,
and there's a little science to it. There's 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. Uh, how much mass there is to the object,
(18:53):
and how far that mass is from the uh, from
its own axis of rotation. So by spreading the camera out,
he basically took the you know, 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
(19:16):
takes away the center of gravity from the camera itself. Yeah,
because like with a regular camera where all the components
are in one single unit. That center of gravity is
inside the camera, 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
(19:38):
center of gravity, so that the camera operator holds the
pole and manipulates the camera at the center of gravity,
which makes it very easy to balance. Yeah, and they
do a good job in this article. If you'd like,
just take a broomstick and you find that center of
gravity with your finger. You can hold it with with
your finger and lift it up and down right, and
it's it's just it's balanced on your finger as you're
(20:00):
hitting that center of balance. That's right. It's the same
principle um. And in fact, if you took, uh, if
you took that same broomstick and cut it off and
you just had three ft of broomstick and just took
your SLR camera and screwed that broomstick into the bottom
of your camera instead of a tripod, that would function.
(20:20):
You could walk around with that and it would be
steadier than if you just had it in your hand.
I could see that because of the change of the
center of graphic, 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 steadicamp. Sled then attached that to an
arm that that accordion arm and you're cooking with gas. Yeah,
(20:42):
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, um, just with your hand, 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 so that your movement of
you walking just gets lost within the arm before it
(21:04):
ever gets to the camera and could shake it. Yeah,
like if you did it with a broomstick, your arm
is the same thing as a stead camera, right, because
it's better if the steadicam arms is better than your
human arm, right, Yes, exactly. Pretty neat stuff. It is
neat stuff, um. And I think that's it for the
science man. We made it through it. Yeah, I mean
it's all got to be very precisely balanced. Um, you
(21:26):
don't just throw the stuff on the pole willie nilly
and though, and they point out that the balance of
the camera can actually change during filming, just from the
film moving from one end to the camera to the
other as as it records. Well, yeah, in the old
days when they use film, sure, nowadays it's just that
digital card. Yeah, I'm well not always in Tarantino's camera
operators have to deal with this. Yeah, And if you've
(21:48):
ever been on a job with a steadicam, there are
a lot of uh, 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 the steadicam. 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 still a lot of weight
(22:10):
to be carrying on a vest on your chest and
running and moving and doing all sorts of stuff. Yeah,
it's it's it's it's a tough gig. Like there's a
pretty amazing video did you watch it of that Eurovision shot.
There's a guy from I think Belarus singing, and they
showed they showed him like he's like they they showed
(22:30):
the shot, and then they showed what somebody filming the
shot being done, and the guy with the set caam
wearing the vest rides down the aisle on a um segue.
Is that what he's on? 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.
(22:52):
But then when you see how it's done, Wow, I
think I deserved a standing ovation. It would have been
more impressive hit it not like the subject matter been
more interesting in the video quality been better. Pretty pretty bad.
Like if it was a Scorsese movie, you would be
like wow, but it was just you know, kind of corny. Well,
I mean it looked like an American idol or something
it was, but it was American idol. If you took
(23:15):
American idol at its peak and then spread it out
over Eurasia and and like it was popular over that
that large of a population. That's what Eurovision is. That's right.
So you want to talk about some of the shots
when we come back after a break, please, Okay, alright,
(23:50):
So Chuck. Um. In addition to that Rocky shot and
that Eurovision shot, there are some other very famous shots,
classic shots of all time. Uh yeah, that had to
do with steadicam. It couldn't have been done with without
steady cam. Well, The Shining is the first one that
pops into most people's minds because, like we said, Kubrick
(24:10):
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 um,
apparently they kind of battled one another quite a bit
on the set 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
(24:33):
of getting in the way of this like brilliant all tour. So, um,
Kubrick already had his own ideas on how to best
use this thing that this other guy invented. Um. And
you know the Shining, classic example, those tricycle shots, the
famous maze chase at the end, uh, very iconic in
motion picture history. And um, I mean the how did
(24:56):
they do? You know how they did that that shot
behind Danny and his a little big. They probably just
went into low mode and uh like walked behind him
or I ran down the hall after him. That's really impressive.
So the shining is a big one. Rocky is a
big one. Good Fellas is another classic example to classic
UM where Rayliota and Lorraine Brocko are going into the
(25:17):
Copa Cabana, but they go through the back and they're
followed like throughout like the backstairs into the kitchen, and
then they finally come out into their table and UM,
it's like one uninterrupted like five minute shot or something.
It's amazing and it's um. I think when you see this,
you're you might see it and not be a discerning
(25:37):
film you were and just say, well that but I
didn't notice anything, which is probably good UM. Or you
might be a fan of steadicam and just say, man,
that was amazing. Uh. Then you have to step back
and look at lighting and realize that how incredibly hard
it is to light a shot like that that takes
place over I don't know how many hundreds of feet
but without seeing the lights in the shot. Well that
(26:00):
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 shot. You know,
they were like, wait, what do you want to do? Yeah,
it would be great, don't worry about it, stay with me. Uh.
(26:21):
You know he's making another gangster movie. No, I didn't
know that. Yeah, and it may be like the some
folks are saying it's like, you know, his last big
gangster movie. Yeah, but it's got de Niro again. Uh,
he had worked with him in a long time. Um
Pacino and Joe Pecci is coming out of retirement. I
(26:42):
didn't even know he was retired. I just thought he
wasn't doing stuff anytham Man he retired. Yeah, so he's
he's got the three heavyweights and supposedly Harvey cut Tail.
