Introducing RED ZEPHYR CAM

[Paul Kalbach]

Red Zephyr Cam is what I call my RED when it's flown by my Steadicam, which in turn is flown by my Hands Free Transporter (a modified Segway which is steered by foot pedals, freeing my hands up to operate Steadicam). I built a hard-mount so the weight of the Steadicam is supported by the vehicle rather than my back, freeing me up to concentrate on the shot. I've launched a website with some demo footage for this new service I'm offering:

www.RedZephyrCam.com

[Mark Pedersen]

Paul,

Great idea. I'd love to see live demo. I'm in San Francisco so give me a shout!

M

[Tonaci Tran]

very nice. love it.

[Justin Kirchhoff]

I recognize this. I do remember another RED user doing the same thing...

[Steve Freebairn]

Pretty cool. Especially since you can write off your segway :)

[Vigna Raajan]

Wow...amazing...:-)

[C.J.Harvaraj]

www.RedZephyrCam.com

i smell a trademark lawsuit in progress

[Sanjin Jukic]

Amazing!

[Martin Weiss]

Really cool.

There was one guy in the outdoor lot at the IBC that demo'd one of those. Looks very slick

[Lewis-M Soucy]

They have made a lot of shots with that system in Hot Fuzz, watch the DVD bonus, pretty cool!...

[Andrew Martin]

They have made a lot of shots with that system in Hot Fuzz, watch the DVD bonus, pretty cool!...

Damn was just about to post that Lewis - lol. Pretty damn cool system.

Andrew.

[A. Clint Litton]

I'm not a steadicam operator by any means, but was wondering what some of the stand-out advantages would be to using this kind of set up over a conventional steadicam rig? I would think stamina, for sure...speed, as well. I didn't see much in the demo that seemed to set it apart, although everything was incredibly smooth.

Any chance you can post some more (for lack of a better word) "extreme" examples of it's capabilities? Also, the Segway has those beefy tires...how does the rig handle going from, say, a sidewalk over to grass and back again?

Incredible innovation. Very nice work...

[Michele Gavazzeni]

Genius!!!!!!!!

[Paul Kalbach]

Wow, I need to post a disclaimer here. Some people seem to be giving me more credit than I deserve. I did not invent the Hands Free Transporter, nor did I come up with the idea of using it with a Steadicam. On my website, www.RedZephyrCam.com, I give full credit to the German company Hands Free Transporter, Segway, Steadicam, Red Digital Cinema, and provide links to their respective websites. What I did do: I found a Hands Free Transporter module on eBay and married it to a used Segway. Although there are other people, including Hands Free, that make Steadicam hard-mounts for it, I opted to engineer and build my own.
art.the.third; you're right in your post about the advantages of stamina and speed over a conventional Steadicam rig. Another advantage is that it's possible to do extremely slow subtle crawls with it, which is difficult to do smoothly otherwise. Also, it can turn on a dime and go 0 to 12 mph in....I haven't timed it. Disadvantages: no stairs, curbs, etc. For more "extreme" examples, check out the "At the Game and in the Park" demo reel at www.handsfreetransporter.com. The rig used has low-pressure XT (all-terrain) tires which allow for a more rugged surface. Also the Operator is in vest-mode rather than hard-mount, so in one shot, he comes to a stop and dismounts while still shooting, following the actor on foot, then remounting and continuing the shot. There's no camera POV for this segment, so how smooth the mount and dismount transitions are we can only guess. The tires on my i80 Segway will not give me a smooth shot on grass, so I plan to eventually upgrade to the XT tires (which will also require me to rebuild my hard-mount).

Paul Kalbach
www.ArtichokePro.com
www.RedZephyrCam.com
www.PaulKalbach.com

[KETCH ROSSi]

That is a great one Paul,

perfect for me and my Broken Knee, or to brake the other one:)

ciao

[David Wyatt]

Wow...that is too-cool-for-school!! Very nice rig indeed, can't wait to see the footage.

[Tom Lowe]

Really awesome, Paul. The other reduser who has a similar rig did not place the steadicam arm on a pole as you did. That pole seems like a good idea.

I'd also love to see some faster shots. If it can do 12mph, you can keep up with someone sprinting, riding a bike, driving a car slowly, etc. The other guy here had a gorgeous clip of two girls riding a bike... it really showed off the capabilities, IMO.

[Vigen Vartanov]

We have this system . We like it. For long shoot it is best solution , we shoot about 6 km street shoot full of people with Handsfree ..

[Paul Kalbach]

We have this system . We like it. For long shoot it is best solution , we shoot about 6 km street shoot full of people with Handsfree ..

Hi Biba,

I noticed you have the 2nd generation model where you steer with your knees, rather than foot pedals. I was looking at the Handsfree site yesterday and saw that they no longer show any of the 2nd generation models. There's only foot pedal types. This makes me wonder if there's a problem with the 2nd generation. Have you run into any issues?

[Kwan Khan]

I also have same system (off road unit). Works pretty good for us

[Noah Kadner]

Drop RED from the name and you'll be all set:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17518

Noah

[Paul Kalbach]

Drop RED from the name and you'll be all set:

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=17518

Noah

Hi Noah,

Thanks to alerting me to that thread. I had been unaware of it. I have had several communications with RED through Jarred, and we have arrived at an amiable agreement.

Paul Kalbach
www.ArtichokePro.com
www.RedZephyrCam.com
www.PaulKalbach.com

[M Hsu]

well here's a perfect example of why they have trademark issues... I thought zephry was the name of the new RED DSLR when I saw the thread title.