SKIDVID1 – THE REDROCK BEASTMASTER – WORLD FIRST from Robin Schmidt on Vimeo.

WARNING: THIS HAS A WHIFF OF INSANITY ABOUT IT.
I’ve been talking about the ‘Beastmaster’ for a couple of weeks now, a kind of skunkworks project I’ve had in mind for a particular style of shooting, one which you could only really achieve with DSLRs. The idea was to build up my Redrock handheld rig to take not one but two DSLRs and shoot two lens sizes (not angles) concurrently. Why on earth would you want to do that, I hear you ask, and more importantly, how on earth would you operate them? Good questions both of them. Well, I was recently approached by a character calling himself the Super Massive Raver who wanted to take his Youtube rants to a new level. I watched his stuff and it was pretty funny so I said I’d get involved. The kind of stuff we’re shooting involves some pretty crazy stunts, like walking down a busy high street wearing a bacon bikini etc. etc. and we really don’t want to hang around too long. Having the two cameras going at the same time means we don’t need to stick around for any longer than we need to. He does a lot of talking to camera and there’s usually a lot of cross-cutting, plus he uses his hands a lot, so the plan has been to rig the 7D with the Tokina 11-16 to get all those cartoony hip hop style distorted hands and faces, and mount the 24-70L to the 5D for everything else. We have to be very mobile and the guy jumps around all over the place so focussing is an absolute nightmare. That wide shot gives us a safety net to jump back to if anything goes wrong. The wide shot is set to a reasonable aperture so it’s always in focus and then you just head to the gym and start working on building a very strong back!

So how do you go about building such a thing? Now, there’s two ways to do this, side by side or one on top of the other. I actually had a play with this kind of idea a while back when shooting for Porsche but never got a chance to actually test it out in the field. I’ve done a lot of work trying to get my handheld rig to really work ergonomically, and, more importantly, suit the biomechanics of being a human being. Once you started building wide rigs, as in the picture, your arms and wrist are having to work so hard to keep the rig steady that it becomes incredibly tiring very quickly. Basically, you want as much mass as a possible hung over the main rails that the shoulder pad attaches to, you can build tall but always avoid building too wide because it just knackers you out. That’s just basic physics and one of the biggest gripes I have about the way manufacturers have designed their gear – it hasn’t been thought out around the key component, the human being lugging it around. I’m all for keeping a rig as lightweight as possible but actually, I don’t mind weight if it’s distributed properly. Which leads me on to the Beastmaster V1 rig. Why do I call it the Beastmaster? Well, it weighs around 20kg and, well, just look at it!

Vincent Laforet gets lots of shit for loading up his rigs with tons of stuff, well, everything that’s on my rig I actually need. I have the Zoom, I have the monitor, and I have the two cameras. I have the 7D mounted vertically, upside down directly underneath the 5D and that keeps all the weight over my shoulder. The 7D is tethered to the frame of the rig, just in case anything happens, and, would you believe it, I actually managed to find a use for my Z-Finder, using the handy lanyard to attach the 7D – surely the most expensive lanyard on the planet? Finally I have not one, not two, but three Redrock counter weights slung over the back using the micro-balance vertical drop system. I love that microbalance because it gives you another point of contact to brace yourself with and keep the beast stable.

I AM THE BEAST!!!!!!!

So, how was it? Well, I’ve done my first in-front-of-camera piece ever on this blog, something I’ve been avoiding doing because it just makes me look like any other tit doing these blogs, but for once I kind of felt it was necessary. Sporting a rancid haircut and boyband sunglasses I haven’t done myself any favours, but hey ho. Shooting with the rig wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and it definitely helped having the second camera rigged up and shooting for our purposes. You wouldn’t believe how many people were stopping in the street to check out what we were doing, but then, when I look at the photos it’s kind of to be expected. It’s a fine looking thing! It is a bit of a fiddle having that second camera upside down and I’m going to do another version where we have the two cameras mounted side by side and see if I can get it to work as it would definitely be better, but I’m off to Hong Kong in January and this is the rig I’ll be shooting on so time to get in the gym. As you can see from the pic below, it does take its toll!

Technorati Tags: 5D, Beastmaster, canon 7d, DSLR, el skid, handheld, Redrock Micro, Supermassiveraver