Of course you gotta throw him in there. But I'm
just like giddy thinking about this. Yeah, I'm glad he
is because his last one was departed right now. He's
made movies since then, like Wolf of All Street, yeah,
(27:04):
which I thought was great. I know you didn't love it.
I thought it was awesome. I thought everything. But what
Jack Nicholson did was was pretty good. Yeah like his performance. No,
I really didn't. Well, sorry Jack, He'll forgive that all right,
because you like him as an actor, right, okay? Uh,
(27:24):
come on Return of the Jedi, the famous um speeder
bike chase scene and uh yeah, California's Redwood National Park
doubled his indoor and that was Garrett Brown, uh walking
and they sped it up. Yeah. But and then you're
(27:47):
just like, wow, who cares. The reason why it's such
an iconic steadycam shot is because he walked very slowly,
and when you speed film up the tiny movements involved
their telegraphed, they just become much more exaggerated. So without
a steadicam when they sped the film up again, it
would have been just so blurry and just jarring. It
(28:08):
would have been unusable. Yeah. The fact that you can
see the trees and stuff, and even at that high speed,
it's all steady cam. 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. Uh. And nowadays
(28:28):
you can they're all manner of at home steady caam.
You don't have to do like my brother and build
one out of spare parts and door hinges. You can
buy one for not too much. You can. He's been
a hundred dollars on a on a decent enough little home. Steadicam.
They this article says that the UM Steadicam curve, which
(28:51):
was made for Go pros, it was like a hundred bucks. Yeah,
well those are teeny tiny. And there's one for UM
the iPhone called UM what's it called the Smoothie. That
one is like it's like, I think even less than
a hundred bucks, and it's just like a handheld camera
stabilizer that works pretty well from what I can gather. Yeah,
we should have had Casey, our video producer Casey he's
(29:13):
in France right now though, living the high life. We
should have had Casey in here just giving thumbs upper
thumbs down to each one of these brands that you
mentioned and that would trust that is like the gospel truth.
But Casey's not here, so we're just gonna say read
online reviews. I also saw that there's like a lot
(29:34):
of UM Gimbal based drone steady camps. Yeah that are
just not not that expensive. They're changing the game again.
Because then you can 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,
(29:54):
like the Quisp Monster. What the Quisp monster? Remember the
alien from Quisp Cereal? Uh? Do remember quiz? Remember the
weird alien sort of at an eat Quisp? Wasn't that
a Captain Crunch knock offer? It was a different It
was different because they were saucer shaped rather than square
waffle cut got same thing though, Yeah, same thing. It
(30:15):
was good. It didn't cut the tongue like Captain Crunch did. Yeah,
the roof of the mouth. I'll suffer through that still. Uh.
And then of course, uh, Steadicam is a name brand, right, Yeah,
it's made Uh who makes it? Tiffin? Tiffin? Now that's
what Yeah, I think I think Tiffin does. They have
a pretty good site, like if you alright all interested
(30:38):
in this, Like, they've got a great site and they
have all of their Steadicam 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. Yeah, there's other companies making them.
There's one called gladecam in Verra zoom. Yeah, but you know,
steadicam is still probably the giant. It's like dollies. There's
only two dolly makers, well or there maybe more now,
(31:01):
but it's like Chapman and Fisher and each you know,
every dolly grip has the dolly makers. Yeah, Chapman dollars
or Fisher dollis. It's kind of like Jamison or bush Mills,
you know, food Wiser course neither uh and then um
Garrett Brown, as if the steady cam wasn't enough as
(31:21):
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 for
football in in football, um, 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. Like
(31:44):
it's nothing. It's pretty neat. Garrett Brown invented that too.
I got one more little thing for you. Uh. There
are two positions, uh not high mode. Low mode positions
are like how you're operating the camera, but uh, if
you are pointing for it as an operator and your
camera is pointing forward, you're just walking, It's called missionary No.
(32:06):
And then if you are, uh, if the operators 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 don Juand yeah,
I never heard of that one. I hadn't either. Well,
if you want to know more about steadycams, including a
(32:28):
really really fine grain involved look at the physics of
how the steady cam arm works, you should go type
steady cam into the search part how stuff works dot com.
Since I said search parts sign for a listener mail,
I'm gonna call this, uh encouragement from a Christian listening. Hey, guys,
(32:50):
I was listening to the Easter Show and it's 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 simultaneous sad when
you felt you had to tiptoe around the pagan traditions
that have been integrated with the resurrection. Uh. Find it
disheartening to think that other believers can't find anything better
to do than wait to be offended by something then
(33:11):
jump all over you for it. But based on your
years of experience and careful 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. Uh. It's also nice just to hear you
talk about things directly related to my beliefs without sneering. Uh,
(33:32):
like many others will. That's nice Dane in Minnesota. Yeah,
for real thing. If you want to get in touch
of this like Dane did and be a super cool person,
you can tweet to us a s y s K podcast.
You can also follow the behind the scenes action of
Chucks in My Life UM at s y s K
podcast on Instagram. You can join us on Facebook dot
(33:54):
com slash stuff you Should Know for the hurt, and
you can send us an email the Stuff podcast the
house Stuff Works dot Com. In the meantime, while you're
doing all this, hang out with us at our home
on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
(34:14):
Stuff Works dot com.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
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.