Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

I’m not sure where it says in the Health and Safety manual that we should go straight onto Steadicam at 6am call time and keep Tommy in the rig until midnight. It happens… very regularly.

Here are a few little recent occurances of Thomas English abuse. The thing is he doesn’t mind that much. Its ok. Just make sure you pay him.

Wiley ft Jodie Connor _ J2K _Electric Boogaloo (Find A Way) from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Katy B Lights On feat. Ms. Dynamite Official Music Video from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Jodie Connor – Now or Never (feat. Wiley) from Thomas English on Vimeo.

This final one wasn’t a long day but was a lot of long takes over quiet a large ground. I do really enjoy doing “one shot” promos. I’ll be honest; I would have wanted about 5 more takes on this to get blocking/synching/camera all perfect but we were stitched up with the weather and kids having their own Health and Safety rules. I think this was the second take with little blocking. It turned out well I think.

GET CAPE. WEAR CAPE. FLY. | COLLAPSING CITIES FEAT. SHY FX from Thomas English on Vimeo.

I ended up using blue tak to fix a bartech radio follow focus motor! I am going to get Brian Busbee at Bees engineering to put focus gears onto the ringlight controller but for now this seemed to work ok!

Ringlight Control from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

I worked earlier this year on a 3D feature film using 2 RED cameras on the PS Technik flyer rig. Really proving that it is all possible in anger. I did a lot of my shots off the rickshaw, which incidentally we broke because the rig was so heavy, some vehicle mounted and some body mounted shots.

It was a complicated system that we had to move quickly with. Essentially the film being a feature-documentary; the actors don’t wait around for you and the action happens without an AD’s command. We had a lot of technical rigging and button pressing to do in very little time so it was a really good project to push the PS Technik rig to the extremes. 3D rigs with cameras as heavy as REDs become so massive. You can see me in the following video having to duck under the back of the rig if I wanted to do a “Switch”; change the orientation the camera has to the truck. It was also interesting powering all that off my Steadicam rig! Some rigs have difficulty powering just one RED camera. Here I had two RED cameras, 2 C-Motion units, 1 Downconverter, 2 Lockit Box’s and all the usual Steadicam gubbins.

3D Feature Film from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Our 3D team was Chris Parks and Matt Smith from Vision3 and the PS Techniks rig and cameras where supplied by FavaRental.co.uk

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

Here is just some of the work I do for Burberry. It is intercut with some stills work by Mario Testino and some “Making off” footage of bags being manufactured and catwalk. All the beauty shots are done by myself on Steadicam for Jeremy Valender.

For reasons of obvious aesthetics we use fairly long focal lengths. Generally the widest we go is 100mm (35mm equivalent) and often up to 200mm (35mm equiv.). This is difficult on Steadicam but very rewarding.

Burberry SS10 Campaign_ Accessories Collection from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

I was the Steadicam Operator last year on this feature film; 4321. I also did Noel Clarke’s previous film “Kidulthood”. The DoP was Franco Pezzino and I had worked for him before on music videos including a James Blunt one. It was a fun shoot. A few running shots as you would expect from this kind of movie. I couldn’t think of a better theme for a film: 4 hot girls robbing criminals; but I am sure plenty of people would disagree.

Here is the trailer:

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

Another solid all day Steadicam promo for Dave Miller DoP. A little rest at the end for the body rig. I am frequently asked on Steadicam jobs to make it less “Steady”. They want something smoother than handheld but they don’t want nailed shots Steadicam can deliver. They want energy injected into the shot. It’s crazy really having to unlearn everything you’ve learnt but I think its important not to get too wrapped up in your craft and go for it!

I am credited on this on as Tommy English. I always know its a Dave Miller job because I get a call from production asking to speak to Tommy English. I heard once that Gypsies have like 7 names; Their business name, their family name, their close friends name etc etc. That way they would always know why someone that turned up to the travelling site was looking for them by the name they were asking for.

