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Video Production Equipment

We're all familiar with the jerky movements and shaky footage we get in home movies and we expect, and accept, these unsteady camera shots at home. We don't like them so much in a professional production, though. The Steadicam, introduced in 1976, was designed to overcome the jarring footage filmed with a handheld camera and quickly became one of the most important tools used in the video production equipment inventory.

Garrett Brown was a TV commercial producer / director in the early 1970s who developed the Steadicam to eliminate the jolts and shakes created when a handheld camera was used as the operator walked the set while filming. Traditional video production equipment employed the use of a camera attached to a dolly that traveled along a fixed track, which was fine for working with wide shots but it didn't allow the mobility Brown wanted for closer shots or in places the dolly couldn't go, such as on stairs or along rocky terrain.

Brown's Steadicam uses an articulated, iso-elastic arm that is attached to a specialized sled that holds the camera equipment. The arm and sled are affixed to a supportive vest that is worn by the camera operator. This stabilizing enhancement to standard video production equipment was quickly embraced and soon produced some of the most memorable scenes in movie history.

Remember that scene in the movie, Rocky, where Sylvester Stallone runs up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, taking the entire audience along with him, step by step? That memorable scene was one of the first ever filmed using a Steadicam and it could have never happened with traditional video production equipment.

Stanley Kubrick chose the Steadicam over traditional video production equipment to film the little boy and his tricycle zipping through hallways of the haunted hotel in The Shining. And it was a Steadicam that went with Jack Nicholson every scary step of the way through that creepy maze of snow-covered hedges in the same movie.

The Steadicam has been used with highly successful results for special effects in movies such as Return of the Jedi. Since the Steadicam can go where traditional video production equipment cannot, directors can now take the audience through a forest or a crowd of people, even in underground caves.

The television show, ER, has been a hit for many years. Perhaps one reason for its success is that it uses a Steadicam, in conjunction with other video production equipment, to put the viewer right in the middle of the emergency room, even on the operating table.

By today's technological standards, the Steadicam is a simple innovation but it has made a tremendous impact on how filmmaking is done today. It rapidly became a favorite tool of professional filmmakers everywhere.