Build Your Own Steadicam

John Jorsett writes "Always wanted to film one of those cool 'walking' sequences, where the camera stays rock-steady as you trudge along? Well, so did Johnny Chung Lee, except he didn't want to lay out major cash for a professional Steadicam rig, so he built his own for $14. He further claims you can do it in about 20 minutes if you know what you're doing. What more could a cheap, impatient Spielberg wannabe ask for?"

Comments

Does what it says it does

[capz loc]

I stumbled upon this site about a year ago and, being an ametur filmmaker, decided to give it a try. The parts were cheap and it really was quite easy to put together. But don't expect it to be perfect. It takes a little while to get the feel of it, and even then you won't be getting perfectly steady shots while running quickly. But for the price, it's tough to beat.

Re:Does what it says it does

[capz loc]

You raise a good point, but I will have to repectfully disagree with you. In-camera image stabilization corrects small jitters, like the natural motion of your hand when you are trying to hold the camera steady. This device eliminates the small shakes, so you could concievably use this as a replacement for image stabilization. When you are running while holding a camera, the shakes are much larger than even the most advanced camera stabilization can account for. This type of steadycam can eliminate a good portion of this motion, but in my experience image stabilization does not have the capability to correct the rest.

Re:Does what it says it does

[Lumpy]

I saw it over 2 years ago and ran away from it screaming... it is WAY too heavy for real work.

the best solution I have ever seen was a monopod modified to have a plastic coated weight at the bottom, it collapses into something that can be carried and is much easier to control plus costs less and weighs less.

although it is still NOTHING like a real steadicam.. wearing that vest with the spring arm and rest of the gear coupled with a REAL 5 inch LCD monitor mounted on the weight plate... a trained operater can almost run at full speed without motion in the camera... the home brew units can not do anytihng like that.

Plus I find the vest unit to be more comfortable and can shoot for much longer... having your body support the weight compared to the home built that requires your arms to support everything is significant!

Re:Does what it says it does

[thgreatoz]

a trained operater can almost run at full speed without motion in the camera... the home brew units can not do anytihng like that. His first example video is him sprinting down a hallway around corners, holding the rig with one hand. Looks pretty smooth to me.

the story's better at memepool.

[Anonymous Coward]

more links and such.

memepool

Re:the story's better at memepool.

[dwave]

There you can't post and complain about incomplete coverage. But the link to a site about home made stabilizers should have been mentioned.

It real (and really cheap)

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw this in RES magazine last year. Built one in under 30 mintues and with exactly $16 worth of parts. It actually works too, though you do have to practice with it to get good at controling your own body movement. Also, I reccomend making the lower section about 50% longer than the upper section to further even out movement.

Re:Pretty cool stuff

[sakusha]

Yeah, they do make commercial verisons of this. Well, not Sony, but there are plenty of cheapo handheld cantilever camera platforms for sale. They're useful, but not all that useful.

If you REALLY want to impress people, try building your own camera crane, bonus geek points for computer motion control.

Re:Lego steadicam

[Anonymous Coward]

The smooth rooftop pan from Expiration was filmed with a motorised base made from Lego.

Good film btw.

Slashdotted? Here is a PDF copy of the site!

[eaglebtc]

I was able to load the site, and printed a copy to PDF. Download it here! (right-click, save as)

The $14 Steadycam

Re:Pretty cool stuff

[beckett]

Steadycam does: the Steadycam Jr. It even has an external LCD monitor.

Re:There was an old magazine called Cinemagic

[ElectricPoppy]

In fact, here's a link.

Better Links

[Anonymous Coward]

The 14$ thingy is pure crap...

if you want some real inspiration check out the following websites:

http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/
The original site for all your home built video needs

http://pub173.ezboard.com/bhomebuiltstabilizers
Discussion forum full of lots of useful information

http://www.codydeegan.com/

Might take a bit more effort, but the results are incredible. Cody's plans are awesome, and I would gladly purchase them again.

Not a Steadicam

[IcEMaN252]

With the exception of the Steadicam JR, most Steadicams have a body harness. That makes them much more stable than using you hand.

This is really more similiar to a lower end Glidecam stabilizer (even this is floating).

There are also some rather cheap alternatives out there to make a camcorder smoother.

Granted this is significantly cheaper to make than these products, but from my experience anything that is handheld doesn't work as well as the bodyrigs. Personally, I'd rather just do it by hand alone.

You also might want to check out a relatively cheap jib too.