I was lucky to use Howard Smiths own AR rig that had a hack on the brain enabling us to spin the camera. It is crazy difficult trying to operate with a camera upside down! I practised for a week and sort of got there. I invented all sorts of psychological trickery to try and do it. It worked.

Welsh Stop Smoking Campaign from Thomas English on Vimeo.

The rest of my AR Showreel can be seen on my main showreel page

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389 .

Pendulum Watercolor from Thomas English on Vimeo.

I camera operated for the world renowned Joe Dyer DoP extraordinaire and my good buddies Barney Steel and Mike Sharpe from The Found Collective. These guys are geniuses at integrating VFX and SFX. They know their software inside out and often come back to in-camera effects to save on render times. Its such a pleasure working with directors that truly understand and are truly, well… insanely experimental.

They and Joe allowed me to test out my new shift and tilty wobbly LensBaby lens on this job and it was so loved I used it all day! I did do a little Steadicam at the start but really on this one… I was a Lensbaby operator. I would say that my little Lensbaby honey was probably the best money I ever spent.

Its not the easiest thing to get the hang off. I wasn’t just using it as a shift and tilt lens but also as a means of moving the image across the film plane in pulses and shakes. I spent the whole weekend before practising with the thing trying to get different types of wobble, smears, chromatic aberations and flares. But really, the Lens baby, was a resounding success.

Here is a little making-off:

Pendulum Watercolor making off: LensBaby operating from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389

3D RED cameras on Steadicam from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Patric at Fava rental has had his P+S Technik Freestyle 3D rig delivered. So I did some Steadicam testing. I could not wait to try it out with two RED cameras in.

OK… It is heavy but not unmanageably so. With two RED cameras on there and two zoom lenses it maxes out my Steadicam G70 arm. This makes a total rig weight of 90lbs (41kg) including my vest and arm. The young lady I loiter with these days does not weigh much more. Essentially this rig is fine for well worked out and choreographed shots we do on drama; but with two REDs inside it the rig becomes no good for the kind of run and gun documentary style shooting we are becoming used to in music videos.

I am pleased with my results testing wise. I only tested it vis a vis operating on Steadicam. Only minor rig tweaks were needed to get it onto my MK-V sled. So as an Operator I would require a normal amount of time to set up once the camera is built. Powering the cameras was simple enough and I only bothered viewing one feed. I really do not see the point in seeing both feeds as a Steadicam Operator as I do not wish my vision to be impaired by any funny glasses.

The only things missing in my tests were the mirror shroud and a genlock box. Neither of these are big deals. I can use this rig like any other Steadicam setup and that includes low-mode as I demonstrate towards the end. I have two super16 zooms (2k) in there but there is not that much in it between them and two Optimo Rouges 16mm-42mm to shoot 4k or even; two Tokina 11mm to 16mm to shoot 3k. . I am confident now to go out and shoot with it.

Thomas English, UK based Freelance Steadicam Owner/Operator 07970 025 389

P+S Technik Freestyle 3D Mirror Rig from Thomas English on Vimeo.

So this is the lightweight 3D mirror rig, enabling 2 cameras for stereoscopic production, from P+S Technik called the “Freestyle 3D Rig” developed by Philippe Bordelais. Its great for Steadicam! It turned up on a Satchler Artemis sled which worked well. I promptly placed it on my MK-V sled which coincidentally was pretty much balanced immediately, once tweaked it flew great. Later on it was tried on a Steadicam Ultra 2 and was fine. Its very easy to get into static balance.

Its great to fly. The interocular and convergence can be changed on the fly using a C-Motion. Pretty much most popular cameras can be used in there with most lenses and lens control systems. Certainly the SI-2K is perfect because it is so lightweight. I want to put two RED cameras in there as soon as possible. In this video we had two EX3’s. Its a strong solid robust system.

When you change to interocular, the two cameras move thus negating any changes in balance. With the EX3’s I did not notice any changes in balance when changing the convergence.

I will know as soon as someone in the UK purchases one of these so feel free to contact me to find out.

07970 025 389 or email me at studio at thomasenglish.co.uk

More information about the rig can be found on the P+S Technik site on: pstechnik.de