STEADICAM: PUZZLING GARRET BROWN STORY BY PRADIP BISWAS, THE INDIAN EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS,INDIA JURY MEMBER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTVAL OD INDIA AND FRIBOURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, SWISS CURATOR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg) The recipient of the Vision Award will be Oscar prize-winner Garrett Brown, creator of the revolutionary Steadicam®. Garret Brown came to win the prestigious AWARD for inventing Steadicam camera in 1973. His wizkid camera helped filmmakers like Stanely Kubrick and Spiele Berg to launch the “extravaganza” frames in big budgeted films during the last fortyyera.Following the award to special effects maestro Douglas Trumbull in 2013, the Festival continues its dedication to distinguished talents in camera technology those who, through their inspirations and technical knowledge, have left their mark on film history. In fact, the 67th edition of the Festival had paid tribute to the American cameraman Garrett Brown, who, in the 1970s created and perfected the famous Steadicam – the camera support that enables shooting movement fluidly while retaining a stabilized image in perfect standard; he seems to have thus revolutionized thinking about and the practice of cinematography. This achievement has been written in golden vocabulary in cinema history. In his elaboration the artistic Director Carlo Chatrian comments: “It is both an honor and a pleasure to welcome Garrett Brown to Locarno; he is one of those artists who has enabled cinema to make a giant step forward, and for reality to be explored in a new way. Both fluid and muscular, nimble and precise, his Steadicam has made its mark on the horizons of cinema from the 70s to this very day, and in its various patented versions seems an essential tool when both movement and definition are required. Yet choosing Garrett Brown as the recipient of this award is not only to pay tribute to an invention but also to the man behind it. A brilliant cameraman, Brown’s filmography contains so many titles that constitute much of the cinematic heritage of the last forty years.” Nearing the end of the 20th century many new manufacturers where introducing a variety of rigs to suit all levels of film-making and budgets. Tiffen introduced the Flyer and the Merlin to cater for the flood of small digital video cameras coming onto the market. Later an intermediate rig the Pilot was released along with a vest and arm upgrade option for the tiny Merlin. All these variations though are still based on the original design that Garrett used to execute the 4 minute crane step off shot on “Bound For Glory” back in 1975. New technology and materials such as carbon fibre and LCD monitor screens have improved performance but the principle design remains unchanged. Garrett Brown – who won an Oscar in 1977 for the invention of Steadicam – was involved with such classics as Rocky (1976), Star Wars – Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Philadelphia (1993), as well as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), a film designed to fully exploit the ready-made commercial potential of the Steadicam: those images in the labyrinthine corridors of the Overlook Hotel remain engraved in the collective memory in lucent light. The major directors with whom Brown has developed close working relationships include Warren Beatty, Jonathan Demme, Frank Oz, John Schlesinger, George Miller, Sydney Pollack, Martin Scorsese, as well as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. Numbers are many though but in reality none of the directors, except Kubrick, exploit it to the point of social and humane interest. So Steadicam in a way helped the mercenary producers to heap dollars on dollars against which ordinary people, fond of seeing their own living in celluloid, has got robbed off. This is the feet of clay whatsoever. Any plausible argument to defend good cinemea through Steadicam is bound to sink in sands. The greater part of the invention is that his experimentation did not stop with the invention of the first Steadicam; and Brown now holds 50 patents for devices that include the Steadicam Merlin – a miniature version for camcorders – and numerous award-winning cameras for sporting events, such as the agile wire-suspended Skycam. What to say!!!! Long live Camera technology
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 14:18:07 +0000