Re:Inventor of the original Steadicam

[K8Fan]

I saw a documentary about Garrett Brown, and it showed his various prototype stages. The original one looked exactly like this - a length of pipe. The second one was more like a pantograph to try to keep the camera level. Then he added the seperate handle connected to the upright portion wih a gimbal. The rest of the development was on the counter-balance arm and the vest. All of this was necessary because Brown was building these for 35mm film cameras.

If you're looking to improve this design, the things I'd look at are: a gimbal, so allow the operator to hold the unit more comfortably and lightly, and avoid transferring hand motion to the camera; a sliding mount at the top, to allow the camera's balance to be shifted forward and back to tilt up or down.

The Steadycam JR Lite is a great one to look at. It was designed by the great Frogdesign studio (the NeXT cube). The camera sits on top of a slide, and right on top of the gimbal and handle. The arm is divided into two parts at a 90 degree angle, connected to the slide at 45 degrees. And the whole thing folds up. It's a wonderfully slick design - and obscenely overpriced.

That is *not* a steadycam.

[porkchop_d_clown]

A monopod with a handle isn't a steadycam. Steadycam uses gimbals, springs and a bodymount to basically put a shock absorber between you and the camera.

All this does is add more weight - which will help you hold your modern teeny-tiny camera steady, but's that's far cry from being able to hold the camera still while you jog up the Art Museum steps.

SteadyHand

[ziggy_zero]

When I was in high school making short films, I tried building a ghetto steadicam, but found it much easier to not use one and fix the footage in post with some software I found called SteadyHand, from Dynapel. I bought it, but the demo version actually only puts a watermark in a corner, so theoretically you could just crop it out if you wanted to do it that way.

Nowadays I would probably fix it in combustion, where I'd have more control over it.

Re:What I'd like to know...

[Ibanez]

How? I thought you could do ANYTHING with duct tape?

Some of my friends cling to the notion that the two greatest things in this world are duct tape and Gold Bond.

Blake

Re:Pretty cool stuff

[Feztaa]

explain how this isn't a tripod on wheels with a weight attached?

Simple: It's not a tripod, and it has no wheels.

At best, you could call it a monopod, but even then, it's meant to be carried, it doesn't rest on the ground. So I guess it's a nonopod.

What it really is is a stick with a weight attached. The weight steadies the camera from sudden jerks, simply due to it's own inertia. It still relies on the camera guy to have a fairly steady hand, this just "takes the edge off" of the shakiness, so to speak.

One slightly successful director did this before!

[ricky-road-flats]

LotR Peter Jackson's first film, Bad Taste, apart from being completely superb, was done on an extremely low budget. The documentary about it, Good Taste Made Bad Taste, shows a lot of things they had to make themselves, including a steadicam. I'm not sure how little money they actually made it for, but it was bugger all and it was back in 1987.... Don't write people who make their own Steadicams off...

First Major Use of the Steadicam

[dirtkilla]

Stanley Kubricks interpretation of the King novel "The Shining" was the first major usage of this technology. The Steadicam allowed for those all so eeary follow shots of Danny throughout The Outlook Hotel's expanses. DualityOfTheShining *Note: All interior shots in the Outlook are done on a sound stage, amazing.

Done much better but still cheap...

[Lylo]

I just purchased a book titled Killer Camera Rigs that you can build. Besides a stabilizer ("Steadicam") the author also has detailed plans and instructions for cranes, dollies, a car mount, and other rigs, all of which you can build with common tools and inexpensive materials. His stabilizer, for example, has a gimbal mount and is properly balanced, and still costs only about $50 to build.

As a bonus, he has a great sense of humor...

Well, that looks simple...

[mr3038]

... but a bit uneffective. It's missing a lot of really important parts like a gimbal, for example. Nobody has steady enough arms to hold that stick and not to do any unwanted panning or tilting. Or if you do have such an arm, why are you reading this discussion at all - you don't need a steadicam.

If you don't care the hours the building takes, then I'd suggest building something like this guy did: a full steadicam-like setup with a vest, two suspension arms, a fully working gimbal and all the stuff this $14 poor man's "steadicam" has. The costs? About $30, plus 20 hours of work. Sure, it looks ugly but you can't beat the price for the functionality. You'll need stabilizer arms for a stable picture while running or glimbing stairs.

(As a sidenote, "SteadiCam" is a trademarked term. Wikipedia has more information about steadicams in general.)