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 .

Shooting on some of Dan Bronks’s (DoP) favourite lenses, the Panavision Primo Anamorphics proved to be interesting. The little buggers are so big! Some of them larger than the camera. They are amazing though; opening up to T1.9. The problem is the size and weight requires 19mm bars and lens supports for Steadicam. Which unfortunately means carrying the entire baseplate unless in low-mode.

I have since come up with a solution. I now have special Steadicam dovetail plates to put 19mm bars on. This is useful for these lenses as well as for ringlights and whatnot.

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

Whilst not a Steadicam job. A few months ago I was asked to operate on a promo for Bonobo. The orginal idea was to come up with some kind of hot head that would constantly turn with no remorse for framing. The choreography was going to have to happen to the frame rather than the frame to the action. This seemed all well and good and I considered doing it on my jimmy jib remote head or choosing one of the number of Motion Control options.

Budget was an issue and I knew I could produce this remorseless moving frame using a geared head. Importantly I knew that I could subvert that remorselessness if needed because things were not working. I also felt better hitting marks for nice tilts if I was not using a cheap remote head. So I voted for using an Arri mk2 geared head. I love operating the wheels, I rigged an apple mac metronome on head phones so I knew I would have exactly the same marks at exactly the same musical keyframes. This promo went very well. As we were running out of time I did have to subvert the timing a little.

Bonobo – The Keeper – Dir Steve Glashier 2009 from Steve Glashier on Vimeo.

from Thomas English on Vimeo.

Here. I am Operating Steadicam in super low mode with 8 inch actors! You see here I was asked by Malcolm Hadley to shoot 8 inch actors as though they were 6 ft humans.

So to get the camera this low to the ground I have to go into what is called super low mode. As you can see I have had to fully extend the entire sled which is an MK-V 4 stage post. Using this technique I can literally get the camera to fly within an inch of the ground.

Operating like this with miniatures is definitely testing. With such small people, so close to the lens any movement on the lens is immediately noticed. Booming the camera up by half an inch is the equivalent of booming up by a foot on a real person and they would look the same as they take up the same amount of room in frame. On a normal human; an inch wrong on headroom can be an ugly shot, now that inch on a mini human must translate to a millimeter. So its precision operating all the way! Every single

This was a promo directed by Susan Ayton for a new BBC series called “Corridors of Power” The puppeteer was Geoff Felix.

I am doing what is a dirty low-mode shot. The rig is turned upside down to get the camera lower however here the camera is upside down too (the dirty part). The advantage of the dirty low-mode is how quickly I can get into low-mode. It can sometimes take under 10 seconds to flip the rig, pop in the monitor and tweak the balance although it would be safe to consider 3 minutes to change into dirty low-mode with the camera a foot or so off the ground. Any lower will take longer.

With the camera upside down all we need to do is flip the image in post. There is no “mirroring” issues with this; a question I have been asked many times before. The only problems are that any client monitors need to be turned upside down; which on a big video village or with certain clients may be unfeasible or unsuitable and if you are doing a neg cut the old school way on film: Then you would have to flip the image optically, this would be expensive and a pain in the arse. Your Steadicam Operator will always check at the start of the day when shooting on film if your doing a neg cut or simply going straight to telecine/DI before he offers up dirty low-mode.

Here I am using low-mode not only for the camera height but also so I can fly the camera up and over the bonnet of the car. It works well for this application. Sure there are better ways to do this shot, such as laying track and using a dolly and jib arm, but here we are shooting a music video and are in a dreadful hurry. It should be noted that the director did say… “perfect” a nice word to hear to be sure.

I have now included the whole music video with this clip. It was pretty much entirely done on Steadicam (bar like 2 shots). The DoP was the extraordinary Dave Miller

Low mode tracking up and over a car from Thomas English on Vimeo.

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Here I am shooting a running sequence on the Panaflex 35mm camera. Really I should be using a quad bike or a much lighter camera but sometimes you don’t have a quad bike nor a lighter camera. Dave Miller asked me so nicely, I had to do it.

Steadicam; Running with a Panavision Panaflex from Thomas English on Vimeo.

JP Gossart was shooting a commercial / viral for the new Polar computer. He kindly asked me to Steadicam for him. These Professional cyclists are often able to hit speeds of 50mph. I can’t run that fast so the only option was to vehicle mount onto a tracking vehicle supplied by Bickers.

The SI2K camera was chosen for this job: which worked well. I was particularly impressed by Pier Hausemer s work pulling focus. There are a few tight shots of the Polar sensors which we must have done on a 50mm lens. JP had control of the remote zoom controller and so was choosing his frame sizes. It is no mean feat getting that sharp with a cameraman hanging off the side of the vehicle at 40 odd miles per hour.

We did not use Gyros for financial reasons. This was fine except for one set of shots where we mounted at the front of the tracking vehicle, in low mode a foot off the ground, and caned it around the track at the maximum speed the bugger could travel at. We must have been doing a consistent 60mph. It became quite tricky to operate bent right over forward pulling loads of G-Force in a front on 60mph wind. It shows in those corner shots they chose with the writing overlay. We did loads of those shots at varying speeds and I have been told there were some great takes but that the wobble shot was chosen intentionally to add dynamism. With hindsight I would have liked to have used gyros on those shots. The rest of the Steadicam work I am very happy with.

Steadicam Vehicle Mount: Polar Commercial from Thomas English on Vimeo.